This was about an hours drive away from Hobart itself and took in some beautiful countryside. I am starting to think that Beautiful may be a slightly over used word, but I can't stop using it!
Mount Field has been a national park since 1916, when the surrounding area must have still been fairly inhospitable. I am starting to gain great respect for Victorian and Edwardian explorers and tourists coming to the area.
We meandered through the temperate rainforest for about 3 hours, taking in Russell Falls; Horseshoe Falls; the Tall Trees and Lady Barron Falls. I think the word of the day for me may well have simply been 'wow'.
However, most excitedly, I saw my first ever wallabys (besides the large flat one at the side of the road that morning). One skipped across the forest path, while another sat under the trees, washing itself and looking rather cute, cuddly and pretty!
Some of the trees in the forest, the eucalyptus, are amongst the tallest in the world, after the great Redwoods. As there are no termites in Tasmania, hardly any of the fallen trees, branches and bark is broken down and much of it stays on the forest floor for years. This makes for an eerie and tangled environment with huge, uprooted trees creating strange cave like areas.
The waterfalls were equally impressive......
We then headed to Lake Dobson, which was much higher up and very cold! The landscape changed dramatically as we moved higher up the national park, with the trees becoming much more sparse and the scrub becoming bleak and gorse like. It looked quite alien! Jon and Lisa then took me to see the Pandanni Grove, which ran alongside the side of the lake. It was like walking amongst Triffids!
I had hoped to see wombats as we were apparently in the perfect environment for them. We did see the rather cuboid wombat poo though, so they weren't too far away!!....
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