{"id":6425,"date":"2009-12-29T21:29:07","date_gmt":"2009-12-29T13:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/?p=6425"},"modified":"2026-09-06T23:40:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T15:40:02","slug":"overland-track-day-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/2009\/12\/29\/overland-track-day-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Overland Track Day 8: Narcissus to Cynthia Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Eucalypt
Eucalypt Forest and Mountains near the southern end of the Overland Track in Tasmania<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the last day of our hike on the Overland Track, we had two options: We could continue the hike for another 17.5 km, taking 5-6 hours, along the shores of Lake St Clair. Or we could catch a ferry ride across the lake to the Lake St Clair Visitor Centre at Cynthia Bay at the southern end of the lake. Most of us opted for the ferry after backpacking with full packs for 7 days. A few decided to leave their full packs with us on the ferry and do the final hike with day packs. <\/p>\n

\"Eucalypt
Eucalypt Forest and Mountains along Lake St Clair at the southern end of the Overland Track in Tasmania<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was a bit of a shock to arrive at the visitor centre and find busloads of lazy tourists looking to buy a cheeseburger at the cafeteria. It almost made my heart sink. There is something very liberating about being completely self-sufficient with everything you need on your back for a week in the wilderness, but when you arrive back in the commercial world, it can be a bit off-putting.<\/p>\n

\"Eucalypt
Eucalypt Forest and Mountains along Lake St Clair at the southern end of the Overland Track in Tasmania<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Eucalypt
Eucalypt Forest and Mountains along Lake St Clair at the southern end of the Overland Track in Tasmania<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While we saw plenty of evidence of nocturnal animal activity over the course of the hike, we didn’t see much out and about. Fortunately, we were treated to quite a few active critters on our last day, including a busy platypus at the Narcissus Jetty, a wombat near our final campsite, an echidna, as well as a wallaby.<\/p>\n

\"Platypus
Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) near Narcissus River mouth at Lake St Clair, Tasmania<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Common
Common Wombat (Vombatus ursinus) near Cynthia Bay at the southern end of the Overland Track in Tasmania<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Common
Common Wombat (Vombatus ursinus) near Cynthia Bay at the southern end of the Overland Track in Tasmania<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tasmanian
Tasmanian Pademelon (Thylogale billardierii) near Cynthia Bay at the southern end of the Overland Track in Tasmania<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Short-beaked
Short-beaked Echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) near Cynthia Bay at the southern end of the Overland Track in Tasmania<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Short-beaked
Short-beaked Echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) near Cynthia Bay at the southern end of the Overland Track in Tasmania<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Eucalypt
Eucalypt Forest and Mountains along Lake St Clair at the southern end of the Overland Track in Tasmania<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Pumphouse
Pumphouse Point on Lake St Clair at the southern end of the Overland Track in Tasmania<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the last day of our hike on the Overland Track, we had two options: We could continue the hike for another 17.5 km, taking 5-6 hours, along the shores of Lake St Clair. Or we could catch a ferry ride across the lake to the Lake St Clair Visitor Centre at Cynthia Bay at… Continue reading Overland Track Day 8: Narcissus to Cynthia Bay<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia","category-tasmania","without-featured-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3sHuW-1FD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6425"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7008,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6425\/revisions\/7008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/day.lat\/lon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}