Worth a Dam

MARCH 23 : Did not sleep all night Sunday. We decided to try to come home from Tasmania. Texted our travel agent to attempt to get us flights. She answered that El Al was flying a special flight from Perth on Tuesday. Sounded perfect. We would return the campervan in Hobart and fly from Hobart to Perth. Just need to buy some luggage (ours is in storage in Melbourne), pack up and be on our way. Unfortunately, the flight was filled before she had a chance to put us on it. She offered us instead flights via Los Angeles and New York, but that seemed like jumping into the eye of the storm. Here we feel pretty safe from the virus – at least for the time being, and after much “Should we stay” “Should we go” we decided to stay. As long as we can move around, we can still visit places and be outdoors. If Tasmania goes into a lockdown, we will go back to the campsite in Devonport and stay there. It has all we would need. So for now that is the plan. Only time will tell if the choice was a good one.

Once we made the decision to stay, we decided to go ahead with our original plan to visit the Gordon Dam. To reach the dam we drove two hours through one of the most scenic roads in Tasmania. The first hour was mostly a winding road through thick forest, but then the view opened up and it was spectacular. Beautiful meadows with tall mountains in the background.

Along a small stretch of the road, there had obviously been a recent fire. It was encouraging to see the regrowth that was already taking place.

The area is dotted with many lakes. On the way there we stopped at the Lake Pedder lookout.

The Gordon dam was built recently -1974 – amid controversy because it flooded a beautiful valley. There are those who still today say that it should be drained, and the valley restored to its previous state. A second dam was never approved. The dam is 140 meters high and is a double curve – there is a curve across the top but also a curve from top to bottom. Today the dam provides over 30% of the electricity for Tasmania. There are steps leading from the street (10 stories worth) that allow you to reach the top of the dam and you can then walk across. The views are spectacular – on one side a lake and on the other a very narrow and very tall canyon. While we were there a maintenance crew arrived and it was interesting to watch them ride a small funicular train car that took them down along the dam into the deep canyon to do their job.

On the return trip, we stopped off at a beach on Lake Pedder. This was originally a small lake whose area was  increased many times over as a supply of water for the dam, again flooding a beautiful valley. We walked along the beach with the majestic lake in front of us, and a range of mountains in the distance.

In general, all the photos of this trip do not come near to doing justice to the amazing beauty here as it surrounds you.

From the beach, we drove back to Mt. Field National Park. Yesterday they said they would be closing but when we reached the park it was business as usual. Only the visitor center remained closed. We spoke with the Mt. Field campground manager and he said that so far he has not received the notice to close but will for sure be getting one over the next few days.

We did not stay because in the morning we had already made reservations at a private campground right outside the park, alongside a river. When Mark registered us, the campground owner told him that there were many platypi near the bridge on the river. It was late afternoon by the time we returned to this campground, and we went to find a platypus. No luck. On returning to the campervan, the owner asked if we saw any, and when we said no, he said we should follow him for a wander. He took us a bit beyond the river where there are two small green ponds. These are filled with the sewage from the National Park. He said that these ponds are like McDonalds for the platypus, not very healthy but they like eating there. I did not understand how the platypus get to the ponds and he explained that they walk over from the river – platypus can both walk and swim. Never knew that. He taught us to look for little air bubbles and after a while sure enough, we saw the head of one platypus. He suggested we return in an hour when the wind dies down, and there will be fewer ripples across the pond and the platypus will be easier to see. After an hour, as dusk approached, we returned to the ponds and looked and looked. No platypus. Just as we were about to leave, Mark spotted some air bubbles and we waited patiently, and finally out came the platypus and swam along the pond. Very exciting!

Tomorrow we return to Mt. Field and if still open, do some hiking.