SurferShane wrote:Did I forget to warn about the giant swells that lap the lake?
The surf does get fairly impressive at times. I took a trip up the Lake to start the OT approx 15 years ago. The waves were at least a metre high and the Lake was flooded to a similar height that was seen last month. This made the boat bounce around alarmingly and bash the very highest section of the Cynthia Bay Jetty dramatically.
Due to driver issues, our 9am trip was delayed 2 hours and when we fronted up at 11am, we were told there would be a further delay of 30 minutes waiting for a group of VIP visitors who were coming along for the ride.
The group turned out to be a bunch of government officials and camera club people with some American-sounding special guest. Once we got underway, progress up the lake was very slow as we battled the impressive waves. My guest and I were asked if we would mind stopping at Echo Point for a while on the way up so the other visitors could have a short break. They were not handling the rough conditions very well.
The high lake level meant the Echo Point jetty was completely underwater so we had to climb on and off at the bow where had tied up against a tree. This meant sidling carefully around the side of the boat. As we reboarded, I was following the special guest. Just as he bowed his head to go in the door, he leant backward and went straight into the deep water. Once we hauled him back in, the reaction of the other guests was extraordinary. They fussed over him in the back of the boat and started extracting massive amounts of camera equipment from the inside pockets on his jacket. They would cry out in excitement when they found the odd piece of equipment which had stayed dry. At one stage there was a suggestion that perhaps the 'walkers' (I guess that was us) may be happy to go from Echo Point to Narcissus via Cynthia Bay! Thankfully the driver squashed that idea very quickly and we proceeded up the lake and into the Narcissus River where we continued all the way up and tied up right in front of the hut.
Once we escaped the rest of the crowd, I had a chance to ask the boat driver about the grpup. Apparently the VIP guest was Galon Roul (spelling could be miles off) and he was a 'world-famous' wilderness photographer whose work regularly featured on the front cover of Readers Digest Magazine. I've not heard anything more about this since. At some stage I will dig back through my archives and look for my photos which may give a more accurate indication of the date and conditions (my memory may have caused some embelishment over time).
It was a great trip through the OT. I was guiding a German teenager who had walked extensively in the European Alps but was unsure about Tassie conditions. We did the trip in three days and my guest was amazed at the variety of weather extremes experienced. We encountered thunder storms with torrential rain, floods, deep snow, hail, gale forced winds and, incredibly, sunny blue sky.
