Tasmania: Northern Central - Day 5

We woke to a misty cool morning and needed to wait for the sun to hit our grove to dry the swags and tents. It was my turn to see the canyon so I took my girls for the walk, Chardae in backpack. The sun eventually hit the camp around 9.30am but the clothes that had been washed last night were still not dry by 10.30am when we left camp.

Leaving Leven Canyon we attempted access to Loyetea via Alstergren Rd but found a thumping big ROAD CLOSED sign (the Hema maps note the road "sometimes closed"). Shame, as this would be a good shortcut and a good 4wd track by the looks of the warnings on the sign - as above it reads: "in the opinion of the Forestry Commission this road may be unsafe for vehicular traffic. People using this road do so at their own risk". That part of the sign indicated we could do it if we wished, but the fact that the Road Closed part of the sign was not permanent seemed to indicate that things were not at your own risk but indeed closed to all traffic.

Reluctantly, we had to backtrack all the way to Nietta and up to the Bass Highway. Our intentions were to reach the West Coast today, so we briefly took a look around Table Cape (Lighthouse) and Wynyard area then used Chris Boden's book to get back into Forestry areas to find a bush camp.

We took tracks down Calder Road and found a great, if not small, campsite by the river (the next day we found this was not the camp noted in Chris Boden's book but a little downstream of it, with ours being more secluded). The campsite lay alongside a small creek - just possible for swimming if you are keen.

My mother is not only a compulsive photographer, but a compulsive swimmer. Any time she sees a lake, river, or dam she cannot resist the temptation and even the cold waters of Tasmania could not deter her. She's quite a sight too - with a mask, snorkel and fins just to wade in the creek in the hope of sighting some kind of fish (yes, she scuba dives too and is an underwater photographer). Again, Leah was overjoyed at camping beside another river where she could throw stones and make "chocolate pudding" (strange concoctions of dirt, grass, berries and water in a cup) so for us it was an ideal campsite.

Dinner tonight was cooked on the Cobb again. This time, we had a whole split chicken marinated in green curry with rice and salad. No pudding, but boiled our washing up water, washed baby bottles and prepared boiled water for Chardae's bottles and coffee on the remaining heat from the heat beads.