Residents in Tasmania’s highlands woke up to thick ice this morning, with temperatures dropping below minus 12 in some places. The state's third coldest temperature ever was recorded in Liawenee. While the extreme conditions brought some challenges locals also enjoy the frosty landscape.
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00:00Ice on the roads, bushland frosted white, and lakes frozen solid.
00:09All signs of a very chilly night, with the air at Liweeny dropping to minus 12.9, a contender
00:16for the coldest temperature in Australia this year.
00:20The minus 12.9 is the third coldest event that we've seen recorded in Tasmania.
00:27It is also a July record for the Liweeny observation site.
00:32The extreme temperatures caused plumbing problems at the Great Lake Hotel, forcing it to close
00:38for the day.
00:40We came to work this morning and the ground staff had found that several of our water
00:44pipes had burst and of course we were shut, so we've had a series of water flows into
00:51some accommodation rooms.
00:53For owner James Johns, the cold snap is business as usual.
00:56For seven months of the year you're basically in either a state of it being cold or wet
01:02or snowy and it's just life and it's the reason why people come up to the Central Highlands,
01:08it's because it is, it's wild and it's woolly and it's a bit different.
01:15Down the road at Brandon near Liweeny, resident Linda Holstein has been loving the icy conditions.
01:22Getting up this morning, besides it being so cold, the view was spectacular but inside
01:28the lounge room I had hot air coming out of my mouth when I was talking.
01:32I guarantee it must have been about seven degrees in there.
01:35Living in this area isn't without its challenges during the cold months.
01:39I think one of the biggest things I had to learn at this time of the year, and I had
01:44to learn it the hard way, is you have to, every night you have to drain, turn your water
01:50off and drain all the pipes.
01:53I don't reckon today we'll get water at all.
01:55In the meantime she will stay cosy inside with the cold conditions hanging around for
02:00the week.
02:01I'm at the edge of Great Lake and as you can see behind me there's still thick ice on the
02:06water's edge showing no sign of melting any time soon and the Bureau of Meteorology says
02:11it could be just as cold tomorrow.