Surprise – we went back to Tassie. Well actually it was a little bit of a surprise – Loryn came with me in winter!!! To be honest the weather wasn’t that bad at all – only had to put the vest on a few times
As most trips do, we started by travelling down and staying with Loryn’s parents for the night. Never can complain about the hospitality and always welcome – although having their granddaughter with us probably helps with that 🙂
A beverage (orange juice for one particular little one) whilst we waited for the plane was followed by a pretty good flight. Ellie has always travelled well, but the older she gets the easier it seems.
We spent Tuesday basically catching up, being lazy and (for me) just switching off and getting into holiday mode. We basically did nothing but talk (probably a whole lot of crap), have a few drinks, enjoy the fire and look at some of the latest work Lenny has been doing.
On the Wednesday I was already committed for the first half of the day with the RAAF. Once I sorted what I needed to sort it was back home where we decided to sneak up Mt Wellington for a look, as Ellie had been talking about it.
Dark Mofo celebrates the darkness of the southern winter solstice and features a whole heap of “stuff” that is basically controversial at times. Part of the event includes lighting up various buildings in a red colour and the winter feast.
We enjoyed exploring the event, but lining up for 40 minutes to get a feed is never my idea of fun. So we had a look-see and then had dinner elsewhere. Either way – something different, done, probably don’t need to rush back.
Thursday we were lucky to borrow a vehicle from a friend that isn’t “too bad” to drive. Loryn is actually scared I’m gonna want to spend a little bit of money to get something similar. Either way it was bloody decent of them and certainly appreciated.
So we pointed the vehicle west bypassing Hobart and heading out through the fog (with coffee in hand) past Norfolk, Bushy Park and Maydena to stop for lunch at Pedder Wilderness Lodge. Sitting there we were hearing how you couldn’t see anything at the dam due to the fog. Oh well, the drive and food isn’t bad at all.
After lunch we figured we didn’t come this far not to try, so we continued heading west. The Lake Pedder lookout was absolutely enthralling.
Continuing on to Gordon Dam we jagged it pretty well. There was still fog around but in some respects it just magnified how beautiful this area is. I’ve been lucky to have come out here for a lot of years, both with the RAAF and personally, and I’m always happy to jump in a vehicle and do it again.
Lake Gordon and Lake Pedder are heaven for trout fishing – hell most of the Tassie highlands are, but a nice bottle or two of Bundy with a campfire can lead to a bloody good time. Between both lakes they hold more than 37 times the volume of water than Sydney Harbour.
The dam wall is 140 metres high which can lead to some nervousness at times. Considering it was constructed in 1974, you sure hope the engineers got it right!!
When full it holds back 12,359,040 thousand cubic metres of water (that’s nuts). It’s a similar construction to the Tumut Pondage, just basically twice the height.
Leaving the dam we slowly worked our way back east.
A stop at Mount Field National Park gave us the opportunity to to stretch the legs to take a look at Russell Falls. You could spend a day here easily, especially if you travelled up to Lake Dobson.
By the time we had done all of this, the time had got away from us quite a bit and Jacob has already arrived at Mum’s. So we headed straight back tired but having enjoyed a bloody good day.