Tasmania Trip - Day 23

Day 23 - 16/2/2014 – Huonville to Dover

After a windy and rainy night it was a fantastic morning so we took our time to get moving. We wanted to let the camper dry off a bit before we packed up. It dumped 35mm of rain over night so the ground was a little bit soggy under foot packing up. While things dried out and the gas bottle got filled, it gave us a bit of a chance to take some photos of the camp grounds.

See if you can spot Jodie beside the Gum. They were massive!

The smoko stop was actually in Huonville!!! We were really moving slow today.

Next stop was Hastings Caves. After grabbing a quick lunch it was straight onto the tour of the caves. The caves are a constant 9deg all year round. It wasn't a lot warmer outside the cave either!!!

After the cave tour we kept heading south to Cockle Creek. The road to Cockle Creek is the most southern road in Australia.

Bridge into Cockle Creek

Unfortunately it was too cold and windy and we didn't have time to do the walk to South East Cape which is Australia’s most southerly point, (excluding Macquire Island and Pedra Branca). With the chill of the wind, you could totally understand that we were closer to Antarctica than Cairns! We would have given nearly anything for a warm tropical breeze at that point!!!

Leaving Cockle Creek. Click the photo to get a bigger version.

Initially we were going to camp at Cockle Creek but because we didn't arrive until about 3pm, all of the sites in the National Park where we could have fitted were already taken. There were some sites left in the free camp area on the north side of the bridge that heads into Cockle Creek,  but the ground was too uneven and boggy from the rain the night before. Previous campers had also dug drainage trenches around their camps so there were just ruts and potholes everywhere. So we decided to make a bit of a head start on tomorrows leg and pushed on to Dover.