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Tag Archives: Queenstown
Australia day 14 – Queenstown to Lake St Clair
The Lyell Highway winds for 56km through the heart off the World Heritage-listed Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park between Queenstown and Lake St Clair. The park covers 440,000 hectares and is the epitome of magnificent scenery; forested valleys with fast-flowing rivers, deep narrow gorges; button grass plains and mountains carved by glaciers, the most notable being the grey/white, slanting peak of Frenchman’s Cap There are several short walks into the wilderness areas along the route and we make stops at Nelson Falls, Donaghys Lookout and the Franklin River arriving at Lake St Clair late afternoon.
The Nelson Falls are an easy 20-minute walk through the rain forest. What started out as a misty and dismal day has turned into a warm and sunny one by the time we arrive at the start of the walk. The waterfall turns out to be quite spectacular and with plenty of water tumbling over the 85ft drop.
Our second stop is a short 40 minute walk to Donaghys Lookout which affords spectacular 360 degree views of the wilderness mountain tops and the Franklin River and a button grass plain way below from a rocky outlook point.
The Franklin River walk through the temperate rain forest runs, for part of the way, alongside this well-known wilderness river, and the Surprise River. There are numerous kinds of fungi, and mosses and litchens the latter cloaking everything. Towering trees reach skyward, fast-flowing, gurgling rivers and fallen and decaying tree trunks and branches cover the forest floor offering a glimpse into the beauty of this wilderness landscape.
It’s late afternoon by the time we reach Lake St Clair. We haven’t booked any accommodation hoping that we will find something reasonably priced on the edge of the National Park. Fortunately there is camp ground with cabins right on the edge of the lake and we take what is called a ‘dorm’ room but is is in fact what Andy likes to call a bed-in-a-shed. A basic room with shared use of the site amenities. Since I was last here some 25+ years ago a huge visitors centre and cafe have sprung up to cater for bushwalkers making the 5 day trek along the Overland Track which runs between Lake St Clair and Cradle Mountain. A bit of a shame as it rather spoils the isolation of this beautiful lake.
It is a glorious evening, sunny and still. The lake is perfectly flat, not even a ripple disturbs the surface and the silence is only broken by birdsong (and a couple of people sat chatting further round Cynthia Bay. We take a short stroll around the shore line before dinner. It’s been impossible to find anywhere to buy any food since we left Queenstown and there is only a very limited selection of groceries on sale at the visitors centre. We manage to cobble a meal together out of bits and pieces we have with us supplemented by a rehydrated pasta meal.
Afterwards we take a torch and out in search of wildlife – much of which only comes out after dark. Immediately we see a possum. Possum are extremely common here as in New Zealand and more often seen dead on the roadsides; this is the first live one we’ve seen this trip. There are also some wallabies about, but no platypus which are notoriously shy and hard to identify.
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Australia day 13 – Strahan to Queenstown
After spending some time booking a campervan for pick up in Darwin and buying a replacement phone for Andy – his current one is no longer charging – we take a look round Strahan. It’s a small township on the north-west shores of the beautiful and unspoilt inlet that is Macquarie Harbour. Neat, Federation-style buildings built from local Huon pine line the harbour front, most, if not all, of which are either cafes or hotels, and several tour operators offering cruises, seaplane and helicopter excursions and the scenic rail journey to Queenstown. We shun these latter in favour of a walk through the Peoples Park and a drive out to Macquarie Heads. The track in the Peoples Park runs alongside Botanical Creek as far as the small but rather beautiful Hogarth Falls. The park is 70 acres of native rain forest which was donated to the township in the 19th century. It is a lovely area to stroll through, particularly today with the dappled sunlight penetrating through the tree canopy. There are Black Gum, Blackwood, Dogwood and Sassafras trees as well as enormous tree ferns, all towering above us. We picnic above the falls from where we can watch the water cascading into a dark pool beneath.
A short drive out of Strahan is an unsealed road leading to Ocean Beach, a 30km, wild and windswept stretch of sand which, judging from the swirls of tyre marks, is a favourite spot for 4wd-ing. Gusts of sand are being blown into the air as we make our way onto the beach to watch the pounding surf of the Southern Ocean. A further 11 kms brings us to Macquarie Heads. Known as Hell’s Gates this is where the calm harbour waters clash with the ocean beyond. We walk along beach to the point at which the it turns up the coast .battling against the winds that blow the sand in rivulets along the beach. Wild, windy and isolated.
The drive to Queenstown takes about 45 minutes along windy roads. The approach into the town is quite striking; the surrounding mountains long-since laid bare by a combination of logging, bushfires and erosion and stained purple, grey and pink by the sulphur fumes from mining processes. Strangely beautiful and yet at the same time starkly ugly, it is a landscape that engenders mixed reactions. Queenstown itself is small and very quite, in fact is appears almost deserted – where is everybody? We’ve booked a room in the Empire Hotel, a rather grand Victorian building opposite the ABT railway station. The interior has seen better days and would benefit from a facelift, but it does boast a magnificent National Trust staircase which was made in England using native Australian wood.
Andy goes in search of the football (tonight there is an England match at 2am) drinks until the early hours in the hotel across the rroad, in the vain hope that they remain open until 4am. Always unlikely. He is turfed out, worse for wear and doesn’t return to our room until 5.30am! Apparently he had spend the intervening hours collapsed in another room in the hotel.
There is an England match on the television at 2am, so while I snuggle up in bed, Andy goes the bar across the road in the vain hope that they will remain open to show the match. Always unlikely, he is turfed out in the early hours rather worse for wear and having seen none of the match. He returns to our room a 5.30 having apparently spent the intervening hours collapsed in another room in the hotel. Or so he says…