MOT Tour Day 40 - Lake St Clair

Lake St Clair from the boat
jetty at Cynthia Bay

Forty days and forty nights but intend to stay in the wilderness for a bit yet!

Despite the weather forecast not being particularly encouraging for today and a bloody site worse tomorrow, we just get on. Besides, a quick check of weather conditions over on the big island have us pretty happy we are here.

We had a visitor over breakfast. A bird I've not yet identified took a disliking to what it must have thought was a competitor and spent an hour issuing threats and pecking its opponent in the wing mirrors of the car and the big mirrors I strap on to the car door when we are towing. Poor wee birdie was beside himself.

We drove the short distance out to the National Park head quarters at Lake St Clair this morning and spent a fair while reading information and trying to decide whether walking was a good idea. The cold and the blustery wind pretty much made up our minds and then buggers staggering in from the Overland Track clarified the situation. There were signs everywhere warning us that Tiger Snakes are very active at the moment. 

Looking for encouragement, we found none. 

We have picked out a 5km walk we'll do, probably on Wednesday. The cruise of Lake St Clair might have to wait until then too. Advice from NP people is the lake isn't pleasant to be on in these conditions and anything you might normally see will be well hidden and away.

Regardless, we wandered about. Watched the boat come in from Narcissus and Echo Point, burdened by walkers who have done the long walk from Dove Lake/Cradle Mountain in the north. Various ages, all with big packs and none of them talking to each other. For a moment, I thought it was a challenge I could do sometime in the future ... and then I took my next breath.

Standing on Cynthia Bay, we could imagine it would be a very pleasant and welcoming place to be. It wasn't today.

Pumphouse Point - luxury and exclusiveness

From there we drove around to Pumphouse Point, where the shell of the building erected in the late 1930's and commissioned in 1940, still remains. Situated 270 metres out into Lake St Clair, it originally contained pumping equipment to take water from the lake and send it to St Clair Lagoon immediately behind it and then overland to Tarraleah Power Station, nearly 30kms to the south east. It was another Tassie Hydro scheme to generate power. However, the need to use this massive infrastructure never arose and Pumphouse Point was decommissioned in the 1990's without ever contributing to the hydro grid.

Today, its a premium, state of the art, 18 room exclusive hotel with fine dining, massage, boats for hire and guided bushwalking. Children are not allowed and you can only check in on two set days a week and there is a minimum stay of either two or three nights. $1,600 a night will secure your room. After a short discussion, Sue and I decided to stick with our digs. It was unclear whether they would have a parking spot for the van.

We did a short walk in the other direction to the marshes that lead to St Clair Lagoon. Very pretty once you get to the marshes and the lagoon beyond is a popular fishing spot.

The sticks: a improvised traction method?

Back on the pumphouse side of this narrow strip of land, the beach is very pebbly: small ones, all similar in size and shape and crystal structure. Clearly derived from the quartzite rock that is common here but unusually no sand. The water level is low at the moment and in the water, laying parallel to each other but all perpendicular to the beach, were straight lengths of branches. Most were as thick as the average man's arm - some smaller, some a little larger - and extending out into the water for maybe ten metres. It was obviously a man-made creation. This row extended for the length of the beach. When we returned to the NP office, I had a chat to one of their officers, who had no idea what they were until he remembered that all of the sand had been removed from the beach to make concrete for the infrastructure for dams in the area. My conjecture is that the sticks were laid there to provide traction for the vehicles removing the sand and or, to transport materials to the pumphouse. The NP officer said that water levels were currently low but were lower still before the lake was further flooded by Tassie Hydro. That would mean the sticks were originally placed on the sand. Sort of an improvised Bailey Bridge.

Click here for today's photos

That was enough of the wind and drizzle for today. We returned back to our wonderful digs for a late lunch and then a coffee across the car park: one of three commercial businesses in Derwent Bridge. 

By the way, the town name derives exactly from the bridge that crosses the upper reach of the Derwent River on the A10 road to Queenstown. The Derwent starts at Lake St Clair, less than 3 kms from the bridge. 

25mm expected tomorrow. We both have good books, but we also hope to visit the much vaunted, The Wall.