It's cold out West

We spent our final morning in Hobart wandering the bustling Salamanca Markets before heading out of town. We made three tourist stops on the road to Lake St Clair. Pulpit Rock lookout was our first stop, overlooking the Derwent River, followed by a second stop at Russell Falls. Here we also enjoyed a picnic lunch in a private, enclosed stone shelter.

Our last stop for the day was Tarraleah to take in the view of its two hydroelectric power stations. I’m not sure there’s anywhere else in the world where you can see penstocks constructed on opposing sides of a valley, each feeding water from completely different catchment areas.

Once settled in Lake St Clair, I took Matt and Shelley for a little platypus spotting around dusk. Sadly, these illusive monotremes didn’t make an appearance. However, we consoled ourselves with wine and cheese, followed by a hearty meal in the lodge’s only restaurant. Overnight the temperature dropped dramatically on the Central Plateau. The following morning we woke to the presence of snow capping the surrounding hills.

 

Easter Sunday was taken up with a full day of driving. We made our way across the island to Cradle Mountain, stopping to stock up at the supermarket in Queenstown (including a brief detour to experience the stunning Ironblow Lookout) and enjoying lunch in Strahan. While Strahan we were lucky enough to see the local timber yard sawing an enormous Huon pine log using an old fan-belt driven saw.

On our way out of Lake St Clair we also stopped to view stunning The Wall in the Wilderness. This extraordinary work of art consists of Huon Pine panels, each 3 metres high, carved into a series of relief sculptures. Each panel depicts scenes that capture the history, hardship and perseverance of the people in the Central Highlands.
 

The panels stretch for 100 metres. Half of the panels are mounted on one side of a central supporting frame with the remaining panels attached to the opposing side. Its artist, Greg Duncan, has spent more than 20 years carving this masterpiece. He's now retired and thus the incomplete elements of this giant work may never be finished.

However, our most amusing moment came just as we were leaving The Wall in the Wilderness. I received a call from the Lake St Clair Lodge. The cleaning staff had found an abandoned iPad in our cabin. Queue a red face from Garry. Thank goodness we were only 8km down the road.