A Sampler Tour of Tasmania. Day 8

The day started out badly when it started raining before I had a chance to get out of bed, not heavily but more misty. So, I hurriedly packed everything up but the rain got heavier just as I was packing up the tent, so it got pretty wet. When everything was in the car and the tent strapped to the roof racks, I had a very nice hot shower and changed into some dry clothes. I headed off towards Queenstown and had the occasional stop but the clouds and mist hid any view. In Queenstown I had a quick breakfast and started off towards Derwent Bridge and Lake St Clair, once again stopping to look at the view as the clouds had risen and the mountains looked pretty spectacular. 

I turned off the main road to go and have a look at the large dam when I got distracted by the scenery and the Paj started heading off the road and I ended up mowing down some low trees and bushes and coming to a stop beside the road and about 1 meter below the road level. 

It all happened relatively slowly and the air bags didn't go off and I was fine, but very pissed off. There was no mobile reception here so I gathered a few things together and started to walk back to Queenstown which was about 15 kms away. 

A couple of cars passed by as I tried to wave them down but after a couple of kms walking a kind fellow in a van stopped and gave me a lift back to Queenstown. There I rang up RACQ Insuance and they were able to organise with the local mechanic to have someone go out and get my car back on the road. We drove back out in an old Ford Maverick with a car trailer on the back and after several attempts we were finally able to get the Paj up and onto the road and put it on the trailer and take it slowly back to the garage. The mechanic gave it a good hose down to get rid of the mud and stray branches and put it over his pit to have a close look. Amazingly there was no mechanical damage and only the indicator light had popped out on the bull bar but it still worked, he pronounced it fit to continue traveling. I had some very late lunch in town and decided to stay in Queenstown for the evening, so went off and found the caravan and set up camp. As I now had some spare time I was able to catch up with some washing and repacking of the car. All things considered I was very, very lucky and will be concentrating much more closely on the road and less on the scenery from now on.