Tasmania Holiday March 2008

We spent the night in a 1-bedroom "chalet" (don't ask...) at Derwent Bridge, a few kilometres from the lake and departed early as we had a fair amount of driving to do that day. We were first heading North because we wanted to visit a decommissioned power station on the other side of the Central Highlands, and there were no roads directly across. Killed on the road was probably the only Spotted Quoll we will ever see - these small nocturnal, carnivorous creatures are virtually extinct on the mainland thanks to cats and foxes (which latter some malevolent idiot has recently introduced to Tasmania). The road skirts the shores of Great Lake and a number of lesser lakes and lagoons, whose levels were well down. These hydroelectric storages have been well stocked with trout, and judging by the number of holiday houses on their shores are very popular with anglers, but we found the surrounding desolate landscape of dead and twisted trees - appropriately called Barren Tier - most unnatractive. Waddamana "A" power station is maintained as a museum - the notice outside quaintly says it is "Open for Inspection" - but is rather off the beaten track, about 50km down a gravel road. In fact the solitary attendant was mildly surprised to see us. It was Tasmania's first major hydroelectric installation, and is situated in a deep valley below Penstock Lagoon, the last of the chain of feeder lakes on the Central Plateau that we had passed on the way. (Penstocks are the pipes feeding water down to the turbines.) It was finally closed in 1965, although the adjacent smaller Waddamana "B" station, built during the war, was retained for emergency use. At one time there was a small construction village at Waddamana, but all the residential buildings were dismantled and removed. The remaining larger buildings are now used as dormitory accommodation for school study groups. Walking through the doors is like entering a time machine, or climbing aboard the Mary Celeste. The power station is complete, and at first glance looks as if the workers have just walked off the job. Closer inspection reveals a few mannequins in the control room and the wood-panelled offices, dressed in contemporary clothing and staring at huge dials, bent over drawings or sitting at ancient teletype machines. There are lots of photo displays depicting the construction of the station and the early years of the settlement. These are interesting enough, but of course I went straight for the machinery. Waddamana "A" used nine Pelton-wheel turbines, each of many thousands of horsepower. This type of turbine directs a powerful jet of water, in this case from a height of 1,123 feet, at specially-shaped buckets - seen painted yellow in the cutaway turbine at left - to spin the attached alternators to generate electricity. The turbine speed control systems - necessary to maintain the frequency - were fascinating, as was the scale of the gigantic valves and the tools in the workshop used to maintain them. The huge external gate valves for controlling the flows can be seen through the window, the four penstocks (pipes) on the right hand side belonging to Waddamana "A". Amazingly, these pipes were made of wood - tapered staves assembled into a cylinder and bound with high-tensile steel wire to contain the enormous pressures. After a good look around the station we enjoyed a flask of morning coffee in the (electric!) barbecue shelter outside, complete with contemporary safety notices, before heading off South towards our second hydroelectric installation of the day. This is not one of the lusher parts of Afghanistan, but the Central Highlands of the clean, green, Apple Isle after ten years of drought, overgrazing and mismanagement of varying proportions. It is not at all what we expected to see. It was a relief to come down to the irrigation areas along the Derwent, where amongst other things Australia's finest hops are said to be grown. We saw several derelict oast houses (drying kilns) and associated infrastructure - apparently hops are no longer dried in the traditional way for brewing but turned into something called "hop extract" which is used to flavour commercial beer. Some of the more substantial oast houses have been turned into craft shops, markets etc. and a few even converted to dwellings, their distinctive architecture maintaining a nice link with local traditions. We also saw some fields of blackcurrants under irrigation, something new to us as Tasmania is the only place where this cool-climate fruit is grown, although I must say despite the irrigation the bushes looked to be suffering a bit from the hot weather. I can't recall ever seeing fresh blackcurrants for sale, perhaps they don't travel well or maybe the whole output is dedicated to Ribena - recently fined $192,000 after two schoolgirls tested the stuff for a science project and found that despite 55 years of lying claims, it contained no detectable Vitamin C... Passing the turnoff to Mt. Field National Park we drove through Maydena, where we were due to spend the night, heading towards Strathgordon. The Gordon River Road provides the only vehicular access to this vast wilderness area, and we soon entered the dense old-growth forest of the Upper Florentine region. We stopped at a lonely tent camp whose