Choose a diary entry31/03/2004 - Retrenched! 02/04/2004 - Farewell Lunch 03/04/2004 - Preparation 1 04/04/2004 - Preparation 2 05/04/2004 - Packing 06/04/2004 - Sydney to Hobart to Mt. Field NP 07/04/2004 - Tarn Shelf, then into the Southwest 08/04/2004 - Western Arthurs Hike - Day 1 - Up Alpha Moraine 09/04/2004 - Western Arthurs Hike - Day 2 - Lake Cygnus 10/04/2004 - Western Arthurs Hike - Day 3 - Lake Oberon & Square Lake 11/04/2004 - Western Arthurs Hike - Day 4 - Lake Oberon to Lake Cygnus 12/04/2004 - Western Arthurs Hike - Day 5 - Lake Cygnus to Junction Creek 13/04/2004 - Western Arthurs Hike - Day 6 - out to Mt Field NP 14/04/2004 - Back to Hobart for resupply and on to Southport 15/04/2004 - Southport, Hastings springs, Cockle Creek 16/04/2004 - South Coast Track - Day 1 - Cockle Creek to South Cape Rivulet 17/04/2004 - South Coast Track - Day 2 - South Cape Rivulet 18/04/2004 - South Coast Track - Day 3 - back to Cockle Creek, then Hobart 19/04/2004 - Hobart to Lake St. Clair 20/04/2004 - Frenchmans Cap Hike - Day 1 - to Vera Hut 21/04/2004 - Frenchmans Cap Hike - Day 2 - Tahune Hut and the Summit 22/04/2004 - Frenchmans Cap Hike - Day 3 - Tahune Hut to Vera Hut 23/04/2004 - Frenchmans Cap Hike - Day 4 - out to Derwent Bridge 24/04/2004 - Derwent Bridge / Lake St. Clair to Hobart 25/04/2004 - R&R in Hobart 26/04/2004 - Hobart, buying a new Camera 27/04/2004 - Hobart to Port Arthur 28/04/2004 - Port Arthur Historic site, then to Fortescue Bay 29/04/2004 - Tasman Trail Hike - Fortescue Bay to Eaglehawk Neck 30/04/2004 - Eaglehawk Neck to Hobart, Targa 01/05/2004 - Hobart R&R, Salamanca Markets 02/05/2004 - Tiger Trails Tarkine Hike - Day 1 - to Wombat Flat 03/05/2004 - Tiger Trails Tarkine Hike - Day 2 - to Mt. Ramsay 04/05/2004 - Tiger Trails Tarkine Hike - Day 3 - Mt. Ramsay to Huskisson River 05/05/2004 - Tiger Trails Tarkine Hike - Day 4 - Camped at Huskisson River 06/05/2004 - Tiger Trails Tarkine Hike - Day 5 - Across the Huskisson 07/05/2004 - Tiger Trails Tarkine Hike - Day 6 - Out, then to Strahan 08/05/2004 - R&R in Strahan 09/05/2004 - Dissapointing Gordon River Cruise 10/05/2004 - Strahan, R&R, Preparation for Overland Track 11/05/2004 - Strahan to Lake St. Clair 12/05/2004 - Overland Track - Day 1 - Lake St. Clair to Pine Valley Hut 13/05/2004 - Overland Track - Day 2 - the Labyrinth and Acropolis 14/05/2004 - Overland Track - Day 3 - Pine Valley Hut to Kia-Ora Hut 15/05/2004 - Overland Track - Day 4 - Kia-Ora Hut to Mt. Ossa to Pelion Hut 16/05/2004 - Overland Track - Day 5 - Pelion Hut to Windermere Hut 17/05/2004 - Overland Track - Day 6 - Windamere Hut to Cradle Mountain Village 18/05/2004 - Sick!, Cradle Mountain to Launceston 19/05/2004 - Recovery 1 20/05/2004 - Recovery 2 - Doctor, and Cataract Gorge 21/05/2004 - Recovery 3 22/05/2004 - Recovery 4 23/05/2004 - Recovery 5 24/05/2004 - Launceston to Bicheno 25/05/2004 - Freycinet Hike - Day 1 - the Hazards to Cooks Beach 26/05/2004 - Freycinet Hike - Day 2 - back to Bicheno 27/05/2004 - Exploring Bicheno 28/05/2004 - Bicheno to Launceston 29/05/2004 - Exploring Further in Launcestion 30/05/2004 - Cataract Gorge 2 31/05/2004 - Launceston to Liffey Falls to Deloraine 01/06/2004 - Trowunna, Devils Gullet, Walls of Jerusalem National Park 02/06/2004 - Walls of Jerusalem Hike - Day 1 03/06/2004 - Walls of Jerusalem - Day 2 - Out, then to Hobart 04/06/2004 - Mt. Field NP, Styx Valley & on to Triabunna 05/06/2004 - Maria Island - Day 1 06/06/2004 - Maria Island - Day 2 07/06/2004 - R&R in Launceston 08/06/2004 - Flying Back Home

