Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Meredith Range



Mount Meredith
Recently I headed into the Meredith Range.  It was a quick 24 hour trip beginning at a quarry near the Corinna Road at 3pm and following a vehicular track over the Whyte River valley and onto the foothills.  Once the track petered out I followed the watershed between the tributaries of Post Office Creek to one side and Rocky River on the other.


Mount Livingstone

At 7:30pm I reached the first few granite slabs and pitched my tent on a flat one.  The scrub had been consistently mid thigh deep which made progress a little tiring.  After dinner I was treated to a spectacular sunset which bathed the range in a rapidly changing glorious glow.  My photos don't do it justice.  I felt privileged to be there!



In the morning I gave myself a couple of hours to climb toward the range crest.  Time constraints prevented me reaching the crest of the range so I settled for a cool granite peak with house-sized boulders surrounding a scubby summit basin.  As I stood on top the wind changed and a westerly sprung up which, if I was drinking coffee, would be threatening to blow the milk out of it.

Meredith granite
On the way back I reached the track just in time for heavy rain to set in.  It was very cool to have done all the scrub walking in the dry.  By 3pm I was back at my car and, for a change of scenery, I drove home via the 'Road to Nowhere' (aka Western Explorer).

I strongly recommend this walk for anyone who has a fairly good sense for off-track walking.  I'm looking forward to a longer trip next time.For more pics, check out my Facebook album here.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Lake St Clair


Morning mist retreating from Lake St Clair
After enjoying the Mt Ossa catch up with my Overland Track friends I decided to zip in to Narcissus to greet them.  An early start had me driving past the Liffey Valley lookout at sunrise.  After seeing The Hunter recently I took a few minutes out to go Thylacine hunting.  Sure enough, as I suspected the Thylacine prints 'discovered' by Willem Dafoe's were still there.  I thought I knew that spot!

Soon after 8am I set out along the Lake aiming to catch the group so I could join them for the ferry ride down the lake.  After walking various bits of the Overland Track several times I had never walked the bit from Narcissus to Echo Point.

Actually, that reminds me of the only previous time I had walked to Echo Point a couple of years ago.  A lovely German couple stayed with my family before walking the Overland Track.  They had planned their walk to the 'nth' degree and we agreed to pick them up from Cynthia Bay on their last day.

A day before our friends were due to finish my wife had a crazy idea which she shared over the phone Friday afternoon while I was still at work.  Much to my delight, with in-laws looking after our children, straight after work we headed south.  At 9pm we started walking by torch light along the lake.

At quarter past midnight we tip-toed onto the Echo Point beach right past our friends' tent, quietly cooked ourselves a midnight feast and settled in.  In the morning our friends were among the first to wake.  What a cool surprise it was when these hikers from the other side of the planet were greeted by a friendly welcome.  Breakky on the jetty was a social affair as we were introduced to several overseas walkers our friends had met along the track.
Echo Point Beach

Anyway, back to last year's walk.  I now know the track up the lake has a nasty sting in the tail when walking south to north.  Not far north of Echo Point there's a view over to Narcissus Bay where the jetty seems a hop step and a jump away over a button grass flat.  Just when I felt home and hosed the track turned away towards Byron Gap where it meets the Cuvier Valley Track in lovely open myrtle forest.

The trip down the lake was fun and as I wayed goodbye to my friends I decided a fun way to finish the trip would be to return home via the West Coast.  I stopped at Mt Arrowsmith and Donahys Hill before flagged down by an interstate family asking how far it was to Hobart as they were low on fuel.  Oh dear!
Frenchmans Cap from Donahys Hill

I offered to turn around and follow them back to Derwent Bridge in case they needed a lift to fetch a fuel can.  They made it just before closing.  After bidding farewell to them I ditched the West Coast plans and instead decided to visit the geographic centre of Tassie.  I have a mate into all things geospatial so I took some happy snaps of the monument for him.

Thankfully this crazy day trip had a happy ending.  It almost ended up ugly though.  I discovered my own fuel problem.  At Bronte Lagoon I had 100km to reach the nearest 24-hour fuel at Deloraine.  The trusty trip computer said I had 90km left in the tank!  The Marlborough and Highland Lakes Roads are not exacly the smoothest most fuel-efficient routes around.

