Strolling with Quolls

May 17: Strolling with Quolls !!
We were sad to leave Cradle Mountain but excited about our next destination Lake St. Clair at the other end of the national park. As we were leaving the camp park I spotted several big white cockatoos in the tree and Bob spotted three Kookaburra.
We drove on small windy mountain roads to the mining town of Queenstown looking to re-provision and have a coffee/tea break. This town reminded Bob of many other small mining towns in the Colorado Rockies in the 1960's. It was somewhat dilapidated with some rough edges.

The people were friendly and not used to foreigners. At the local bottle shop ( liquor store) the owner accosted us outside the front door with questions about where we were from and what we did for a living. We stopped at a butcher shop to buy some bangers and once he heard us speak the butcher came out for a chat. He said he heard unusual accents and had to investigate. We had a nice chat with he and his wife, they told us to be sure to see Nelson Falls on our drive to the lake. We did and were so glad. The walk through the ferny forest was great, the fern trees huge and of course moss and fungi everywhere.

As we were searching for  a lunch spot I tried out the potato chips I had purchased at the IGA in Queenstown, they claimed to be "flamed grilled steak" flavored. They were new and unique taste experience, true to their claim !!
We lunched at the Great Divide between the mountains to the east and those to the west. Have I mentioned how much we enjoy the Tasmania cheeses ?? We had another variety for a classic lunch of local cheese, crackers and apples ( local Galas).
By midafternoon we had made it to our destination of Lake St. Clair. We took a short stroll before checking out our campsite and were treated to a quoll sighting !! I chased it into the brush hoping for photo, no luck until we were walking back near the same spot, another quoll  appreared!! This one was out in the open obviously hunting for something to eat. This time I was able to get a couple of very nice photos !! I was soooo excited to see quoll in the wild like that.

Once we parked the camper we walked around some more looking for animals as the sunset, no luck. The cafe was open for dinner, we have found they often close at 5:00 so this was a treat. Hearty soup and prawns over rice left us very replete and ready to call it a day. We have a week left on our adventure, hooray !!

May 18: Bangers for Dinner
The sunrise was beautiful on Lake St. Clair as Bob had his breakfast in the company of a pademelon and  the birds began their morning chorus.

We got an early start on our drive to Mt. Field , the oldest national park in Tasmania( 1885), only about an hour from Hobart. As always the roads were small, windy and empty of cars. The sky was grey with occasional showers, the clouds moving by quickly. We drove through huge hydroelectric projects interspersed with quaint and not so quaint towns. It seems that this time of year some towns are closed for the season. We did chance upon a picturesque church just outside of Gretna, we stopped and took lots of photos of the various headstones.

 We found a cafe open in Westerway called the Possum's Shed, it was very cute inside and located right on the Tyenna river.They even claim to have their own platypus which they named "Flossy". Bob had his usual "long black" and I my "chai latte".
We also shared a piece of very tasty almond coconut cake in orange syrup served with cream. It was moist and tasty without being too sweet.

At Mt. Fields we paid for our campsite and took off for the 30 minute drive up a very small dirt road to a series of alpine lakes, hikes and the only "ski area" in southern Tasmania (it had one rope tow). We enjoyed our picnic lunch in the A frame "emergency shelter", one hiker we spoke with called the recent weather up in these mountains "evil". We took a short hike around Lake Dobson, part of it in the strange pandani , and pencil pine forest.

 Back down the road we took another great short hike into the "Tall Trees", these giant swamp gum trees are the tallest flowering plants in the world. They are second in size only to our own redwoods. The walk took us through more primordial fern grottos, with the loud raucous calls of the sulphur crested cockatoos overhead. We felt we had stumbled into a scene from the Cretaceous Period.

We are camped right on the Tyenna River, and the amenities are quite good. While I did laundry, Bob worked on cooking our bangers (sausages) on the electric grill provided in open air kitchen.

We met two brothers born in Tasmania but living in Adelaide, Bob had a nice chat with them after dinner. They were researching the history of their father's life as a millwright in the nearby Huon Valley.