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Another magic day in the wilderness - albeit harder! Saturday 18 March

Cynthia Bay, south end of Lake St Clair

Woke to fog with no idea how the day would unfold weather-wise, but it was stunning - warm, not too warm, and with a 'strong breeze' which provided welcome relief during the day. Where were we? Lake St Clair, Australia's deepest freshwater lake, the headwaters of the mighty Derwent river, called Leewuleena 'Sleeping water' by the Tasmanian aboriginal people.
We set out to walk from Echo Point almost at the northern end of the lake to Cynthia Bay on the southern shore, a mere 10ks or 3-4 hours - they said!  Hmm .... of course it was longer than that at close to 12 Ks and it took us 6 hours (believe me every kilometre counts when you're not terribly fit!) - we walk slow, so much to ogle, but the 'path' was a tad more than the gentle undulations the Parks and wild life people promised. So with lots of ups and downs, scrambling over dense tangled tree roots and rocks and through sucking mud - we staggered into the visitors centre at 7pm totally 'bushed'. We'd left there on the ferry at noon!

Echo Point landing amongst the Leatherwood

Echo Point walkers hut

The ferry provides transport for people coming in from the Overland Track from Cradle mountain. Narcissus bay is where most finish the trek but some take an extra day and walk the rest of the way to Cynthia Bay stopping at the Echo Point walkers hut on the way. And that's where the ferry dropped us off.
We walked through rainforest with the usual suspects of Cheesewood, Stain wood, Sassafras, Celery Top pine and of course fragrant Leatherwood but here giant eucalypts joined the forest gallery and we walked by massive swamp gum/mountain ash. Ferns and bracken, colourful fungi (see below), tree ferns in frilly skirts, and fragrant patches of Leatherwood pumping out the delicious smell of honey - well that's what we reckoned! It was an every changing vista - almost.

Towering Swamp gum/Mountain Ash

Lindsay was my trailblazer! Clearing the path sometimes, setting the pace, helping me up and down 'nature's steps' that became increasingly hard (for me - but that's another story), handing me across streams and bogs - not that dramatic really particularly considering people walk a week on the Overland but ...... ... this is us!

Massive Man ferns - man bird watching in blue!

Boards and logs made some parts more passable

Only a couple of places we could actually get down to the edge of the lake but we walked with the constant sound of the slurping and slapping of waves breaking on the rocky shore which was littered right along with fallen giants.

Leatherwoods hanging low over
the last water crossing

It was a somewhat more challenging day than we expected but we're so glad we did it. It closed a bracket for us for the Overland track. Weeks ago we walked around Dove Lake which sits at the northern origin of the track near Cradle Mountain. Our days of attempting big challenging walks are well and truly gone but we can still dream a little by tackling the start and finish of them. We will be bracketing the great South Cape/Port Davey SW wilderness track before we leave Tassie or my name isn't .....? (we ended up only tackling the Port Davey end. A bit disappointing perhaps but you can't do everything!)

Pocking out of a fallen tree - Aurantiporus pulcherrimus (I think)

Ramaria - a coral fungus