Down the Guts

We both had a bit of housekeeping to do after our stint ‘off-grid’. I needed to get some stitches out and we both needed to empty our bulging laundry baskets. Deloraine ticked both boxes, so we swung a right at Kimberley and headed south. Wasn’t hard to kill a couple of hours here – a very historic town to have a look at while the laundromat cleansed our sins. A lot of old money here, and this colonial era mansion is just one example.

Our destination was Little Pine Lagoon, another ‘specky’ listed in several publications. But first, yet another steep climb back up onto the central plateau. Interminable actually. By the time I reached that last crest, I was over it and welcomed a gradual and welcome descent to The Great Lake. Apart from the size, the shores were littered with outposts of 50’s style holiday shacks, ranging from the more salubrious to the ramshackle. These little places would be buzzing in the holidays.

Ken was somewhere behind me when I turned off the A6 onto what was very optimistically called the Marlborough Highway – a very wide dirt road(mostly). I was now in alpine heath country where snow would be a certainty for several months of the year. As it turned out, Little Pine Lagoon Campground had exactly two caravan sites at the very end of the only street in the hamlet. Did a quick set-up and had time for a poke around before Ken showed up. Although regarded as the best salmon fly fishing location in Tasmania, the place was deserted. Silent.

The night sky settled over us like a blanket, the Milky Way arcing between the horizons. With no reception of any kind, the camera usually comes out after sunset to capture the view and the colours.

‘Carpe momentum’. With photography, sometimes there are just moments, seconds, to react when you see ‘the shot’ unfold before your eyes. To capture this moment, I didn’t even have time to leave the van. It was early morning. The clouds were hurtling across the sky. I flung open the kitchen window, ready to snap, but, oh no, too late? I leaned out, cursing my luck. Then, only a few seconds later, a second chance, the sun streamed down and I was ready.

We were back on the road just after 8am. One of the golden rules of RV travelling is ‘go hard, go early’. There is only a two hour window, between 10am and noon, where your arrival gets you the pick of the spots. In between the departures from the day before, and the arrivals after lunch.

Despite confronting the odd timber jinker, usually on a hairpin corner(lol), the road passed through forests on a very gradual decline eventually bottoming out at a T-intersection with the Lyell Highway. Turn right, back towards Derwent Bridge, and beyond “there be dragons”. But we were headed to Brady’s Lake, just ten minutes to our left. Timing was perfect and we found ourselves lakeside and a fire that night to boot.