The old track to Lake Pedder can still be found. The trailhead is just past the Sentinels on the Gordon River Road. The start is not obvious, but once you start heading up toward the correct saddle, the track shows up where you need it. The track descends and follows the Swampy Creek valley, then climbs up and terminates on the south-west end of the Coronets.
Bonnie’s Bucket and one of the tentacles of the current ‘Lake Pedder’. Pentax MX, Delta 100, Sep 2023.
We walked along the old Lake Pedder Track in September 2023 with a friend of mine, Samara. I convinced her that we should take a fifty year old A-frame canvas tent as our only shelter. With some reluctance, she agreed. We ended up having a rest day on the second day of the trip, the day intended for summiting the Coronets, due to some classic south-west weather blowing in. Most things that were inside the tent ended up a bit damp. Well okay, maybe some things got saturated. Samara was justifiably grumpy with me. And my ultimate punishment was that the film I shot came out water damaged.
But now as I look back at these photos, and reflect on the drowning of Lake Pedder in 1972, it seems like the film itself is weeping at the loss of Tasmania’s most beautiful lake.
Looking back at the Sentinels. Pentax MX, Delta 100, Sep 2023.
But I’d rather end on a quirky than a tragic note.
I found a can of beer while we were out there, a solid day’s walk from the road! It was a good old cascade lager, in a blue can. Best of all, it hadn’t been cracked. It was on the ridgeline of the Coronets. I stepped a few metres off track to take some photos and as I went to set up my tripod, there it was. A full can of beer on the ground. I had to rub my eyes to believe it.
Well I couldn’t quite leave the can there, and there was no way I would carry the can out in full, so the only sensible thing left to do was to drink it. It was a bit flat, but it tasted like beer. It tasted good.
-A.S. 7/9/24, Lenah Valley
‘Lake Pedder’ from the Coronets, exactly where the three and a half kilometre long quartzite beach rests beneath 15 metres of dark water. Terminal peak on RH. Pentax MX, Delta 100, Sept 2023.