Week 9 Sun 15 Apr - Sat 21 Apr

Week 9 Sun 15 Apr – Sat 21 Apr

Arthurs Lake (Central Lakes) 15-16 Apr

We headed out of Longford for Cressy and passed the Poatina Power station before tackling the Great Western Tiers mountain to get to Arthurs Lake.  The road up the mountain is literally straight up the face of the mountain – but the car and van made light work of it.  The weather was bright but getting this far up (over 1100m) started chilling down a little.  We eventually found the Pumphouse Camping Grounds (which is really for fisherman) but was a nice quiet spot on Arthurs Lake, this was to be our camp for the next 2 nights.  We made ourselves at home, got the Billy on the fire and made a cuppa and later drove up to the town of Flintstone (I kid you not – it is a town where most of the year it is not populated, a little like a shanty town – but in season would be thriving and full of boats and fisherman).

We enjoyed a raging campfire tonight in seemingly very mild conditions, as the temperature was a summery 6 degrees!!

Sunday we headed up to Miena to have a look at the Great Lake – which is very impressive.  It is over 25kms in length and is very picturesque in this alpine area.  We enjoyed a coffee and muffin at the Miena Hotel/Shop and then visited a grave monument in honour of one of the pioneers of Miena and walked across the Dam Wall.  While we were in the area we had a look at another campsite on Arthurs Lake – but it wasn’t as nice as the Pumphouse.

The weather turning a little drizzly here and there, Tuesday we headed off over the mountain saying goodbye to the Great Lakes, for Gowrie Park via Deloraine.  Gowrie Park is our base for Cradle Mountain and Mole Creek areas, close for all the sights that we want to visit.

Gowrie Park 17-20 Apr

We stocked up in Deloraine with supplies and headed into the wilderness west once again. Gowrie Park Wilderness Park is a strange and odd setup as it used to be a hyrdo power town with huts and roads – which have now all been demolished with the roads the only thing still existing.  The couple who run the park are in the process of upgrading the place, but a lot of money will need to be invested for it to really go ahead.  None the less, it is a quite place for us to visit the places we want over the next couple of days.

Gowrie Park is situated at the base of Mt Roland which is an impressive mountain range and it has a number of walking tracks that can be taken.  These will have to wait for our next visit.

Wednesday we headed off fairly early to Cradle Mountain (a 40 min drive from Gowrie) on a very interesting twisty windy road through the mountain range to Cradle Mountain.  We got the rundown at the Visitors Centre and then drove to the walk at Ronney Creek.  We decided to do the Cradle Lake walk to Marions Lookout and then come down the Rough and Steep track to Dove Lake (this is literally straight down the mountain face from 1200m to about 800m and it is what is states – rough and very steep.  Since we didn’t want to walk back up the road we took the Lilla lake track to get back to the Ronney carpark.  This took us about 5 hours to do and was absolutely great.  The weather when we arrived at the Visitor centre this morning was drizzling and cold and windy – so we got our all weather coats out – rugged up and commenced our walk.  The weather stopped drizzling and the wind kept the clouds rolling over us but it brightened up for most of the day (except for the wind) and only started clouding in around 3.30pm – by 4.30pm it was miserable (cold, wet and windy and the clouds closing in for the night).  We finally got back to Gowrie at about 6.00pm – just before all the Pademelon’s started appearing.  We hibernated in the van as it was just too horrible to be outside, planning our next adventure tomorrow.

We woke to a very rainy misty morning and it didn’t look like it was going to get any better.  So not to spoil our day we drove into Sheffield and had a look around some of the shops, bought a couple of souvenirs and then made our way back via Paradise to Mole Creek.   We were heading for the Allum Cliffs which are just past Mole Creek.  The weather seemed to hold off raining for about an hour just enough time for us to walk to the cliffs take some pictures and then make our way to the Trowunna Wildlife Park to see Tassie Devils.  We just made the 1pm tour for the feeding of the Devils and a cuddle of a wombat.  It was really good to see and we saw many Tassie Devils at this park along with a number of other animals, including kangaroos, ducks, wedge tailed eagles.  The park is a breeding program and also a rehabilitation place for injured animals.  The only problem with the place was the leeches galore – not just one, thousands and climbing all over you.  We stood stomping and picking them off the whole time, and I wasn’t quick enough – got bitten – blood all over my trousers.

After the park we took off for the Mole Creek Caves, the Marakoopa Cave to do the Great Cathedral and Glow Worm Chamber – this was a really good cave and has some amazing features – apart from the glowworms.   After this we drove home via King Solomon’s Cave to a place called Liena and then keep going.  We couldn’t see a thing, all in cloud and the road was literally a dirt track – small and narrow all the way up the mountain, an amazing drive.  We had a look later and the road doesn’t even exist – so it must only be for locals. Due to the inclement weather tonight we hibernated in our cosy van all night.

Friday the weather was much better and the clouds were gradually clearing.  We were going to move onto another spot, but decided just to stay here for another night.  We were having a nice lazy day for our last night in Tassie, before getting the boat tomorrow back to the mainland.  We went shopping again in Sheffield and had a better look at the shops spoke to a guy (local character) who had his alpaca with him.  He makes some extra money with tourists wanting a picture with the alpaca – of which we did for a gold coin donation – a bit of fun.  We drove back to Gowrie and went up the road to Round Mountain lookout to get a better view of Mt Roland which now just had a little bit of cloud on it. 

Saturday was a slow start (and we were lucky to get a section of the Targa Rally here at Mt Roland, so went to have a look). It was just after breakfast I heard that familiar mosquito buzz of engines going up the mountain in the distance.  We drove up the road to see all the cars starting to line up.  The weather was awful, misty, low clouds and drizzling - casualities occuring the previous day as a result of the weather.  We watched them all take off and then headed back to camp and continued our pack up.  We finally got away around 1.30pm and headed for La Trobe. 

La Trobe is a very artistic town and we found this magnificant shop that had absolutely everything you could think of, from dolls, teddy bears, toys, kitchen, games, star wars, venetian clowns, costume hire.  As we entered our bags were taken from us (and I can see why as we made our way around the shop), plus we were given a map.  There was some 20 rooms in this shop and no joke you could not move - every available space was jammed packed with something.  Tony and I both found this teddy bear (not cheap) that we fell in love with (we have now called him Bertrand) - he is the most adorable thing and looks so real.  Apart from having to have the bear we came out of the shop over $200 poorer.  As the day was fast disappearing we made our way to Devonport to join the queue of cars and vans ready to board the Spirit of Tasmania.

The boat sailed on time and we were off - our last goodbye to Tassie in the nights lights.  We were expecting a smooth sailing for our trip back to Melbourne.