Today was always going to be a long day in the car. We had to get from Strahan on the West Coast, to Hobart all the way on the east. Non-stop, it normally takes around four and a half hours to cover the 300kms.
However, something was amiss this morning. Outside, the light was erie and the air was thick with smoke. We soon learned that the bush fire that was threatening Zeehan yesterday was diverted just in time but was also bearing down on Strahan. We didn't want to hang around to find out and thought it would be better off if we weren't a burnden on the local authorities. So we packed the car and high tailed it out of town. Our route took us back through Queenstown, beyond the range and across Lake Burbury (and, more importantly, further from the fire).
Nelson Falls
Soon we were at our first planned stop, Nelson Falls. The picturesque Nelson Falls Nature Trail follows the Nelson River upstream for less than half a kilometre. I was hoping for a spectacular cascading waterfall. Unfortunately, as for most of the other waterfalls, on this trip, there was only a trickle of water and we were, once again, left disappointed.
We took the obligatory photos and continued on to our next trail stop, the Franklin River Nature Trail (below).
Franklin River Nature Trail
The circuit trail loops around where the Surprise River & Franklin River Converge.
It wasn't the most interesting trail we had completed during our tour, but there were a few things to see including some very interesting fungi.
The rivers were more like creeks because the extended drought conditions were having a major impact on the normal environment. This area is a rainforest, however most of the plants (mosses especially) were clearly suffering from the lack of water.
At around 130kms from Strahan was to be our final diversion to Lake Sinclaire. The Lake stretches from Derwent Bridge, north toward the Cradle Mountain area.
The Visitor Centre on the Lake shore marks the end of the Overland Track. Remembering, we had been at the other end of the track a fews days previous.
We had originally planned to take a cruise on the lake, but the wind was not friendly and the threat of yet another fire had the rangers a bit jumpy. We explored the shore trails for a little while and let Harry stretch his legs. The rangers had given us some information about the many fires. We had planned to do a hike in the Mount Field National Park, closer to Hobar, however we were told that it was close because of an approaching fire. It seemed that half the island was under threat. We decided that we should get across to Hobart as quickly as posible to avoid being cut off and have to back track and add 600kms to our drive.
About 50kms down the road we were very nearly cut off! An enormous fire (above) in the Great Lake area was tracking south and was a mater of 20kms from the main road. We made it through, but only just. The rest of the drive was pretty horrible because we were essentially driving through smoke and couldn't see much further than a kilometre at best. We stopped at Hamilton to eat our picnic lunch. It was 40 degrees and there was ash flying around so we stayed in the car. We were hoping that Hobart would be a bit more hospitable.
We were pretty relieved to make it to Hobart and our home for the the next few days, Eliza Cottage (above). We are hoping the smoke clears a bit tomorrow with an expected change to the wind direction.