There was a lot of coasting down hills and, at Pine Lake with 35km to go and 20km in the tank, I took even more drastic action.  After a test on a slight slope I discovered it was still possible to brake and steer with the engine completely off.  I had been nervous steering might lock or something.  The S-bends going down the front of the Great Western Tiers were quite an adventure while almost standing on the brake pedal and reefing on the steering wheel without the usual power assist.  I made it!

Check out my photos at Facebook:
Echo Point Beach Camp
Lake St Clair & the Centre of Tas

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Mount Ossa x2


In October last year a couple of colleagues were doing the Overland Track with Cradle Mountain Huts Walk.  I arranged to meet them for their 'Ossa Day' by doing a long return day walk from Arm River.  I had also arranged to do a day walk the following day with a young bloke relatively new to bush walking.

Soon after my friends hit the track, I called the young bloke to ask what kind of walk he would enjoy.  Lo and behold, he said he'd heard Ossa could be done as a day walk.  Well blow me down!  Righto.  I was in training for the Kentish Triple Top Mountain Run so I decided to give it a go.  80km, 2000m vertical ascent/descent over two days.  A perfect warm-up stroll.

On the first morning I left home at 5am and hit the track at 6:30.  I maintained a brisk pace heading in along the Arm River Track but once I met the commercial group things slowed pleasantly as we sauntered up to their lunch spot on the side of Mt Doris.  From there it was a glorious sunny afternoon scramble up to the crowded summit where several groups were enjoying the cloud-free views.

We left the top around 3pm and at 4:30pm I bade farewell to my friends at Pelion Gap as they headed south to their freshly baked goodies, fine food, wine, hot showers and comfy beds!  On the way out I struggled to maintain any kind of decent pace, taking a full 5 hours to reach the car.  Timing was good though.  I arrived at the saddle near Wurragarra Creek just in time for a fine sunset display on the west facing cliffs of Mount Pillinger.

Incidentally my friends had a pearler of a week with blue sky and sunshine for their entire 6 days...  in October!!!

After a short sleep back home I collected my friend at 5:30am and hit the track at 7.  By 1pm we had reached the summit where I was again treated to glorious blue skies in every direction.  Unlike the previous day's brief summit stop, this time we stayed for 90 minutes climbing dolerite pinnacles, taking photos and generally taking in the serenity.  Nice!  At 8pm as we arrived back at the car I was stoked at the distance and climb I had covered in the 2 days.

Facebook pics of Ossa Day 1
Facebook pics of Ossa Day 2

Postscript - At the Triple Top 2 weeks later I whopped my previous best by 20 minutes finishing in 24th place taking 2:46 to cover the 20km run over Mounts Claude, Vandyke and Roland.

Sunday, January 01, 2012

Mount Barrow


Oh my poor neglected  blog!  Where was I?  Joy Falls...  Hmmm...  That was back in September.  What was next?

When I was at Uni in Launceston, Mt Barrow was a regular haunt for walks, runs and bike rides.  It's been a while and when a friend was interested in a walk, I made the suggestion.

After a night camped at the picnic area below the mountain I decided upon an early morning jog to South Barrow and back.  I was trying to get fit for the Kentish Triple Top Mountain Run in November so this was a good opportunity to put some uphill kilometres under my belt.

Despite working in IT, technology is the last thing I want to see after hours.  I've always said I'm a map and compass man and that's the way I'll stay.  However, I've found the GPS capability of my phone is cool for tracking my runs.  Consequently I was proudly able to view my achievement as being 10.7kms with 500m elevation gain in 1h 13m 24s.  Cool!

Another cool aspect of the run was the ice.  Despite leaving after sunrise on a bright sunny morning, a whispy layer of cloud clung to the plateau.  Puddles were still sporting their intricate ice patterns.  At the transmission towers on South Barrow I was in for another icy treat.  Just as I arrived the sun burnt off the last of the cloud and instantly there was an almighty crash.

At first I thought a worker was wielding a giant tool but as the crashes continued I realised great showers of ice were tumbling off the towers onto the fenced off buildings below.  The signs warning of falling ice are not joking!  Chunks of ice over a metre long were tumbling off the support cables.

By 11am I was in Launie to collect my friend for a more conventional trip to the Barrow.  We drove to the summit car park and enjoyed a leisurely stroll to the summit.  A very civilised aluminium stair case had been installed since my last visit which made most of the altitude gain a 'walk in the park.'  A highlight of this walk was a fresh-looking circular star pattern on a rock which I assume is the result of ice shattering the dollerite (pictured above - for other pics go to my Facebook Page).