After landing at Hobart airport in Tasmania, the first National Park we visited was Mount Field National Park, which offers a great number of walks (part of the so-called “60 Great Short Walks”).
Three Falls Track
We started nice and easy with Russel Falls, quite near to the Visitor Centre and then continued the Three Falls Track, covering Horseshoe Falls, Tall Trees and Lady Barron Falls. All together this was a 2 hour hike. As we visited late February – early March, most of the busy season is over, so we were fortunate to be alone at each of the falls. Also along the walk we encountered few fellow hikers.
When it comes to wildlife we saw a few pademelons, some of them quite close. You can’t go too close though, then they jump away. We also saw (and mostly heard!) many green rosellas for most part of the track, as if they followed us.
After returning to the Visitor Centre, we had lunch around the picnic area along the river, where we hoped to see a platypus, as we saw a note of someone seeing a platypus in that area around noon a few days before. Unfortunately we weren’t that lucky… On the other hand, we had a brand new friend keeping us company during lunch. Yep, a tiny pademelon was grazing only 3 meters from where we were, the whole time.
Pandani Grove extended to Eagle Tarn Track
After lunch, we headed out to the parking lot further down the park (a 15min drive – “Lake Dobson”). You can’t but start with the Pandani Grove, then we went up on the Urquhart track and continued to the Broad River Valley lookout (which isn’t really a lookout), then returned via the circuit around the Eagle Tarn lake, back to the parking lot. Including stops to spot platypus, this walk took us about 1 hour.
Again a relaxing walk, not crowded at all. Temperature was considerably lower here (we were at a slightly higher altitude compared to the first section), but still very nice. But – again – no platypus…
There’s a lot of other tracks you can take in this area of the park, some lasting for 8 to 9 hours. So plenty of choices if you want to spend more time here.
Other Countries we visited
Have a look at the other countries we ‘achievied’ to visit, and other Achievies…
