Slept mostly ok.
Out the door by 8:37 which was good. Although three days of parking was a bit of a hit, I wonder how much a lost ticket cost would have been..
Then we headed out of Hobart, getting petrol on the way out.
Had a pitstop at Maydena.
Gordon River Road
Somewhat miserable weather
We saw these smiley faces on signs all over Tasmania
And stopped at Bitumen Bones - a sculpture near Lake Pedder.
Mountains next to Gordon River Road
Bitumen Bones sculpture by Alex Miles
Had a look at McPartlan Pass Canal, which joins Lake Pedder and Lake Gordon.
McPartlan Pass Canal joining Lake Peddar and Lake Gordon
McPartlan Pass Canal joining Lake Peddar and Lake Gordon
And had a look from Lake Pedder Lookout, which would have been spectacular on a good day.
Lake Peddar
Lake Peddar from Peddar Lake Lookout
Just after midday we arrived at Serpentine Dam. It's only a tiny little dam but holds back a huge lake (it, and Scotts Peak Dam but we didn't trek out to that one). They even have a couple of stairways up the other side which give great views of the dam.
Serpentine Dam
Serpentine Dam
Stu in a cave next to Serpentine Dam
Serpentine Dam
View northwest from Serpentine Dam
Serpentine Dam
Had a look a the Gordon Power Station.
Then up to Knob Hill Lookout / Gordon Dam Lookout. The dam lookout is wayyyyy up high and gives a great view down on the dam and it was like... WOW!!
Lake Gordon from Knob Hill Lookout
Gordon Dam from Knob Hill Lookout
Gordon Dam from Knob Hill Lookout
Then down to Gordon Dam itself. It's truly spectacular. You can go down this huge staircase and walk along the dam wall. It's a double curve arch dam (140m high, takes 7 seconds for an apple to fall that far, although the people that threw it I think were just counting in their heads) but it's actually concave, which means from the top you don't look down the dam wall as such, you look over it. One of the most spectacular dams I've ever been to.
Gordon Dam
Descending the steps to Gordon Dam wall
Trolley car that can take people down to the bottom of the dam wall
Gordon Dam
Looking up to Knob Hill Lookout
View from the dam wall. The dam is concave so it looks like you're hanging over the top
Gordon Dam
Lake Gordon from Gordon Dam
Gordon Dam
Gordon Dam
Gordon Dam
Lookout over Gordon Dam
Gordon Dam
Model of the lakes and dams
We had lunch (of Woollies sandwiches) and a pitstop before heading back.
Had a quick look back to the power station.
Gordon Power Station
And further down the road we were debating pulling over to look at the view when this girl put out the hitchhiker sign. But it looked like they were having car trouble as their car had the bonnet up. So we stopped and they were like, help, we don't have mobile coverage and the car is dead (radiator troubles). So put aside any fears of them being axe murderers or robbers and gave them a lift back to Russell Falls (where they had a friend nearish by who would pick them up and take them back to her other car). So turns out Sharka was from Czech Republic and her friend Marcel was from Slovakia. She'd been working/holidaying in Australia since September (and previously in New Zealand), and he'd been stuck in Australia during covid and had ended up staying. Talked mostly about travel for the next hour (and it was raining so there wasn't much to take photos of anyway) and dropped them off at Russell Falls.
Countryside on Gordon River Road, just before we picked up the hitchhikers
Us with the hitchhikers (poorly framed selfie by Marcel)
From there the GPS actually took us past the visitors centre and up the road to Lake Dobson. We'd been considering going up there anyway to get a photo of the shelter, so decided to take the hour and a bit to do it. The shelter is still there, but as per usual can't get the same shot due to trees. The 40 minute walk around the lake would have been nice but it was getting late.
Shelter hut at Lake Dobson
Lake Dobson
Had a quick look at Lake Fenton on the way back down.
Berries near Lake Fenton
Lake Fenton
Dam at Lake Fenton
Then went to look at Russell Falls. Well it turns out Dad's photo was actually of Horseshoe Falls not Russell Falls, which was 45 minutes return trip instead of the 25 minutes for Russell. But I didn't know this until after I'd left the sweetie (he'd had enough and didn't want to come) and then I didn't want to make him wait any longer (it was already 17:00 by this point) so I didn't go which made me have a bit of a sad. Still, Russell Falls was quite awesome, and the walk was quite lovely (even saw a pademelon/wallaby/small thingie). And it's not too far out of the way to go back to again one day. Went to the loo afterwards and saw another pademelon.
Pathway to Russell Falls
Russell Falls
Pademelon at Mount Field Visitor Centre
Then back into Hobart. It rained the entire way. Which was a shame because there were some lovely views. Saw the Celebrity Edge and it blasted departure horns just after we went past it.
Big raspberry at Westerway Raspberry Farm
Mona from Brooker Highway
Dumped all our crap back in the room, then went off to do food shopping (several fails) and get KFC/bibimbap for dinner.
Then gps/photos/blogging and it's getting late and the flat is a disaster area and I still need to plan out tomorrow.. hrmmmm...
Comments