There were many options for hiking around the Lake St Clair area. We chose an 18km hike around Shadow Lake and up Little Hugel.The park staff had recommended we stick to a shorter lake circuit as there was a wind warning (gusting up to 90km/h), and the trail approaching the summit involved scrambling.Maybe that’s why we had the trail pretty much to ourselves. This is temperature rainforestand we found some really big trees (and enough moss and ferns to make us feel quite at home).The scramble turned out to be a really fun semi-bouldering experience that was well protected from the northerly wind.These guys were also enjoying the sunny boulders on the lee side.Little Hugel summitLooking southeast: Forgotten Lake closest, then Shadow Lake, and Lake St Clair way in the back right.Looking north: Mount Olympus North (right), Mount Byron (center), and Mount Manfred (right)Looking west: Sauruman, about to bring down the mountainWe had just sat down on the summit to eat our celebratory chocolate when a couple eagle-sized birds flew over. We believe they were Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagles, of which there are only 300 breeding pairs left in Tasmania!Having started late, and dawdled on our way out,
… we hiked the last 6km back in at record speed to avoid losing daylight. We were almost in time to avoid the rain.
We stopped in the cafe for passionfruit ice cream and watched the downpour, happy to have the Palace already set up and waiting for us.The smoke was palpable here this evening. It was bizarre to have both smoke and downpour, and I hope some of the rain landed where it is badly needed!Flis was dealing with some GI issues, which meant Alice the hippo ate 3/4 of our pasta dinner that would’ve reasonably served three people.
The forecast is for snow (!?) here shortly, as well as rain and wind, and there are no services between here and Queenstown, which is a solid day’s ride away, so tomorrow might be a slog.
BC by Cycle 
Wow! That* energy despite having a stomach that is not happy and yet trudging along…not hindered by slower moving campers?
Kudos for that bicycling interest that powers you & your mighty legs to reach these amazing places!
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