Rainforest and Waterfalls

Today was extremely windy, so we visited Mount Field National Park which is mainly rainforest. It was raining by the time we got there, so we decided to take the short walk to the Russell Falls first.

You can continue up to the top of the falls, and on past a cataract to the Horseshoe Falls.

Although we were somewhat wet, we then drove to another short loop track to see the tall trees. This is a remnant forest of old Eucalyptus Regnans - known as Mountain Ash in Victoria and Swamp Gum in Tasmania - the tallest flowering tree in the world, and possibly the tallest growing tree, but the biggest ones were all chopped down.

The area was full of moss and tree ferns. We then decided that we wouldn’t get much wetter going on the longer track to Lady Barron Falls, and we were having a wonderful time, so we went through more large trees and tree ferns and moss to the falls and back.

Then we visited Lake Pedder - probably an icon of the conservation movement. Of course, now that it’s dammed it’s enormous, but it’s still in the middle of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage area.

On our way we saw some of the recent fires.