Tasmania Diary

 

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Monday, May 31, 2004

Launceston to Liffey Falls to Deloraine

Over the last couple of days, I'd tried contactin Zinta to organise the Walls of Jerusalem with her, without success. I decided to just go ahead and hire a car, and prepare for the trip. I rang a couple of car hire places, and settled on one near the hostel for $30 per day for an older blue laser. (Interestingly, it looked just like Gaye's car)

I decided to go out to Liffey and check out the falls, which would already be going against the insurance conditions, as it says not to go on unsealed roads, but thats pretty hard in tassie. The drive to Liffey was through farming pastures and was pretty, as far as rural areas go.
As I neared Liffey, which is not really a town, just a locality, I could see the bluffs of the Great Western Tiers rising up above the farmland. Soon, Dry's Bluff was visible, it's top wreathed in cloud, and below it, Bob Brown's house standing out on the hillside. The road turned to gravel, and I drove slowly and very carefully as I didn't want to have an accident where insurance would be void. The road plunged into eucalypt forest, and then, after a while, rainforest, and the World Heritage area.

After getting to the falls carpark, I set off down the hill to the falls. Travelling through lush cool rainforest with lots of treeferns, I soon came to the first cascade, which was very pretty. I almost lost the car key as it slipped out of my pocket I'd forgotten to zip. The second cascade consisted of a chute through which the water was being funnelled before shooting out over the falls. After another short distance, I came the third set of falls which are the ones called Liffey Falls. They are very beautiful and are in a beautiful and tranquil rainforest setting.

I decided to follow the track to the lower carpark, and found that it is also quite beautiful. It follows the Liffey river through rainforest, then bushland, with occasional views of the rocky bluffs of the Tiers. I returned the way I'd come, back to Liffey falls, then back to the car. There is a big eucalypt near the carpark, but at 50m, it is not as big as the ones I saw in the Tarkine.

Leaving the Falls, I drove out to the A5 highway, and followed it to Deloraine, driving past Quamby Bluff - a big, impressive rocky mountain which was once part of the Tiers. At Deloraine, I went to the supermarket to buy some food for the hike, and for meals till then, and checked into the YHA hostel. It has good views of the Great Western Tiers, and Quamby Bluff. I was the only one there, and apparently was the first person for a few days. I had dinner (burritos), and sat in front of the fireplace, leafing through the collection of national geographic magazines, most of which were interesting because they were quite old. (several were older than me)

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Tuesday, June 01, 2004

Trowunna, Devils Gullet, Walls of Jerusalem National Park

(First day of Winter)
I awoke to discover that the Great Western Tiers had dissappeared into the bad weather that had come in. It wasn't yet raining, but looked like it would. The paper said it was bad weather for the next three days, with snow to low levels on Wednesday and Thursday. It didn't sound good for the hike, but I'd planned to go to the nearby Trowunna Wildlife park to see a Tassie devil anyway, so I headed off that way. Part way there, it started raining. When I arrived, it was raining heavily, so I sat in the car, deciding what to do, and after a while, the rain eased a little, so I got out my rain gear and went into the entry building. While I was paying, the rain stopped, which was nice.

I wandered around for a little while looking at some orphaned wallabies and wombats, and some free range kangaroos and wallabies. I then checked out the Tassie Devils. They were smaller than I'd imagined, only a little bigger than a possum. While I watched, they trotted around their enclosure with a stiff legged gait, and at one point chased one another whilst making their distinctive growl/whine/squeal.

A tour was scheduled for 11:00, so I tagged along with the rest - a bunch of Japanese tourists. First we checked out the koalas, which were cute and soft. Then we were shown a young wombat orphan which was pretty heavy even though it wasn't fully grown yet. Finally the keeper showed us the devils up close, and we all made sure to keep away from the jaws. He then gave the devils a piece of wallaby meat, and two of them proceeded to have a very long tug of war over one piece, whilst snarling at each other. After that, they all settled down to eating, and you could hear the crunching of bones as they ate.

After the guide left, I had a look in the nocturnal house, then the bird cages, where they had some injured birds of prey, including the truly massive Wedge Tail Eagle. There was a dam which was home to lots of waterbirds, and one black swan came right up to me (probably looking for food). After wandering around for a while longer, checking out the quolls,and more devils, I left, and headed toward Mole Creek, as I now had a good view of the Tiers after the passing of the rain.

