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exploring the suburbs (january 2024)
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Category Archives: landscape
south hobart & dynnyrne
In my other life, I’m preparing for the Point to Pinnacle walk to the summit of kunanyi/Mt wellington.
It’s a 21 km walk, which means I need to go out and walk a lot. Preferably up hills.
Last Saturday, I found myself in South Hobart so I took the opportunity to explore and climb hills. Well, one hill.
I only had my phone camera with me but I got some photo ideas as I made my way to Sandy Bay via Dynnyrne.
Macquarie Street
Macquarie Street
Macquarie Street
the outskirts part 1
50 in 50: week 5
Here are week 5’s photos of my 50mm challenge. 50 photos in 50 days using only my 50mm lens.
Scotts Peak Dam & Red Knoll Lookout
After leaving Gordon Dam we drove back along Gordon River Road to Scotts Peak Dam turnoff, about 53 km. We stopped at the Creepy Crawly Walk not far along the unsealed road.
Creepy Crawly Walk
Continuing along the road we passed Edgar Dam and Scotts Peak Dam at the eastern end of the lake.
View from Scotts Peak Road
I think this Edgar Pond
Scotts Peak Dam was built to dam the Huon River. At 43 metres high it’s only a baby compared to the Gordon Dam. Edgar Dam is even smaller, 17 metres. There’s no public access to either of these dams walls.
Passing the two dams, the road takes you to Red Knoll Lookout.
Scotts Peak
Looking back at the mountains
Scotts Peak Dam and mountains
Scotts Peak Dam
Phone panorama 1 at Red Knoll Lookout
Failed phone panorama. I like how the portrait image shows the layers of the landscape, almost like a core sample
Phone panorama 2 at Red Knoll Lookout
We weren’t there at a great time of day to take photos and I probably would have got better results shooting RAW.
This is a place you’d want to spend an entire day, from sunrise to sunset, watching the light changing and photographing the different moods of the rocks and the mountains. And probably more than one day because of the fog in some places and the clouds over the mountains.
It’s not the sort of place to visit once and say you’d seen it.
Gordon Dam
After leaving the Serpentine Dam we continued along Gordon Rover Road to the end of the road, where we came to the Gordon Dam.
Lake Gordon, created by the dam, was still shrouded in fog so it was impossible to see how big it was, but we could see the dam wall itself, which is pretty impressive.
Lake Gordon
Completed in 1974, it’s 140 metres high and is the highest arch dam and the largest storage dam in Australia.
The view from near the top of the steps
It’s curved both horizontally and vertically, which allowed them to use less concrete in construction, reducing the overall cost. The dual arch explains why it doesn’t look straight. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me!
View from the lookout. There are people walking along the wall.
Top of the dam wall
Gordon River side of the dam wall
Gordon River
Looking back up to the road
Serpentine Dam
The Serpentine Dam is part of Lake Pedder or, to use its technical name, the Huon Serpentine Impoundment. The dam was constructed in 1971 on the Serpentine River.
About two km west of Strathgordon, you pass the Lake Pedder lookout. This day, it was foggy and the lookout view was non-existent.
At Lake Pedder lookout
Good for silhouettes
Continuing along Gordon River Road for another seven km, you reach the turnoff to the Serpentine Dam. From there, it’s a short drive to the boat ramp.
The road to the dam seen from near the boat ramp
Lifting fog over Serpentine Dam
Fog over Serpentine Dam
Hillsides peeking through the fog
Mist emerging from mist
And from there, it’s another short drive to the dam wall.
Serpentine Dam
This is a concrete-faced rockfill dam, which is basically a compacted rock wall that is made waterproof by a thin layer of concrete on the upstream face (the left side in this picture). The wall is 41.5 metres high at its highest point and 134 metres long. It contains 114 000 cubic metres of rockfill.
The Sentinels
Along the Gordon River Road heading towards Lake Pedder is a spectacular range called The Sentinels. It’s a quartzite range about five km long and one km high and it would seem the most common reaction of people seeing it for the first time as they drive round the bend is, “Wow!”
That was certainly my reaction. This range took my breath away when I saw it from the road. Over the three days we were in the area we made several photo stops here, and here’s what we saw.
Day one—sunny, beautiful sky
Photos from the road to Strathgordon.
Day 1: From the road
Day 1: From the road
Day 1: From the road
Day two—started out foggy, mostly cleared up in the afternoon
Photos from a couple of roadside stops in the afternoon sun.
Day 2: From a convenient cutaway
Day 2: Zooming in
Day 2
Day 2: Looking up
Day 2: Zooming in
Day 2: In a different light
Day three—nothing to see here
Photos from a roadside stop on the way home in the fog.
Day 3: Over the road
Day 3: Misty
Day 3: Still misty
The Needles
The Needles is a short, medium-grade walk in Tasmania’s Southwest National Park.
Here are some photos from my recent visit to this stunning place. To read the full story that goes with them, you can visit my personal blog, Stepping on the Cracks.
straightlinesgirl images 