Our nice campsite became less so at 4am when bloody roosters decided to crow up a storm - why didn't anyone mention that on Wikicamps??

We headed into Mt Field NP. Here is some serious high country with some winter ski fields at their heart. We joined the throngs from the bus tours to walk to Russell and Horseshoe Falls. All this talk of waterfalls is starting to sound like Iceland! But they were excellent and as always, a good waterfall is worth a walk!

Getting to the centre of the park is not for the bus tours - thank goodness. The road is steep and narrow and very windy. We passed through the eucalypt forests at the bottom of the slopes, passed through dense mixed forests and then broke through the trees to bleak alpine heath. Red posts lining the road reached up to well over 2 metres, an indication of how deep the snow can get. We took a walk across a marshy heath with twisted snow gums and dense low growing heaths. Water lies around everywhere in shallow pools scoured out by past glacial activity.

At the end of the road, a large car-park held a few cars, though no doubt holds many more in snowy winters. Two lakes, Lake Dobson and Eagle Tarn are surrounded by, yes, you guessed it, a walk… This high up the plants are quite different with the strange Pandani plants gathered together in groves.

Before arriving in Hobart we wanted to see the huge lakes that were formed after the controversial damming of the Gordon and other Rivers many years ago. The protests at the time really changed the political landscape of Australia with a green consciousness seeping into the psyche of Australians.

We turned off the main road to Gordon Dam and onto the gravel towards Lake Pedder and the dam walls there. The size of the lake is staggering. A look at a map tells you that what you can see from any vantage point is, while expansive, only a small fraction of the area of the lake.

The hydro maintains a campsite that gets a good wrap so we found the site and settled in for the night. The site was terrific: toilet block, a really tidy and maintained site, fireplaces and free wood supplied! No sooner had we arrived than small wallabies crept out of the surrounding bush and grazed all around us. They were not tame - would not come too close and were easily startled - but they were certainly used to being around people. They all had little joeys peering out of their pouches. Of course we could not resist feeding them - they are OK with lettuce, like carrot, but really, really like apple!

Again we had the place to ourselves and despite the rain managed to get a great fire going and a BBQ for dinner.