Date: 10th February 2022
Travelled: 95 kms from Burnie to Lake Gairdner, Tasmania.
Visited: The Leven Valley Drive and Leven Gorge
Stayed: Lake Gairdner Camp, free, S41.48343, E146.05925ย
Budget: 13 days @ $0 per day.
We enjoyed a quiet evening in the free stop at Burnie, just the sound of waves breaking on the shore behind us. Pam has been Googling swimming pools and Burnie has a heated 50m so we have a coffee and head to the pool. At $2.50pp for seniors a bargain.
Pamโs happy as she can spend 20 minutes in the shower washing and conditioning her hair. We head to downtown Burnie only to find parking meters everywhere so we give that a miss and find a Woolworths a few kms up the hill.
Our plan is to return to Cradle Mountain for another walk tomorrow, but rather than just drive down the B18 we decide to follow our guide books tour through the Leven Valley.
We lunch at the JK Lee Memorial Park
Its a rambling drive through beautiful farmlands. It seems very isolated country, we pass through numerous little villages with no services. In fact during the whole drive we only pass one shop an IGA come servo.
A quick unplanned stop at Preston Falls.
Back on the road we continue on to Leven Gorge. It really is the end of the line, thereโs nothing south of here but the Black Buff Range.
The viewing points circuit is just over 2.2kms long but it rises 137m from the lowest to the highest vantage point. This involves 697 steps in a single flight. My legs get sore again just typing this. The walk and views are worth the effort.
Back in the Jayco a little exhausted after a long day, we make for Lake Gairdner. Not as easy as it sounds unfortunately we need to backtrack some 10 kms before crossing over to Wilmot Road before making our way south to the free stop on the edge of the lake.
Michael + Pam
