Gordon Dam Tasmania

Today’s adventures took us to the Gordon Dam located in the Southwest National Park and part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.

There is only one main road into this area to the hydroelectric township of Strathgordon. It was a beautiful drive through dense forest and open plains of button grass with rocky escarpments. We stopped at a few sights along the way. 

An interesting bit of sculpture…

The canal links Lake Gordon and Lake Pedder.

And a very old tree..

We reach the dam wall and manage a walk it in the drizzling rain. It was built in 1974 and is 198m long and 140m high and is only one of 9 in Australia that has double curvature design. It is also twice the height of the next highest arch dam (Tumut). It holds back 31 times the volume of Sydney Harbour, making it Australia’s largest lake. 

We have a quick look at the Serpentine Dam which is the spillway for Lake Pedder.

We follow the road out and stop at Teds Beach the only campsite here. The rain stopped and the sun came out so we had a look around.