24th March to 31st March 10

Wednesday 24th March 10

The weather was still wet in the morning and cleared towards lunch time so we drove to Zeehan after lunch to visit the Pioneer museum. This proved that the recommendations that we had received about the high quality of the museum to be true. It is very extensive, well presented and contains a vast amount of equipment and historic photos.

The outside display includes a simulated underground experience which was very effective although the very amateurish film that is used could do with improving, but as that mine in the film is no longer operational that is not going to happen.

Having worked underground for six months in the copper mines in Zambia the film was less impressive for Barry but the overall effect was excellent. We where politely thrown out due to their closure time with the assurance that we could return for a free entry the next day.

Thursday 25th March 10

The weather has finally cleared and produced a warm sunny day so we took our long awaited walk to Hogarth Falls.

As predicted the rain has made a tremendous difference to the volume of water and the natural light did not blot out a lot of the left hand water against the rock background.

On our return to the van we decided to take up yesterdays offer and returned to the museum in Zeehan to finish off what we started.

The Museum also includes the Gaity Theatre and the Freemasons Hall.

We then drove to the ‘Spray tunnel’ which is the short cut through a hill to the Spray mine workings. The workings are no longer there but the 100 metre tunnel is. It is high enough to clear our Nissan Patrol with ease but the width of 2.2 metres left little to spare on the sides with the side mirrors turned in. The vehicle is 1.95m wide with the mirrors turned in. At one point the side ladder to the roof rack scraped the wall briefly, probably an error of judgement by Barry.

After the one way 4WD track back out from the tunnel we drove out to Trial Harbour where we were surprised to find was well inhabited with fishing types and some of the houses looked quite flashy. Every house had solar panels for their lighting and gas bottles for cooking, etc. They appeared to have some form of running water supply as we didn’t see many water tanks and what there was were quite small, but we noticed taps and hoses in front gardens. The roads were rough graded, as was half the road into the harbour, with the first half had been bituminised up to a mine site. On returning to the main road we drove on to Granville Harbour which also had human life and more uprising with electrical power, possibly because the hamlet was closer to the main road with only 8 kilometres of graded road.

Friday 26th March 10

Surprise, surprise, the weather is wet and miserable again so nothing special happened unless having dinner in the Golf club attains that status. The actual meal itself didn’t, it was just a meal no washing up.

Saturday 27th March 10

This was a dry day but threatening to rain so we drove to Queenstown for an attempt to explore the old town of Pillinger which we have recently seen on TV.

This requires a drive out of Queenstown for 29 km then the second stage of the trip being a further 11km on a 4WD track with the final stage on foot. We discovered in town that this stage is a 1.5 hour walk each way, with a good chance of rain, so we reverted to plan B.

After lunch we drove to Tullah which is a tiny town on the edge of Rosebery Lake, and then drove around the top of the lake and headed to Zeehan via Reece Dam. The wasn’t a lot to see on this trip, which was recommended by someone we met when we stayed in Rosebery, but turned of for a look at the bottom of Bastyan Dam but was a little disappointed so continued on our way. We also stopped at a lookout which claimed a ‘feature’ that didn’t do a lot for us as it was a stone plinth with a direction plaque mounted on it indicating which mountain was which, and where the town were.

The journey was brightened up when we came across a possum in the middle of the road that wasn’t too scared of us and kept us entertained for a while.

Soon after that we came to the Dam which had a huge overflow weir with a bridge over it for our use, which took us to the dam itself.

This was quite impressive with its hydro-electric power station built within the wall. We had a short tea break whilst we took in the view and then headed for home via Zeehan.

Whilst we were doing our trip, there was an attempt in Strahan to beat the British world record for the number of water skiers towed behind one boat, which we had forgotten about, but unfortunately a few fell over so once again they missed out by not beating 100 skiers over the required distance. They were to have another attempt in the evening but this was called off due to the surface chop being too bad.

Sunday 28th March 10

As this is being typed we could hear the loudspeaker and helicopters covering another attempt at the skier record. The boat that is used is the same boat that does the cruises up the Gordon River and I believe this is the seventh Aussie attempt at this record. Later in the day and were informed that the attempt was successful with 114 skiers being towed by one boat for 1 nautical mile. The skiers will have been n the water for ay least 30 minutes with a temperature below 10 degrees. In the evening we quietly celebrate our 46th wedding anniversary in a cliff top restaurant with views across the town and bay.

Monday 29th March 10

We took a short cliff top walk to the front of last night’s restaurant for the view of the bay and a coffee on the alfresco balcony, and allowed us to watch a seaplane take off.

Tuesday 30th March 10

This was a day of household chores so we won’t bore you with the details.

Wednesday 31st March 10

The weather was fair so we drove through to Queenstown and on to Trent Bridge, about 135 km, which meant driving up the zigzag road again past ‘Mad Meg’ who wasn’t looking so good now that the rain has eased off for a few days.

We stopped off on the way at ‘Nelson’s Falls’ which was an easy 10 minute walk each way to the absolutely beautiful visual delight.

Not huge at only 35 metres high, not so much water that you can only see water and not so wide that you need to swivel your head from side to side to take it all in.

Spending the day here would have been easy but we pressed on to visit the much advertised Lake St Claire with a quick stop at a layby to watch a helicopter deliver some goodies.

We had our usual picnic lunch in the pleasant surrounds of the car park and then took a 1.5 hour walk which only provided glimpses of the lake but took in a platypus ‘Hide’, but we didn’t linger long at this point as they don’t usually emerge until dusk. We took the alternate route back along the lake beach to the jetty were we caught the boat for a 2 hour cruise on the lake. The cruise was on a small twin hulled, twin engine tinny and unlike other cruises didn’t supply cake, tea, coffee, etc, much to the dismay of one passenger who ha just finished a 5 hour walk and was looking forward to something to eat.

This cruise took us for a close up view of an elaborate, but old disused pumping station, that once (just the once) supplied water to Hobart, and then on to Echo point for a look at a small area of rain forest.

This area was quite fascinating with an original overland hut and interesting ecosystem.

We then proceeded to a small jetty at the extreme end of the lake to pick up some hikers from Dove Lake, a 5-6 day walk. It is actually 17 km from the official end of the track but some chose to take the easy way out and save another days walk.

We can now claim to have seen both ends of the track but can manage without the bit in the middle, although it would be a great experience. We returned with a closer look at the far bank which looked pretty much like the original bank whilst unsuccessfully trying to locate the so called deepest point at 176 metres (deepest lake in Australia), and with the knowledge that the plateau that acted as the backdrop to this lake has another 14 lakes on it. After another cuppa in the car park we headed home to the van and Foxy who had to spend the day at home as the lake is in a National Park. Had we not had such a long journey back we could have been tempted to stop off at Nelson’s Falls again but elected to watch our pictures and videos.

We can’t actually recommend visiting Lake St Claire based on what we saw unless you want to do the overland track from that end first which is not the recommended way, but we can recommend the Nelson’s Falls.