We walked into Silver Lake and spent two nights at the expansive camping area at the northern end of the lake. The walk took us 4 hours on the way in, including a lunch break, and then later, an afternoon tea stop at Hut 5 (near Lake Antimony) where we chatted with a couple of older blokes who were going to be out bush for 4 weeks. On the way out, we took a little over 3 hours to do the return journey, with only a short stop for morning tea along the way at the junction with the track that goes to Lake Fanny.
The track was fairly vague in some places, and I was glad to be walking with Shazcol who had done the same walk only a few months ago. Even as it was, we went off the track in a few places, but at least we were able to quickly determine where we went wrong and find the track again without much trouble.
On the second day (Saturday), we did a leisurely stroll along the Pine River from where it enters Silver Lake, along the base of the Great Pine Tier, detouring to Ah Chees Lake, past Lakes Sally and Sonia, and stopping for lunch at Lake Solveig. We had initially thought we might go as far as Lake Ball (near Dixons Kingdom in the Walls of Jerusalem), but ended up fishing the river and lakes along the way, instead. No fish were caught all weekend, but we did see quite a few, and they were rising almost all day at Silver Lake.
This walk along the river and lakes was a fantastic stroll in the park. The weather was perfect - cool, but sunny and still, and the river and lakes were also clear and beautiful.
Shortly after our detour from the river to visit Ah Chees Lake, I found that the terrain looked a little different to what I was expecting from my earlier look at the map. So I got out the map again, and this time checked the compass too. "That can't possibly be North!" I said and immediately though that I shouldn't have said it out loud. Turns out that North was about 90° off where I thought it should be. Thankfully we were only about a hundred metres off the route I thought we should be on, but it was a good reminder to me to be more careful with navigation, and don't make assumptions.
- Arriving at the Silver Lake camp site (north end)
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- Silver Lake from the hill behind the camp site.
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- It was a full moon on the second night I think (or very close to it). This is on the first night, trying to get a picture a fish rising by moonlight, but although there were frequent rises over most of the lake, they refused to do it in the camera's field of view.
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- Saturday morning at Silver Lake.
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- Col fishing the Pine River, just north of Silver Lake.
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- Col nearly trod on this tiger snake as we were rounding Ah Chees Lake.
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- Cushion Plants near the Pine River
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- Col fishing by moonlight on Saturday night.
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). The first of this group of 4 was initially being harassed by about 6 currawongs, but the eagle didn't seem to be phased by it.
