A good many years ago, when
John Cleary was in the
Tasmanian Parliament, there was talk of building a road between the Huon and Derwent Valleys. It wasn't the first time, nor the last. There were already "roads" of sorts over the back of the Wellington Range, but they were mainly passable to trail bikes and 4WDs with good clearance. You can walk up Jeffreys Track for example, towards White Timber Mountain, but it would be very difficult in a 4-wheeled vehicle.
What they said they were looking for was a tourist link road to enable tourists to visit the Huon and then drive behind the Wellington Range into the Derwent Valley. I recently came across John Cleary's promotional pamphlet during a tidy-up. I've reproduced it here, so you can read what they intended.
You can see that one of the alternatives in Option 3 was a Judbury - Plenty Link. I think though, that the paragraph which reads "...any final decision will hinge on the Federal Minister's agreement for any route through the World Heritage Area" implies that the route across the corner of the Snowy Range was what they intended. I could point out that as well as linking two beautiful tourist destinations, it would also have linked the Huon/Weld forestry area with that in the Styx/Florentine very directly.
At the time, there was a deal of concern expressed that while the stated intention was to build a tourist road, the real intention was to build roads to enable greater extraction of trees. Of course, our politicians acted as if they were shocked that we could doubt their motives.
Now, what many people don't know is that the Judbury - Plenty alternative in Option 3 was built a good many years ago, but some years after the time of this pamphlet and attendant debate. It isn't actually drawn in on the map in the pamphlet, despite being canvassed in the text, and I'm not sure why. (As I wrote that, I became suspicious. Terrible isn't it?) Out past Judbury, there's a road heading up the hill. It has often had a locked gate on it, but must be receiving forestry traffic again now. The photo shows the sign saying the road is closed to traffic.
The road was built as part of the connection between the Weld/Huon/Picton, Southwood (Also see here and here.) and New Norfolk. There was talk that it cost $4m. I found out about it because a friend was engaged on surveying the route. It was built with almost no publicity, and initially was open to traffic. I drove over it once to Plenty. It was a very good quality road, well built, but for lengthy stretches was made with quite coarse gravel. I suspect it would have worried the tyres of small cars. It's only there for forestry operations, not tourism. Surprise, surprise.
Anyway, the road isn't shown in the roads in the data held at the List and presented on the net. It isn't shown in Google maps as a road. It is however clearly visible in the Google Maps Satellite view.
View Larger Map
All in all, I'd like to know how the government justifies spending millions of dollars building a road over a high range of hills, but doesn't make it available to benefit the tourism that was the original motive for such a road. The existence of the road has been carefully ignored by government, if not actively concealed, since it was built. A letter to the editor of The Mercury just a few years ago, demanding that such a road be built, stood uncorrected by government. It hasn't been included in official maps, and is closed to the public. In fact it's just part of your hidden subsidy to the forest industry, and you can't use it.
Great birthday walk to Nevada Peak today. Sunny with a cool breeze for most of the way. Nevada Peak is probably the best walk in the Huon, yet it is undertaken by very few people. Partly this is because the Snowy Range is not promoted much any more. In addition, the start of the track is hidden up obscure logging roads and is unmarked. If anyone would like to walk this track, I can provide instructions via email, on the understanding that these will not be promulgated.
The alpine plateau at Nevada Peak is very fragile. In fact, it's hard to get there without damaging the vegetation. This walk is not promoted at all by the NPWS. I've let people know about it, but I don't explain to people how to get there unless they contact me. There are actually quite a lot of people who know where the walk is, but the details don't seem to be clearly publicly available. If the area received a lot of visitors it would either become badly degraded or would need some extensive duckboarding and other track works.
The views of Snowy South from here are most spectacular, with the huge cliffs on its northwest side visible. The views across the upper of the Snowdrift Tarns is particularly good. In late autumn, the views north can be particularly attractive, with a lower sun lighting the hills and mountains very attractively. A walk further north to Wetpants Peak can be very rewarding at this time, but sufficient time must be left to complete the walk in daylight as winter approaches. The range is often covered in snow in winter.
Many of Southwest Tasmania's peaks are visible from here, with Mt Anne and Mt Weld being very prominent across the valley.
