On the Road Distance 104km / 65km Elevation 1869m / 6132ft

Please watch Relive video here:https://www.relive.com/view/v4OGrPNG4mv

Rising early, we saw dozens of Wallabies bounding just outside our cabin and also the sounds of kookaburras.

A challenging day began with an easy warmup before steadily climbing into the the heart of Tasmania: the highlands with their ancient mountains and brooding lakes.

Most of today’s ride wound its way between open pastures, with grazing sheep and cattle, eventually leading into country largely dominated by forests.

A mostly flat warm-up of 14 kilometres took us back past the turnoff to Meadowbank and on to Ouse (pronounced “ooze!”), the last town we saw today.

Here the climbing began. The average gradient over the next 23 kms was 2.1% before a 4.7 km climb at 7.4% took us past the ex hydro village of Tarraleah.

A great descent followed before the last significant climb of the day: 4.2 kms through forest at 7%. On the plateau now, we enjoyed gently undulating riding for the rest of the day, with wonderful views across open buttongrass plains towards the mountains of Tasmania’s Southwest World Heritage Wilderness Area.

Our destination was Lake St Clair National Park where we had individual cabins with living room and fireplace, not fancy but very comfortable. I revived my first massage of the trip, Sarah our masseuse worked wonders to some sore muscles that had Beene building from the hiking tour and 2 challenging rides.

Lake St Clair
Lake St Clair is at the southern end of the world famous Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park and is part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. The Aboriginal people of the area called the lake Leeawuleena, meaning sleeping water.

Carved out by ice during several glaciations over the last two million years, this is the deepest freshwater lake in Australia (167 metres/ 547 feet) and the headwaters of the Derwent River.

Life is good at Lake St Clair…