Crescent Bay and Mount Brown - 25th October 2008

Took Phil to do this walk today. When he originally proposed it, I quite wrongly poo-poohed it as a fairly dull doddle. I was recalling my walks from 20 years ago, when we used to walk from Safety Cove, obviously across the badly degraded private property now owned by Dick Smith et al, and then wander up Mt Brown at the far end of Crescent Bay. The return involved a quite awful (and environmentally degrading) slog back up the endless sand dune at the north end of Crescent Bay. I have a feeling walks in those days were more about which girl you were walking with than where you were going and what there was to see (at least sometimes). Anyway, the walk isn't too hard for the moderately fit walker, and if you skip the climb up Mt Brown, it really is a doddle. Even that is only about a 140m (steep) climb from the track. The view today back along the coast to Remarkable Cave from the cliffs on Mount Brown was quite impressive, as the photo shows.

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These days the walk properly starts from Remarkable Cave, and includes a lot of interesting features, as I noted a couple of months ago. I'll post a detailed walk description which will assist in pottering about the top of Mt Brown and the end of Standup Point. This photo is from the top of the sobering 170m cliff on the southern end of Mount Brown. Phil doesn't like heights, so instead of staying where I left him while I sat on the edge of the cliff to take photos, he wandered off. I finished taking photos, but there was no sign of Phil. You know, it was like in those movies where you can hear the wind blow, the sea break on the rocks far, far below, the gull calling mournfully. Of Phil there was no sign. You call, and your voice seems to be carried away on the wind. While I wondered how to explain Phil's presumably painless demise to Yvonne, he was off photographing the cliff somewhere else. Maybe he'll post that photo up for us to make my high blood pressure worthwhile.

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The coastal heath is quite spectacular right now, and if you can get down there and have a look at the flowers out between Remarkable Cave and Mount Brown. There are purple, yellow and white flowers out all over the place. You could spend a whole day just wandering amongst the heath and around the foreshore. The first part of the walk is a little undulating over old dunes, so for the less mobile this might be a bit challenging. The rocks along the shore are very interesting, and I'll post up a set of photos to show the features. This photo of a Mountain Dragon, (Tympanocryptis diemensis) shows how cleverly he camouflages himself on the ground.

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Highlights today were the views from the top of Mt Brown, a Fur Seal on the sloping rocks at Standup Point and the wildflowers. Phil startled two Tiger Snakes along the track, so it's worth being vigilant. They ran away from us, but later in the season they might be more aggressive. The cloud sat on Cape Pillar all day. Tasman Island became visible later on, but the higher parts of the Cape were still in cloud as we left.

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This walk features some very impressive opportunities to fall off high places, or INTO DARK and NASTY things. It's great. Phil was suitably impressed by the Maingon Blowhole, which is something you do not want to come across unexpectedly in the dark. If someone knows how deep it is, please let me know. The map suggests to me that it might be around 35 metres, but it's hard to tell where the contours run, and it didn't look that deep to me when I was logical about it. Phil thought it was deeper, but careful assessment of the cliffs on the sea-end of the gulch suggested it wasn't that deep. If you can bring yourself to look down into the blowhole, you can see that it is very narrow and very deep, and we've decided that you'd probably not survive the fall to worry about how to swim out of it. Good place for a (fictional) murder?! Maybe Phil should write a poem.

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Now, I have a few other sets of photos to put up, so bear with me as I bore you with the stuff I have gathered up.

Snow Gum page updated

I've added more photos to the Snow Gum page after revisiting the trees at the top of the Ice House Track and today's jaunt at Hartz Mountains.

Hartz Peak - 23 October 2008

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What better activity for Hobart Show Day than a bushwalk somewhere quite a long way from Elwick! The weather forecast was good, and with a dusting of snow on many peaks during the week, Hartz looked like a good idea for a half-day trip. When I started from the car park just before 8am, the sun was out in a blue sky with almost no cloud. However there was a chilly breeze which continued blowing throughout. The views were pretty good today, all the main peaks with snow on them. The walking was great today. Sunny and clear, the light snowfall had transformed the landscape without putting more than a dusting underfoot in most places, and generally the track was dry and clear.

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Many of the pandanni (Richea pandanifolia) had a plug of snow sitting in the crown of the leaves. Interesting sight. The leaves of these pandanni are very purple. At other times or in other places they range through various pink and red shades, in addition to the green.

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Mt Snowy makes a good alternative walk at the Hartz Mountains National Park. With this much snow around however, it would probably be a quite wet trip around the base of Hartz Peak. The best way to do Mt Snowy is as a circuit which includes a traverse up the long curving southern ridge of Hartz Peak. This provides good walking and extensive views. I will have to plan a Mt Snowy trip soon. Camping is quite possible at Emily Tarn. There is space for a few tents (not many), however the surrounding area does require care as it is quite fragile.