I got some lunch at the small village of Mole Creek, then continued on toward the lookout of Devils Gullet, which is on the plateau of the Tiers, overlooking the Fisher valley. Going onto gravel again, the road wound its way up and up into the Tiers, and near the top, there were amazing views from the road, which was distracting whilst driving. I eventually reached the carpark, which is on an alpine plateau with low vegetation.

A track headed off into a sparse snowgum area, and after about 10 minutes, came to the lookout. Upon nearing the lookout, I could hear a whooshing sound like a waterfall, but soon found it was wind blasting through the metal structure of the lookout platform. The view was awesome - there were rocky crags, a huge valley, and in the distance, the peaks of the Cradle Mountain - Lake St. Clair National Park. The wind was absolutely icy. Looking down the cliff face, my eyes watered in only a second or so. Taking photos, my hands were almost numb after only a minute. Back a little from the cliff edge was a little warmer, but not much.

My hands returned to their normal temperature after using my body heat on them all the way back to the car. The area near the carpark was pretty bleak, and would be very bleak indeed with snow. I drove back to the bitumen road, and continued toward the Walls of Jerusalem. I passed a hydro dam, with a fairly pretty lake (Lake Parangana), then continuing up the Mersey River, came to a little park, which was on the river and was apparently used by whitewater kayakers, since there were gates set up over the river, and signs saying the river levels could change suddenly. (It was low when I was there)

The road changed to gravel again, and passed the Lake Rowallan dam. I stopped by the lake, as it was one of the most ugly and tragic lakes I've seen. The lake was down in level, revealing bare dirt and rock down the banks, and there were thousands of dead drowned trees sticking up through the water. I drove on a short way, and came to the carpark of the Walls. I pitched my tent as it sprinkled rain, bending several pegs in the rock hard dirt. I had some burritos again for dinner then went to sleep early.

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Wednesday, June 02, 2004

Walls of Jerusalem Hike - Day 1

When I woke, it was sprinkling rain, and didn't look good for the hike. I decided that since I could clime to the plateau in about an hour, that I would go up, and check out the conditions, and if there were no views, and bad weather, then I'd just come back down. I packed my gear and set off about 8:30.

The climb up the mountain was fairly long, but not too steep, and after about an hour, I reached Trappers Hut, which is a "rustic" heritage hut, which would be good in really foul weather, but was just split timber with a shingle roof, and a little damp. As I climbed, it stopped raining, and although the nearby mountains had been shrouded in low cloud, as I reached the plateau, I could see it had lifted a fair bit, and I could see a nearby tarn.


The track split with the Lake Adelaide track, and continued on through sparse snowgum, and low alpine plants, with many beautiful tarns. Crossing several streams, and travelling past many tarns, the track was mostly flat, and after a while the cliffs of Herods Gate came into view. I could now see why it was called a gate - it was a narrow gap between two mountains. Just before the gate, the track descended to cross a creek, then passed the Wild Dog Creek campsite as I climbed to the gate.

As I neared the narrowest part of the gate, the wind became very strong, starting to blow me around a little, and was very cold. Proceeding through the gate, an awesome vista of the Walls of Jerusalem opened up in front of me - a valley surrounded with awesome mountains all around, including the rock cliffs of the West Wall, sprinkled with snow. The valley contained a beautiful lake (Lake Salome), and lots of low alpine herbs, cushion plants and moss. There were also some small groves of pencil pines.
I walked further into the valley, and the views of the West Wall got better and better. As I neared the Damascus Gate, there was a turnoff for the Pool of Bethesda. The pool was hidden behind a small hill and surrounded by old pencil pines. Since it was only about 12:30, I decided to continue on through the Damascus Gate to see the Wailing Wall.

The Damascus gate was higher than the valley, and as I passed through it, the cliffs of Solomons Throne loomed large to the right. The Wailing Wall was visible from the southern side of the gate, but it was a fair way away. I decided to head on toward Dixons Kingdom Hut, and soon discovered that there was some snow on the ground in this area. There was a fair bit of boardwalk (2 parallel planks) , and the snow made it unbelievably slick. I nearly fell several times, dispite inching carefully through it.

Nearing Dixons Kingdom Hut, there were many old pencil pines (these grow up to 2500years old), and as I reached the hut, the sun came out briefly. The hut is very low - just head hight at the centre, and much lower at the sides. It is also a heritage hut, but its setting is quite picturesque. I thought I might camp near the hut. I dumped my pack and walked up toward Jaffa Gate, intending to see the other side of it, and possibly climb mount Jerusalem.

I made it a little way through Jaffa gate, and saw more jagged, rocky, cliff lined mountains, as well as more bad weather coming in. I returned to Dixons Kingdom Hut, and after reading the logbook, I found that hikers are requested not to camp near the hut. I decided to return to the Pool of Bethesda, and camp there. As I neared the Pool of Bethesda, it started raining lightly, then as I was making camp, some of the rain turned to light snow.
The rain continued throughout the night.

