Day trip to Strathgordon - Lake Pedder
- Carmen Friend
- Dec 29, 2017
- 2 min read
Leaving Richmond bright and early as it was a 2 hour drive into Strathgordon to check out the hydro dams – Gordon and also Serpentine. The road in is sealed and is completely tree lined. Mountains pop their heads out here and there along the way.
Strathgordon is amongst the Southwest National Park and boarders the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park – still amongst the protected UNESCO protected zone. This is a beautiful drive into the area. We had a 12 degree temperature drop from the main turnoff towards the park – from 27 to 15 degrees within 30 minutes!
Yes it was cold, misty, and the moody clouds swung around the mountains but it made it all the more dramatic. We arrived into Strathgordon or Lake Pedder per the signage. Unexpectedly there is a nice lodge which overlooks the lake here – formally the housing for those who worked on creating the dams.
Lake Pedder has 4 dams on it – Serpentine, Gordon, Edgar and Scots Peak. We went to Serpentine first spotting a fresh water crayfish trying to get some food off the surface. Then off to Gordon Dam – my oh my, it sure is high!
Gordon Dam you can climb down the stairs and if lucky enough can catch the venicular to the bottom of the dam wall (unfortunately we missed out on this). It was a steep and in some cases a scary climb down but it was worth it. As we climbed back up – that was a tough enough climb, there were some people coming down – one lady froze up and had a friend come back to help her go back up!
The dams were put in place for the Tasmanian Hydro. Lake Pedder was a natural lake before the dams being introduced - 1971 Serpentine and 1974 Gordon. The lake is the largest freshwater lake in Australia at 242 square kilometers.
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