Derwent Bridge and Lake St Clair
The next night's accommodation was at Derwent Bridge - it was just too far to drive in one day. Alot of driving was on hilly, tight, windy roads best suited for two wheeled vehicles. My thoughts on riding a pannier tour now at least have a degree of reality behind them. There is an awful lot of big hills to climb over. And any traffic is too much traffic on such tight corners.
On the way, Fern trees on the walk to Nelson Falls.
We stopped for a quick 40min walk to the most magnificent lookout, through a forest of very tall trees, on path of rotting board timber, to the Donaghy's Wilderness Lookout, 360 degrees of views of distant mountain ranges, nearby rivers and even button grass plains.
Lunch was at the launch point of the Franklin River rubber boat tours, actually where Surprise River joins the Franklin.
We drove to Derwent Bridge Hotel for the night. The accommodation was tiny but the food nice and the main room was a massive pole wood structure with a huge fireplace in the middle (they regularly get snow in winter), I would love to see it roar. Actually, most places in Tasmania receiving visitors seem to have large and very impressive fireplaces - what does this tell us?
Enough daylight for another look for platypus so a walk to Platypus Point, and, after a while, success;
A view of the pump room now high class accommodation on the lake.
Suz on a walk near the lake the following day.
Unfortunatley, the next day we got up too late for the boat to Echo point for great views of Lake St Clair and the surrounding mountainscapes, near the finishing mark for the Overland Track. Next time? The weather was turning, and when we left after lunch, it began raining in earnst.
Just past the bridge was 'The Wall', a huge 100m Huon pine carving housed in a huge building built for it. The most impressive were the early carvings, a coat on a peg on a wall, a couple of gardening gloves . . .