Tas - Queenstown & Lake St Clair

---

Today we woke up to rain - yey! We took the tent down and drove to Strahan. Whilst i was getting ready, using the free showers again, Chris went and got some coffee’s and we had breakfast in the car! As the rain didn’t stop we left for Queenstown, 45 mins up the road. The roads around this area as very windy, in most places you can’t go faster than 35/40 km/h. It was a shame about the weather as you couldn’t see the scenery around, you could hardly see more than ½ mile in front of you.
Queenstown in a mining town, the copper mines are still running. We were hoping to do the underground mine tour but found out it was $88 each, bit pricey! This is also where the picturesque train journey ends from Strahan. We ended up in the museum here, a lovely old place, the building was an old hotel. There were loads of photos from the mining days, roads being built and the train track, cloths, equipment etc from the surrounding areas like Strahan, Zeehan etc. There was also a collection of precious stones. In the last room we sat down and watched a DVD about the history of the area. It was really good and informative, we learnt a lot about Queenstown and the whole West coast. It was well worth the $4 to get in!
When we left the weather still hadn’t eased off. The landscape here is very particular. Due to the mining, sulphur dioxide fumes was released into the air as well as the rivers from the burning of wood and separating the copper. As a result the lakes and rivers were poisoned and acid rain destroyed the vegetation, then washed away the layer of soil and clay leaving a very baron landscape. It will probably never recover.
We drove another 1hr30 to Lake St Clair, Chris was feeling quite tired and dizzy from the road and i felt quite sick! We arrived and looked into the walks, the rain had just about stopped, but the shortest one was 90 mins long. We didn’t want to risk getting soaked and on a day like today it was going to get dark quite early. By the time we got the tent up it was raining again! We also had a little visit from a family of Kookaburras! The camp kitchen was lovely and warm as a fire had been lit so we decided to stay there for the afternoon with our books - beats getting wet! A German girl introduced herself and said she was travelling with a friend, they had just done the same route as us around Tas and Oz - funny! When her friend got back Chris went for a walk with him to try and see the platypus’s here. Then we got talking to another couple called Simon and Fiona, they were from Fremantle. Had a really nice evening with them all.

---