Going deep into Tasmania’s South West Wilderness. -

Smiles all round as we leave Hobart

After a brief over night stay at Hobart Showgrounds to perform maintenance on the car, we headed to a different location in the South West Wilderness – Mount Field National Park.

The Good Bits.

It was easy to find free dog friendly camping a few kilometres from the National Park. The Park offers the opportunity to walk amongst the Tallest Flowering trees in the world – the Swamp Gum and three beautiful water falls – Russell Falls, Horseshoe Falls and Lady Barron Falls. Its a lovely walk for the whole family.

Mount Field NP

Horseshoe Falls

We stopped by Lake Pedder on a glorious blue sky day and witnessed the environmental implications of human interference with a true wilderness region.

It was from this area that the Greens movement was born and you can understand why it was so important to try to protect it.

You can read more about the beginning of the Greens here.

Lake Pedder, TAS

We camped at a sweet spot, with complete water frontage at Brady’s Lake. A furry little platypus came hooning past us every morning as we enjoyed our morning coffee. It was here where Adam first saw an out of control Chinese satellite (Tiangong-1) spiralling across the night sky. He was spinning out about it!

We stopped by Tarraleah, an ex hydro town, for an afternoon. The kids will remember the geese at the park. The adults will remember the nicely presented story near the park of the hydro families who lived here and the well preserved, gorgeous homes in the small town.

Cattle stand off in front of our camp site, Bradys Lake.

Hydro at Tarraleah.

BF Goodrich All Terrains

At another free camp at Lake Burbury, we attempted to fish and this time I (Mia) managed to witness the out of control satellite. The satellite flashed so bright in the sky that it was as though someone was taking flash photography. At this stage, we didn’t know what it was so were a bit creeped out!

Lake Burbury.

Lake Burbury twilight fishing

View overlooking Queenstown.

We came through Queenstown on our first lap around Oz in 2006 and remember barron hills and a dirty town. Queenstown smothered and killed its surrounding forests with sulphur from the mining industry and the rain washed away all the top soil. This time we were really, really amazed at how much it has changed. There are green trees on the hills and LOTS of them! The town centre is tidy and we enjoyed some of the best & biggest handmade pies in Tassie at Cafe Serenade.

The Creamy Bits.

We saw tremendous value in taking the kids to Gordon Dam.

It was built in the 70’s, in a time when more people were questioning the unrelenting destruction of old growth forests and flooding of significant places on Earth.

Gordan Dam is Australia’s Highest Dam at 140 metres and used 157,500 cubic metres of concrete. To say it is massive is an under statement! The Gordon Power Development consists of 4 dams, 2 large storage lakes, an interconnecting canal (2745 metres long) and an underground power station. Literally in the middle of nowhere. Its so epic, you really should witness it for yourself!