Mount Field National Park and Gordon Dam Region


Monday the 12th March we left the free camp at New Norfolk and headed to Mount Field National Park (NP). There is a campground in the NP with a dozen or so sites with power and water and we were after a powered site to do some washing. However, the vans are packed in like sardines there and so we decided to stay at the ‘Left of Field’ bush park. Only $10 difference and the sites are huge and a character of an owner. Adrian is a good fella, very friendly and goes out of his way to help and make the stay great.

After setting up and having lunch Linda and I went into the NP and did the walk to Russell Falls. It is only a short walk to the falls and it is a beautiful one.




A short distance beyond is the Horseshoe Falls which is ordinary by comparison.




The swamp gums were huge, some around 90 feet. Only videos can do justice to a view of them but I can’t upload videos to the blog these days, until I can figure out what is stopping them.

As much for the exercise as anything we went on to the Lady Barron Falls. That was ordinary by comparison as well. The whole walk was about 2 hours.




Back to camp and relaxed around the camp kitchen campfire that Adrian lit. Chatted to nice people.

The next morning we headed toward the Gordon Dam. It was sunny with some cloud when we left but as we climbed further into the mountains there was mist and rain and we were worried the drive would be a waste from a white out with the weather. Stopped at Lake Pedder Lodge at Strathgordon for coffee. The lodge café/bar/restaurant was very nice. The whole complex was developed from the original buildings that were used for the construction of the dam in the 70s.

The Gordon Dam is the highest dam wall in Australia (not the broadest). The whole terrain is incredibly mountainous.













We had a look at the Seymour Dam while we were there but it is puny by comparison. It is an earth dam and does a different job.




On the way back we stopped in and did the 25 minute Twisted Sister walk. This is the twisted sister.





The rainforest was awesome with so much moss and lichen on the trees. It was a green wonderland.






Back to camp and happy hour around the campfire was good again.

Spoke to Adrian about having a late departure the next day. Again no problem for him. We wanted to go to Lake Dobson in the morning which was in cloud the day before when we did the Russell Falls walk. You would normally do that the same day but it would be no point in cloud.

So Wednesday morning we went up to Lake Dobson which was quite a climb. The weather was clear albeit cloudy.






It was a nice walk and we saw some thousand year old Needle Pines.





Back to camp and hitched up and got away about midday. We were not going far so it was not a problem. We stopped at Bethune Park which looks over Lake Meadowbank and what a beautiful spot it was. A lot of the tips on our trip have come from the emails I received from friends Col and Di who did their Tazzie trip last year. They had stayed at Bethune Park and said how nice it was. We were blessed with a beautiful day to boot.





Thursday morning we left Bethune Park and drove to Hamilton which was only about 12 km away. Adrian gave us a tip about the pies from the bakery there. He was not exaggerating, beautiful pies. From Hamilton we took the road north to Bothwell. Bothwell is an amazing town for history. There is a huge number of heritage listed buildings there. It was also the first town in Australia where golf was played. We loved the old buildings and history. Sorry about all the photos.






















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