The next day steeped in culture and with the scent of rainforest lingering in our nostrils we departed Strahan. Truly there was no reason to stay and the place was becoming less like a tourist attraction and more like a haunt for serial killers with every passing hour.
So off we went my companion and I plus a tour leader and various hangers on. Our first stop was Queenstown which completely failed to alter the latent serial killer vibe that was starting to permeate everything.
We had breakfast at a cafe attached to Queenstown railway station.
“Aha!” I hear you cry, “So Queenstown has a railway service.”
Well yes and no. Slightly yes but mainly no. What it has is a heritage railway run as a tourist attraction. Technically it connects Queenstown with Strahan but the last time I caught it the train stopped halfway and returned to its point of origin. Not that I’m complaining about not visiting Queenstown.
We finished breakfast and fled Queenstown as quickly as we decently could. Behind the wails of souls damned to walk its treeless streets clawed at our sanity.
Which is probably why we stopped at Lake St Clair. It is virtually impossible to travel to Tasmania and not stop at Lake St Clair. Certainly there is a very pretty lake there and it’s also the terminus of the Overland Track.
The Overland Track starts at Cradle Mountain and finishes at Lake St Clair. Hikers whose fitness and enthusiasm are sadly not matched by their sanity or good judgment launch themselves into the alpine wilderness and usually emerge at Lake St Clair where they call a bus to take them home. I say “usually emerge” because sometimes they don’t emerge at all. Finding the unfortunate victims bodies is difficult because Tasmanian devils have very powerful jaws and even more powerful digestions.
On that cheery note we dined on pizza by the lake and looked out for the snakes that warning signs promised us were stacked ten deep on the most popular trails. We didn’t see any and slunk back to our minibus to look at some carved wood.
At least some of the CoRS looked at carved wood. I had seen the carved wood the last time I was in Tasmania and had no desire to see it again. Other CoRS came out with words of praise for the carved wood and the Pilates instructor berated me as she had followed my example and not looked at the wood. Instead she had spent most of her time watching one of our number flee squealing pursued by a bumblebee. Possibly the least menacing predator known to man. As for me I was still getting over the shock of someone making decisions based on my opinions.
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