It was warm and sunny when we got up and we enjoyed breakfast outside before packing up our van (we're starting to get into a bit of a routine with this by now!) We then drove north west to Cradle Mountain national park where we planned to stay at Cynthia Bay on the shore of Lake St Clair for a couple of nights. We stopped off in Ouse (situated on the River Ouse, but no York nearby) for provisions (the local supermarket had a rather limited choice) and then continued to Tarraleah where we stopped to see the hydroelectric plant, built in the 1920's. The village itself is a surreal place most closely resembling a ghost town, once a home to 3200 workers it's now a privately owned holiday village with no permanent residents. The two plants are very impressive and we marvelled at the feat of engineering and the harsh conditions that the workers endured to build these nearly 100 years ago. However as computer technology took over in the 60's the workers were not required and now the plants are managed and controlled remotely (although we were assured there are still regular site visits!). We had a very nice lunch at the cafe before continuing our journey along the Derwent Valley which is base to a number of large lakes, lagoons and dams to Lake St Clair. After registering at the campsite we had a look around visitors centre and lake shore. This is the end of the Overland trail, which is 80kms in length, starting at Cradle Mountain and backpacking takes 8 to 10 days to complete. The visitors centre was full of interesting history of the trail and the local area. The whole area is a lovely setting with Lake St Clair being the deepest lake in Australia. It was a bit too cold to sit outside so we chilled out in our van debating options for tomorrow. The weather forecast is a bit mixed so we looked at several options including a boat trip across the lake (although Simon wasn't showing too much interest in this one because as usual he just wants to climb mountains!).
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| Enjoying breakfast al fresco |
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| The hydro electric plant |
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| On route to Cradle Valley |
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