The night was cold but the weather started to turn for the better. From Maydena we wanted to go see the Styx Tall Trees and the Styx River Walk. The map gave us a mere 18 kilometer drive. But as I mentioned in an earlier post: do your research. This drive is not for the faint hearted- or those with a city car.
Luckily our rental company once again did us a huge favor by giving us a Toyota Prado, same car we had had in Western Australia the year before. We knew it was sturdy and could take a few bumps. So we quite enjoyed the drive despite numerous pot holes. Come to think of it, the road was one big pot hole.
The trees are amazing! We took a short hike into the forest and already saw some massive tree trunks lying on the ground covered with moss right at the beginning of the walk.
And then you get to admire the living trees. You have to tilt your head all the way back to get a glimpse of their crown way up in the sky. Some of them stand taller than 90 meters and are over 500 years old, they measure more than 20 meters in the girth.
Right opposite from the Tree hike we went down to Styx River, the „lifeblood of the Styx forest […]. Its dark colour, not unlike black tea, is stained by the fields of button grass upstream.“ (Parks and Wildlife Services Tasmania)
Initially we had planned to enter the road further down from Maydena and wanted to loop back on again to the B62 to continue to Hobart. However, not until we reached the Styx Trees did we learn that this was not a through road. So we had to double back to Maydena and pass Mount Field again.
This gave us the chance to have coffee by the river at The Possum Shed Cafe and keep an eye out for platypuses. We did not see any but the coffee was excellent and we enjoyed some time in the sun.
Maydena is not far away from Hobart and since the sun was out when we reached the city we decided to give Mount Wellington another go. We had had some kind of a view on our first day in Hobart but today promised to be even better. So we drove up the mountain again and were not disappointed.
