WEDNESDAY 10TH MARCH - HANNAH'S 10TH BIRTHDAY

 

Happy Birthday Hannah.Sorry we're not there to help you blow the trombone, sorry, I mean to blow out the candles.

 

Before leaving Mount Field this morning, we went to the Junee Cave Walk a walk which follows the Junee River upstream to the point where it emerges from a cave. Apparently the Junee Florentine karst system has the deepest two caves in Australia.

 

We also went up to the alpine area of Mount Field National Park and did the Lake Dobson walk. It was the first time that we clearly saw trout in all the waterways that we have explored.

 

The ski field is substantially higher in altitude than the point to which you can drive. Apparently intrepid Tasmanian skiers walk from the car park up to the ski fields with their gear before they can start skiing. I'll stick to Perisher thank you.

 

This afternoon, we made our way to the Derwent Bridge/ Lake St. Clair region where the Derwent starts as water escaping from Lake St Clair.

We are camped on the shores of Brady Lake, another very picturesque spot.

 

On the way, we passed a few hydro electric power stations including the Tarraleah station which is in the distance at the bottom of the pipes which apparently feed water to the turbines at a speed of 270 klms per hour.

We propose to do the Lake St Clair short walks tomorrow before heading further north.

TUESDAY 7TH MARCH - BEN'S ANNIVERSARY

Incredible day today. The engineers would find it incredibly interesting and the environmentalists would find it incredibly disappointing. We drove from the Mount Field National Park where we are camped to the very large Southwest National Park which contains the vast Lakes Pedder and Gordon. The vast areas they cover was, until the 1970's, pristine wilderness.

Presumably, what we now see downstream of the dam walls is what was formerly seen on the upstream side of them as well.

 

We visited:-

 

Gordon Dam

Serpentine Dam

Scott's Peak Dam

Edgar Dam

At the Gordon Dam, adventurous people were descending by rope from the top of the dam wall to the valley floor 140 metres below on the downstream side of the dam. They are welcome to it. You can just make out the person in the lower middle of the picture above.

At Steve's suggestion, we visited an absolute gem being the Styx Tall Tree Reserve. It is very difficult for a photograph to do justice to a tree which is 400 years old and 87 metres in height. The reserve is an area excluded from logging where the giant trees remain undisturbed, other than by the forces of nature. There were some very large ones laying on the ground.

Tomorrow we will be exploring the alpine section of Mount Field and then heading a little further north to Lake St. Clair.

MONDAY 6TH MARCH - BACK TO THE FOREST

We received really sad news this morning in that our very good friend Trevor Park's wife Sonja passed away last night. She has been battling cancer for some time.

Tomorrow is the ninth anniversary of Tony and Kim losing Ben so it is a sad time. Our thoughts are with Trevor, Tony and Kim.

 

We are now back in the forest where we prefer to be, camped by a babbling stream in the Mount Field National Park. Given that we are less than 100 klms from Hobart, it is fairly popular so it is not exactly secluded but it's a lot better than a city caravan park.

 

 

This afternoon, we spent several hours walking the Waterfalls/Tall Trees circuit and visited the:-

Russell Falls

Horseshoe Falls and

Lady Barron Falls

Tomorrow we propose to head out to Lake Pedder/Strathgordon being at the end of the road on which Mount Field is located. We also want to explore the Lake Dobson area of the National Park being an alpine area 16 klms from the camp ground apparently used for snow skiing in winter.

SUNDAY 5TH - HOBART

Today was a very cultural day. It was built around our meeting with Steve and Tish for lunch at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Before meeting them, we explored the waterfront and, after lunch, checked out the museum exhibits – very interesting and informative as you would expect.

 

From there we went to MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art. We weren't aware of it which surprised Steve and Tish but they described it as a must visit destination, so we did. It's the largest privately funded museum in Australia and is built three stories underground into the harbourside cliffs at Berriedale.

Some of the exhibits were fantastic. Others were obscure but, for art lovers, an absolute mecca. The concept is spectacular. The photo above is a fountain which spells out words - very clever.

Tomorrow, we head back to the bush as the countdown starts for our return to the mainland next Sunday. Unfortunately, because of commitments that Mal and Paula now have, our trip to Charleville for the opening of the Story Bridge has been postponed so we will have to devise a different program for the trip home.

SATURDAY 4TH MARCH - HOBART

We are comfortably settled in the Barilla Van Park half way between Hobart and Richmond. Very domestic day today. The washing's done. The shopping's done.

Trish managed to visit the Salamanca markets this morning. I dropped her off on the way through town and went back and collected her a couple of hours later after I had set up the van. I understand that some purchases were made.

Otherwise, all we did of interest today was drive the short distance to Richmond, the site of the oldest bridge in Australia, constructed between 1823 and 1825.

Tomorrow we will be back in town for lunch with Steve and Tish and will no doubt spend some time exploring the waterfront area.

FRIDAY 3RD MARCH - HUON VALLEY

We abandoned John to his chores which included collecting Virginia from the airport and headed out to explore some parts of the Huon Valley we had not explored before.

We started by heading up to the Hartz Mountains National Park not far from Geeveston – an absolute gem. We didn't walk to the top of Hartz Peak but we did do the two walks to Lake Esperance and Lake Osborne and the Arve River waterfall walk. The latter was a complete surprise in that we walked through the forest to emerge at a lookout which looked over the falls but, more impressively, over an enormous and inaccessible looking ravine stretching away into the distance.

The reflections in the lakes were excellent.

After having lunch at a delightful cafe in Geeveston, we headed south of Dover to Duckhole Lake. It is at the end of a half hour walk that follows a creek and is tucked away deep in the forest and not that easy to find and consequentially not that well patronised but that was its charm. The lake is a flooded sink hole in karst country near the Hastings Caves.

A feature of this area, being a forestry reserve, as distinct from a national park, is that it has been actively logged in the distant past but there are some pretty sizable trees maintaining the character of the forest.

We had a delightful evening with John and Virginia, enjoying their hospitality and drinking too much of their wine, with our contribution from the Tamar Valley of course. Therefore I am doing this blog on Saturday morning in Hobart where we will be staying for two nights to catch up with the washing, the shopping and the Carters. When we emerged from the van this morning, this is the view that greeted us.

The photo at the top of the blog shows some of John and Virginia's very well developed garden – an absolute credit to them.

Thank you John and Virginia for a most pleasant couple of days.

THURSDAY 2ND MARCH - VISITING THE LAMBS

Travelling day today in that we spent the morning travelling from Freycinet to our current camp site in John and Virginia's front yard at Glendevie in the Huon Valley– a very pleasant spot.

John and I went and played nine holes of golf at the Huonville Golf course, very much a country course. Trish went off the explore Cygnet. Virginia isn't here yet. She arrives tomorrow.

We enjoyed afternoon drinks were in the gazebo admiring the view down the valley.