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Thursday, June 03, 2004

Walls of Jerusalem - Day 2 - Out, then to Hobart

When I woke up this morning, it was still raining, and I discovered that my tent was now partly in several small puddles. I packed as best I could in the rain, and set off back toward Herods Gate. The wind and rain combined to make it quite miserable walking, especially at Herods Gate where the wind was agin very strong.

The rain continued all the way back to the car, which was fortunately only about 2 hours walk. I packed my gear in the car, and started the drive back toward Deloraine. I stopped for lunch again at Mole Creek, and by the time I reached Deloraine, it was no longer raining, and there was blue skies. I decided I wanted to take the road going over the top of the Great Western Tiers, Through Miena and Bothwell.

From Delorine, the road quickly came to the edge of the Tiers, and climbed steeply up toward the top of the cliff line. The view from near the top were excellent, and I stopped at two small lookouts to admire the view. At the second lookout, a few snowflakes fell started falling out of a virtually clear sky.
I drove on, up on the plateau now, and came to a small lake on the right which wa quite pretty, but stopped only briefly for some photos, as the wind was icy cold.
There was still the occasional few snowflakes as I came to Great Lake. Again this was an ugly lake due to it being a hydro power lake, and the low water level exposing much bare earth on the lake shore.
The snow became a flurry as I was driving along the shore of Great Lake, and the road became gravel, and the many potholes were hard to see. The road continued south past Great Lake, where the snow became a blizzard, and reduced my speed to a crawl. Fortunately the snow on the road was very thin and still fresh. In the middle of this blizzard, I came across a sheep farmer hearding his flock along the road to another paddock. The sheep completely blocked the road, and it took quite a while to inch my way through the flock, as I was going the same direction as the sheep. The sheep, and everything else was covered in snow.

Soon, I was out of the blizzard, and the sun came out again on the way to Bothwell. I'd decided to go to Hobart for the night, and as I came into the city, it started pouring rain again. I was also in peak hour traffic, although by comparison to sydney traffic, it was very light. I stayed the night at the Pickled Frog hostel again.

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Friday, June 04, 2004

Mt. Field NP, Styx Valley & on to Triabunna

Hobart
This morning, I wanted to do a little shopping. I went down to Salamanca, and bought some Peter Dombrovski posters at the Wilderness Society shop, then got by photos burned to CD at a cyber-cafe. The cyber-cafe took a bit longer than I'd intended, as they had some trouble burning the CD.

I then drove to Mount Field National Park, where I'd started my trip, as I wanted to check out a few of the short walks. When I arrived, I walked out to Russell Falls. The track goes through lush rainforest, beside the creek. The water in the creek was very high and swift. I got to the falls in a few minutes, and they were incredibly powerful, the roar was loud, and spray was being blown out across the viewing platform, and well past it, making photography very difficult.
I then climbed up a steep but short track to the top of the falls, and a little further on to Horseshoe falls (they are horseshoe shaped). They were also quite pretty, but not as high as Russell Falls.

I decided to walk through the giant trees walk to Lady Barron Falls. It was an interesting walk - there were many enormous eucalypts - some around 80m high. I was feeling a little pressed for time, as I wanted to go to the Styx valley as well, and it was around 3:00. Lady Barron Falls was nice, but not as impressive as Russell or Horseshoe Falls. I returned to the car on the loop track, and set off for the Styx Valley.


The Styx Valley is an environmentally contensious area, as it has old growth rainforest, and is currently being clearfell logged to make woodchips. I wantedt to see it firsthand to get see what it was all about. The road into the valley is a gravel logging road, is very potholed, and takes about 3/4 of an hour each way. I arrived right on sunset, which gave some good views from highpoints coming in, but meant that in the actual rainforest, it was very dark.
There is a boardwalk in a very small reserve, set up by the forestry commission, which goes to the one of the tallest trees discovered so far in tasmania - 87m tall and 4.7m wide. A few hundred metres from this reserve, Greenpeace has set up a camp, in a area designated to be logged, which I visited. The area is indistinguishable from the reserve, as it also has giant trees and lush rainforest, however on the other side of the road is a demonstration of what it will be like - an area of clearfelled and burned forest - a truly depressing sight.
I didn't get to spend long at the Styx valley, as the light was fading fast, but it was enough. I drove carefully back to the main road, and then back to Hamilton, where I had a quick dinner. I was wanting to visit Maria Island over the next few days, and so after ringing a hostel in Triabunna (Near Maria Island), set off. It took a good couple of hours to reach Triabunna, and I was quite tired when I did.
The bed at the YHA there was very saggy but I hardly noticed, as I fell asleep fast.

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