I didn't sleep well - the excitement or the anticipation of an early alarm played havoc with my sleep clock - so we finally stopped fighting it at 0430, had a cup of tea and I turned the alarm off. We still had loads of time to shower and have more tea and toast before leaving at 5.45am and even then we arrived before Phil.
having said our good-mornings we followed him back to the river bank where we left off last night - there had been a heavy dew overnight, the cool air over the warm river had formed a mist which was hovering over the surface and there was a chill in the air making it very atmospheric - and John wished he had brought his gloves.
The air was filled with the sound of wattlebirds feasting on flowering gum trees close by . It slowly warmed up as the sun rose - but watching the platypus returning to their burrows definitely took my mind off the coolness pervading in the air. As the light improved it was certainly easier to take photographs than last night. You definitely need an expert with you to help you pick up the signs of an approaching platypus - ripples and bubbles are the tell tale signs - but not necessarily in that order! Binoculars are a real help as you can watch them when then come up and just lie on the surface. The rules to good viewing were that you can move when they are diving but when they are on the surface, as they can see you, you have to stay still otherwise they become skittish and disappear. We had some great sightings and saw about 5 come back to their burrows - that said a couple came back then went out again ( forgotten something perhaps!) After some excellent sightings we went to the big pond we had walked round last night - as it takes the sun longer to reach the pool the platypi are often up later - and they were - we saw their burrows - these weren't on the waters edge but in a side ditch so they have to walk back as opposed to arrive underwater as the earlier ones had. We saw a male down one end of the pond and in the clear water at the other end we saw a female. As the water was clear and unaffected by the forestry induced tannins in the main river we could see flippers, tails and all in all had much clearer views. Without Phil we wouldn't have found them as by reading the signs on the bank edge he knew one was foraging below and low and behold it popped up!
Along with the platypus we also saw native hens, grey fantail, superb fairy wrens and dusky moorhens - all starting their days along the waterways.
After a brilliant two and a half hours plus we said our thanks to Phil who with his brothers and a friend had founded the park - we saw their commemorative plaque - and the lake is named after them Lake Hedditch. As they are not getting any younger they are about to hand over the management to the Parks Service - with a little trepidation I think - but we said the Tasmanian Parks we have been to are some of the best, with some of the best facilities that we have seen in all our travels - hopefully we reassured him.
We then decided we had to try the much recommended Anvers chocolate factory for breakfast - the good write ups were true - I had some of the best waffles with berries and yogurt - the portion looked enormous but they were really light and very manageable; John on the other had had a very substantial portion of scrambled egg, mushrooms and spinach. Refreshed we quickly headed back into Latrobe as John needed a new watch strap before heading off to our last national park - Narawntapau on the north coast - it took about 45minutes to get there. When we got out of the car it was sunny but breezy - and very pleasant for a walk. We decided to do the Springlawn walk via the birdhide, dunes large pools and open grassland ( this used to be farmland but is now parkland and in the evening home to the grazing wombats). It was a lovely walk and we saw cormorants, black swan, coots and unexpectedly John spotted kangaroos - we have only seen wallabies to date - these were forrester kangaroos (or eastern greys on the mainland). They were so much bigger and when one stood on his hind legs to look at us, as we passed closer to them on our return leg, he was taller than we were, so we have him a wide birth as he seemed to have the kangaroo equivalent of a 6 pack. We also spotted an echidna foraging in the grass who on spotting us tried to run into a small bush and hide - but unsuccessfully!
Back at the visitor centre I removed all the grass seeds from my socks and we viewed the exhibits before returning to Latrobe.
We had a short coffee stop in the town, including buying some fruit and salad for a light supper in our accommodation. Our early start meant we were both in need of a restful afternoon and evening - some of it catching up on our lost sleep.
Before going to bed I sorted out my photos and reflected on a day when we finally saw a really unique Australian animal which we never really believed we would ever see in the wild - but we have - and it was brilliant.