On the way into Mt Field National Park, you come past the Visitor Centre. It has a café, a little museum style section, and an information desk. We checked the board about all the walks outside the center. Off we went and combined several of the shorter walks to a big loop: Russell Falls, Lady Barron Falls via Tall Trees, Three Falls and Horseshoe Falls. The walks take you through magnificent rainforest and tall trees, and the waterfalls are gorgeous.
The area is famous as it is the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area which covers 1.6 million hectares (20% of Tasmania’s landmass!!!). Not surprising the place is bursting with people. If you walk further than the Russell Falls, you’ll soon notice less and less people though and by the time we got to the Lady Barron Falls we had the place to ourselves.
There is a camp next to the visitor center, but it was very crowded, and we decided to treat ourselves to the more expensive Russell Falls Holiday Cottages – they do have camp sites, not only cottages 😉. Big bonus was the Tyenna River flowing along the border of the park. We spent the evening at the river hoping to spot a platypus. Unfortunately, the one I saw dive earlier on was the only one we got to see, but they are there.
The next day we stopped at the Marriotts Falls. Highly recommend this walk! The trail takes you through ever changing fauna – you walk on lush lawns, then bash your way through shoulder high ferns, hike through the cool rainforest on a muddy track etc. The falls are one of the nicest I’ve seen – definitely try to find time to do this walk, it’s not very long, quite easy, and very rewarding!
Next, we walked to the Junee Cave, a very short but nice walk along the river to the cave entrance. You can’t enter the cave though.
It’s a whole cave system with Tachycardia and Niggly being the deepest (not to be confused with the longest!) caves in Australia (375m). If you are keen on doing some caving you can obtain a permit to visit them and other caves from Great Western Tiers Field Centre or Huonville Field Centre (for the southern caves, south of the National Park).
At the Pedder Wilderness Lodge in Strathgordon, we had a late lunch overlooking Lake Pedder. The lodge is not open for accommodation yet, the only place to stay at this end of the National Park is Teds camp.
It’s worthwhile stopping at the Lodge and read the information boards about the history of the region and the main dam – Gordon Dam.
The access road (Gordon Road) was opened in 1967 and Strathgordon was built the same year. At its peak the town had 270 houses and over 2000 residents, which is hard to picture when you see it today.
The Gordon dam was constructed between 1972 and 1974. With a height of 140m it is the highest arch dam in Australia. It creates Lake Gordon which measures 272 km2 and holds 12,450 million m3 of water at full capacity (equal to 4.98 Olympic swimming pools). The dam is 17.7m thick at its base while the crest is only 2.8m thick.
Serpentine, Scotts Peak and Edgar dam create the 2nd storage: Lake Pedder which measures 242 km2.
Tasmania’s electricity is generated by turbines 140m underground!
We went to see the Gordon Dam. You can climb down steep steps to get to the dam wall. I do recommend doing it as you get to see the narrow gorge and it’s just an amazing feeling to stand on a wall that holds that much water, a bit scary too.
The Knob Hill Lookout, only minutes up the road from the dam, is a good place to see Lake Gordon and the dam from higher up.
It was getting late, and we headed back to Teds Camp – an incredibly beautiful free camp at Lake Pedder not far to the East from Strathgordon. We were lucky that the camp was full, and we had to find a spot on the beach itself. Amazing view and very private. Would recommend to camp on the beach instead of the camp bays. The camp provides a camp kitchen and toilets.
The following day was a drizzly grey day which we mostly spent exploring by car. Neither of us felt like a big hike – I blame living in Broome for too long, haha. I mean, me coming from Switzerland should be used to that sort of weather – but no, I have acclimatized very well to blue sky and warm temperatures.
Anyhow, we headed back to the visitor centre and explored what we missed on the way in. One was the road to Scotts Peak Dam. We stopped for a short stroll along the Creepy Crawly Trail. I just wanted to do it because of its name and that day it did it all honor! It was creepy because of the gloomy weather and certainly crawly as many trees and their branches have grown over the walkway and you had to either get acrobatic and step over them or pretend to be a toddler and crawl on all four underneath them. Surely a highlight for the kids.
Scotts Peak Dam and Edgar Dam are both at the southeastern bottom end of Lake Pedder. It’s a nice area with no one around despite being peak season of the summer school holidays. If you are short on time, you might want to give it a miss though. Very important spot for those of you that love multiday hikes though as some major big treks start down there, like the Western Arthur Range Traverse and the Port Davey Trail. There are some day hikes to climb some of the peaks nearby too.
Red Knoll Lookout is a great spot overlooking the lake, dam, and mountains.
Back at the visitor centre we decided to drive up Lake Dobson Road to complete the visit to Mt Field NP. It’s a very windy road up the mountain to a skiing field (which we couldn’t locate). There are only two other places to ski in Tassie: Mt Mawson and Ben Lomond.
The Pandani Grove walk is a great walk if you are short in time, or the weather doesn’t invite for big walks. Pandani Grove takes you along the lake through an amazing change in fauna! Being that high up in the mountain I did not expect this variety! There was rainforest, forest, plants I’ve seen at the beach and then the alpine country. Halfway along the walk the track joins the maintenance track. I do not enjoy walking tracks you can do by car, so I turned back and enjoyed the plants and layout of the area all over again.
There are a lot of walks up at Lake Dobson – anything from half an hour up to 9-hour walks, take your pick!
As it was getting late, we didn’t get much further and set up camp at the Valley Sports Bar in New Norfolk. We literally walked in for a beer and the bar staff asked if we are camping the night as she’s seen our set up. Yep, if we can, why not.
Will tell you all about the Southwest of Tasmania in the next blog. Have a great day and thanks for taking the time to read my blog.
Marion, you make the walking trails of Tassie so inviting with your vivid descriptions and I too would love to do the Creepy Crawly Trail because of its name and its challenge. Admire your blogs.