Overland Track - 15th to 21st April

Got back on Thursday evening from the Overland Track. Third time walking it properly from the start, and had the best weather of any of those trips. Lots of photos were taken, and I've put a selection from across the days and places in here. I met Sue and her friends Mark, Deb and Anne from Geelong. Sue runs this website with her husband Frank. I've bought their Food To Go e-book, because these people ate better than everyone else, particularly me. Sue's friend Deb seems to be the chief outdoor gourmet, and has lots of wonderful ideas for cooking nice things far from home. They also put out a guide to doing the Overland Track for people who have to work out the logistics - mainly I think this would be useful for people who are not from Tasmania and are not sure what to expect in getting to Cradle Mountain and walking the Overland Track for the first time. You can buy their two books together at a good discount.

The track has been improved (read: duckboarded) in many places since I last did it (2003 or 2004 I think) but other bits have also deteriorated. Frog Flats to Pelion and then just before Kia-Ora seemed most obvious to me as being worse, and the ranger confirmed that both these parts have suffered over the recent high season when it was both unusually wet for summer and the track had the usual very high summer traffic.

I note that despite the best efforts of everyone, people still manage to start (and generally, safely complete) this walk without fundamental items of equipment and little understanding of what they are going to find along the way.

I hadn't seen the Bert Nicholls Hut at Windy Ridge before. This has received mixed reviews. It's large and of a somewhat more complex design than other huts. They say it's a great summer hut, but too cold and impersonal in winter. I understand original complaints about the hut involved the inability of the old Windy Ridge coal stove to heat the cavernous kitchen/dining room area. This has been replaced by a wood heater, which didn't do a bad job, on an admittedly cool but non-freezing evening. Anyway, you'd have to see it for yourself - it's quite grandiose, and the other evening did a fine job of accommodating about 25 people for dinner. I didn't try out the bedrooms as I much prefer tenting for actual sleeping.

All in all, a great walk still, and the scenery and ambience remain wonderful. I managed to climb both Cradle Mountain and Mount Ossa, but was thwarted by mist and drizzle in my desire to climb Walled Mountain in the Labyrinth - another day for that one. I came out a day early rather than sit and watch the drizzle from the Pine Valley hut, eating the remains of my non-gourmet bushwalking diet.