inhabitants were protesting the imminent logging of this magnificent forest - to be turned into woodchips like much of Tasmania already has been. Although nominally this is a World Heritage Area, Tasmanian governments have a history of finding legal loopholes, and the giant pulp mill to be built near Launceston will require millions of tons of forest timber. The protesters had dug in and barricaded a logging access road - no doubt with great manual labour, but pitifully inadequate against the bulldozers of the logging contractors - and set up a tent city behind. However their most effective means of protest, and certainly the one guaranteed to attract media coverage when the loggers moved in, was the presence high - very high - in the huge trees of platforms and tree-houses with resident 'human-shield' protesters. A system of cables and pulleys allowed people to be installed in the trees at a moments notice, as well as supplying the various needs of the platform residents. If all else fails, they can resort to 'spiking' random trees with large nails driven completely in out of sight, or even just announcing that they have done so. The nails can shatter sawblades in the mills, which is so dangerous that millworkers will refuse to process the timber rather than risk injury. The forest thinned as we climbed higher, and we paused for lunch - looks like peanut butter - at a delightful picnic spot alongside a shady stream, with craggy mountains towering above. The picnic shelter itself, and the associated toilet block, were built with brick pillars roofed over with multiple large concrete culvert pipes which had been cut in half, their rounded shape giving the structures a slightly incongruous Mediterranean look which Joc did not like very much. This was the only such structure we saw, and whoever was responsible for it had probably used up some leftover concrete pipes from the major engineering works along the Gordon River Road. Strathgordon is an unattractive ex-construction settlement, but does have an excellent view of the new Lake Pedder. The original much smaller lake, whose pink quartzite beach featured on nearly as many postcards as Cradle Mountain, was drowned in 1972 by a devious and corrupt Tasmanian government, in what has been called "the greatest act of environmental vandalism in Australia's history". The ensuing controversy bitterly divided the nation, with confrontation, violence and even suspected murder, and amongst other things resulted in the formation of the world's first Greens political party. However time heals all wounds - or most wounds - and many people, including Joc, prefer the new lake for its beauty and accessibility, its many islands and complex shoreline. About 20 km further on the road ends at the very impressive Gordon Dam, which despite its vast scale - there are two tourists on the parapet - is quite a delicate concrete structure designed on the 'eggshell' principle, i.e. curved in two planes. It is sited at what must be the perfect spot for a dam, where the Gordon River flowed through a very deep and narrow gorge - and since the gorge has been there for millions of years, it must be very hard rock as well. The hydroelectric power station is around the corner - and 140 metres underground, the water from Lake Gordon plunging down a huge vertical shaft to turn the three Francis turbines, each of 144 megawatts, which supply around 40% of Tasmania's electricity. The water level seemed quite low, at least 20 metres down, but whether from drought or normal Summer usage we couldn't tell - the information centre was closed. Lake Pedder is not directly used for hydroelectricity, but is used to 'top up' Lake Gordon, through a rather raw and ugly canal. Because of its 'World Heritage' status, changes in Lake Pedder's water level are kept to 1.5 metres, for aesthetic reasons. That is still a great deal of water. Alas the same can not be said of Lake Gordon, whose shoreline is littered with dead and drowned trees. It says something about the wasteful indifference of the government that they could not even be bothered to log this huge amount of valuable timber before flooding the valley. Just downstream of the dam, some Parks or Hydro workers seemed to be in the early stages of constructing a suspension bridge, not sure what for unless it is for tourism or bungee jumping as access to the other side is easy across the dam wall. You can see the amazingly deep and narrow gorge below. The sides of the gorge still have lots of the original access steps and machinery platforms used during the building, as well as various caves and access tunnels. In some there are lasers trained on the dam wall, ready to measure any minute movement whether from earth tremors or imminent failure, and transmit a message back to headquarters in Hobart. Steel ladders also give access to both edges of the dam wall, and abseilers are apparently allowed to descend the main face, whose curvature in the vertical plane can be seen below my shoes, as can some of the tunnel entrances. We made it back to Maydena, which is little more than a clearing in dense forest surrounded by mountains, before dark. We were staying on a small farmlet at the edge of town, and it was nice to say hello to their alpacas before settling in for the night. Next Page Index Page