Our early move south turned out to be a good decision – according to locals, the weather has been exceptionally good – getting up to 30 degrees today. At long last we both had a very good night’s sleep and felt the better for it. We managed to get out of bed at 07:00 to be greeted with a clear blue sky and a warm 22 degrees.
The Macquarie Head campsite proved to be an excellent choice – right next the beach and sheltered from the prevailing winds. So much so, we agreed that we would have stayed longer had we not booked into a hotel in Queenstown. We left the campsite at about half past ten to head for the bakery in Strahan. Guess what – no bakery! No problem, we thought, we will find one in Queenstown. Guess what – no bakery!
Before leaving Strahan, we managed a quick walk to Hogarth Falls – a short 40 minute round trip, plus 15 minutes setting up the tripod and camera and taking shot below.
In Queenstown, we visited the local IGA to stock up on essentials for the next few days and had a wander round the centre of town.
Queenstown is a mining town responsible for extracting various metals, including copper, silver and gold, but in sopite of that we found that a lot of the shops had closed down – even the butcher. The mining operations have been responsible for stripping the surrounding mountains of timber, creating a blot on the landscape. This is a shame as the town is surrounded by impressive mountains.
We are staying in the Empire Hotel for one night – a hotel so that we can wash clothes, have a shower and have a bit of comfort before the next stage of our trip. The hotel’s staircase is cut from local Blackwood that was sent to England for turning and carving before being shipped back to Queenstown and installed in the hotel in 1904.
As well as the lack of success in finding a bakery, we have struggled to find publicly accessible drinking water taps. Another useful purpose for staying in the hotel – to fill our water containers especially for the next few days
This will be the last post for about six days. Tomorrow, we are booked on the Wilderness Railway – this will be quite an experience which I am looking forward to telling you about in my next post. The train returns at lunchtime when we have to start the long journey to the government huts at Mount Field for three nights and Lake Pedder for two nights. Both of these locations are very remote, therefore no internet.
So expect a longer post next week.