Mt Wellington - 11th October 2008

Superb Spring day in Hobart today, looks like it got to about 22 degrees. On the mountain there was a cool breeze across the summit plateau, but below there the sun shone bright and warm. The snow is almost all gone. I walked up the ZigZag Track and then across the plateau and down the Icehouse Track. The views were hazy and misty, especially towards the Huon where a fire is burning in Fourteen Turn Creek Rd near Grove.

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I find the weathering of the dolerite really quite interesting, and there are plenty of examples across the plateau.

Mt Direction - 4 October 2008

Typical Tasmanian spring weather today. Hot sun, drizzle, cold breezes, solid rain, more hot sun. Snow forecast for Monday I think. Went for a jaunt up Mt Direction, for the nice views, reasonable exercise and likelihood of minimal rain. Went well. The rain held off mainly, just a bit of drizzle here and there, but cold breezes at the top. Then I was in full sun on the descent, wondering where my sunhat was.

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Interestingly, on the descent in the middle of the day, there were wallabies in various places along the track. A couple were sitting beside the track quietly, and were placid enough to wait while I composed a photo. These are the Bennett's Wallaby, known elsewhere as the Red-Necked Wallaby, Macropus rufogriseus.

Tasmanian Snow Gum - Eucalyptus coccifera

The upper part of the Icehouse Track on Mt Wellington is dominated by the Tasmanian Snow Gums, (Eucalyptus coccifera). There are the burnt remains of solid, thick-trunked trees, some of which have sprouted thinner new branches. In the main they are small and slender trees, and I'm assuming the older trees were destroyed or badly damaged in the 1967 fires, and what we see there now is the extent of the regrowth over the last 41 years. E. coccifera grows to 35m in ideal sheltered sites, but may only be a shrub or stunted tree of 6-9m on the "highest and bleakest sites" (Forest Trees of Tasmania; Forest Resources [Boral Timber] 1995). The trees at the top of the Icehouse Track are obviously the latter.

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The leaves are 5-10cm x 1-2cm.

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The tips are crimson, and hooked.

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The buds are in groups of up to 7 in most sites, but in groups of up to only 3 on Mt Wellington, and up to 1cm x 0.4cm.

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The capsules are cup-shaped with a wide flat disc, up to around 1 x 1.2 cm.

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These are younger capsules, showing a deep red disc and green cup.

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Now, the Snow Gums on Mt Wellington appear to be distinct from those found elsewhere in Tasmania in terms of the maximum number of buds found in a group. On Mt Wellington, there are up to three, and this can be seen in looking at the specimens there. Elsewhere there can be up to seven. At Hartz Mountains, this is the case. These buds and capsules are from trees on the plateau.

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Bark of Snow Gum, Hartz Plateau.

Mt Wellington - 13th September 2008

With a forecast of 20° yesterday, a walk up Mt Wellington was in order. It did say something about strong winds as well, which turned out to be quite true. The walk yesterday was from the Springs, up the Icehouse Track, across the plateau to the summit. Then down the ZigZag Track, which was a bit icily exciting in places, and back to the Springs before extending the walk to Junction Cabin and back. The Icehouse Track climbs steeply to South Wellington from The Springs, and is named for the icehouse remains viewable in several places along its length. These were built in the 1880s to store compacted winter snow for subsequent transport into Hobart during warmer weather. (See more info.) There has been some more trackwork done since I last walked up here, with some substantial track widening undertaken. In addition, someone has also made an attempt to obscure and/or block the sidetracks to the icehouses. I'm not sure what the purpose of such an effort might be. The entry into the bottom of the lowest icehouse has been filled with cutting grass, and logs have been used as a vague sort of "track-closed" indicator/track obscurer at the top icehouse. In between but close to the lower icehouse, there's a track which may go to an old hut site, and this has also been obscured, although not very well. All a bit strange. Maybe someone intends to improve these sidetracks and remains. The lowest one could do with a bit of vegetation cleared if its actual construction is to be viewed easily. There are also two icehouses, known in 1970, which are hidden so well that I haven't yet found them.

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The walk across the plateau was livened up considerably by the accurately-forecast strong and gusty winds. These made standing upright a challenge at times - I'm sure the little tarns actually had white-caps on their surface. In the pinnacle carpark, without the wind-inhibiting friction of the plateau's boulders and low vegetation, I found that even the friction of my boots on the gravel was insufficient, and the wind was actually moving me slowly across the surface while I balanced myself against its pressure. Some smaller people were having a lot of trouble returning across the road from the viewing shelter to their vehicles. The maximum gust yesterday was 111 km/hr at 10:48am, a little short of the maximum earlier in the year (19th August) of 144 km/hr.

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The ZigZag Track still has quite a deal of snow and ice on it, and this made for a slower and more careful descent than would otherwise be required. When it's windy on the summit, the ZigZag Track is usually much more sheltered, even quite still, being in the steep bowl between the two main buttresses of the mountain. The views from here are very good over Hobart and beyond.

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