We woke up on the second day to a beautiful blue sky, which lasted until the last day of the hike! After giving various soggy items of clothing some time to dry in the sun, we set out from the Waterfall Valley huts towards lake Windermere. This is a view from the hut of some low clouds over Barn Bluff in the morning.
After an hour or two, we came to a short side walk to Lake Will. Platforms are built to leave gear while doing any side walks, so we happily had a rest from our packs. Lake Will was a beautiful clear lake ringed with small pines, sandy beaches and mossy patches of wildflowers, with Barn Bluff looming overhead. We lay in the sun for a while and had lunch, before the short walk back to the main track.
From here, the track descended slowly through thickening scrub. The horizon was circled with faint mountain ranges, and little lakes were scattered invitingly everywhere!
The hut at Lake Windermere was much nicer than the previous nights accomodation, with a separate kitchen area. We met a few other hikers at the hut, who we got to know better over the rest of the walk. The world being the small place that it is, one of our group discovered that he worked in the same building as one of them, in Brisbane!
The lake was stunning as the last light hit the mountain peaks – this is when I took the top photo on this page as well as the one below. After the sun went down we took advantage of the clear skies to look at the stars which were brighter than I have seen them in a long time, before heading off for bed.
This is a Pademelon, a kind of smaller fatter wallaby, taken from the hut.
