So continuing the exciting saga we left Waterfall hut and trekked the twenty-five kilometres to New Pelion Hut. As if this was not tough enough I decided that we needed to pay a visit to the lovely Lake Wil... a decision for which I should have been promptly shot. Getting to the lake was a muddy nightmare, the one upshot was the possibility of seeing a platypus. Didn't happen. |  |
 | But we couldn't just leave after having reached the lake, we had to go to the falls at the other end of the lake for added adventure. Gosh, was that a bad decision. The mud got really deep, it was worse than Wales with the bonus of having lethal snakes around. When we got to the falls they were pretty puny and seemed hardly worth the sludge we trudged through to get there. On the way back I sank up to my hips in a quagmire, good fun. |
Ah, the open savannah. It was such a thrill to walk across these open plains. |  |
 | Look another wallaby, this one with his feet submerged below the Tasmanian muck. |
We crossed from savannah to the jungle and Pete got eaten alive by mosquitos. Don't feel bad for him though, he wears those shorts with pride (lord knows why). |  |
 | Arrival at New Pelion Hut. I swear the huts in Tassie were amazing, these things weren't huts, they were hotels! Brilliant facilities. |
Ah! Leeches, mosquitos, muck, mire, and snakes... just a few of the joys that go along with jungle trekking. |  |
 | Annoying as the drawbacks were, Russell Falls was simply stunning. It is amazing how you can be so close to what is clearly a large river and not even be aware of it until you reach a point where it falls. |
We had to have our moment of glory so we each took a photo in front of Ferguson Falls (the second waterfall side track we went off on). Again, this was unbelievable. The rocks I am standing on there are slick, and yes, if I had fallen I would have likely broken a dozen or so bones. Wouldn't that have made the rest of the trip exciting! |  |
 | This was taken by a school teacher at Kia Ora Hut to share the experience of eating with a bunch of Aussie school kids that were just learning the basics of cooking with petrol stoves (note the burst of flames in the foreground). |
Leech removal and washing up. At this point we both smelled pretty horrid so it seemed like washing up in the adjacent stream was a good idea. That is, it seemed like a good idea until the leeches started hooking on to our ankles. |  |
 | These were one man bridges that criss-crossed the pine valley rivers. Lots of swaying and bobbing about. |
It is a shame I jump to this photo because we are effectively jumping over two days on the trail. Unfortunately these were two days of pouring rain and I was not too keen on exposing my digital camera to this. Anyhow, this is the side of the motorway on the perimeter of Devonport where we got dropped off by the nice lady we had hitched a ride from. I tell the whole crazy story of how this happened in my log so go there if you are interested in reading all about it. |  |
 | While hanging out on the beach in Devonport we met a few more Tassie natives, real nice folk. We spent a good hour skipping stones with these two and chatting away. The girl, whose name is currently escaping me, has never been off of Tasmania and asked some very interesting questions when she discovered that Pete was from London and I was from L.A. The most interesting was "what sort of sea animals live at L.A.'s and London's beaches"? When Pete said, London doesn't have a beach, she went speechless. And while she didn't say it, it was obvious to us that the concept of not having a beach next to a city was a totally unimaginable concept to her. |
We went in search of penguins during our last evening on Tassie (my last in Australia) and went to this beach at sundown to see them as they waddled out of the sea to vomit up partially digested fish for their young. |  |
 | Flash photography was forbidden since it damages the penguins' eyes. All we could use were red cellophane covered flashlights and that is why this photo is so dark (it is the best of any from that evening though). Anyhow, in the centre of this photo is a penguin chick creeping out from the safety of its nest below the boardwalk to look for its mother. |
On the ferry on our way back we ran in to a bunch of the people we met while on the trail. Pete and I decided that sleeping was a rather silly idea since we would be heading into port at 5am and made to wake up at 4am. So we stayed up all night playing cards on the main deck with the Melbourne school group we had constantly run in to in the huts. |  |