We didn’t choose Markham Heights on Ben Lomond for our Wednesday walk specifically because it was the shortest day of the year, and we also didn’t quite choose it because it was possibly the coldest day of the year so far (it was minus 8 as we passed through Blessington), but because the minus 5 we were expecting on top would be a lot nicer and safer with 30 cms snow on the rocks than where we had been going, which would probably just be a dangerous expanse of ice rime.
Blessington ValleyBlessington Valley
Meanwhile, I was, at the time of the decision, disappointed, as I had been looking forward to the original destination. Through the dark I drove, heading for the Ben Lomond National Park. My spirits picked up considerably as the sun began to rise and I saw the scenes of some of the photos here. I also nearly skittled a deer which ran across directly in front of me, and also nearly had a collision with a black shadow on the road which turned out to be a cow. Needless to say, with temperatures so low, the road was very icy and I was not familiar with its dangerous points, so drove pretty slowly after those two scares.
Off we set. Markham Heights leering down at usClimbing higherAnd higherBen Lomond patterns in the snow
I have always wanted to camp under Ben Lomond to photograph the rocks at sunrise. Even though the sun had already risen, the rocks were still delightfully red on my arrival, so while the others did practical things like putting on boots and more coats and beanies, I dashed out and photographed rock. Hey; who needs to go to Central Australia for red rock? We have it a-plenty right here in Tasmania if we get up early enough (or hang around in rocks until sunset). Dolerite, the predominant rock in most of the state, colours up beautifully at the extreme ends of the day.
ClimbingSnowy sceneUnnamed knob. Dave arrives.Sue climbs
The rest of the day was a visual treat, seeing magnificent scenes of snow on bushes or rocks or windswept mini ridges. We had morning tea on an unnamed knob, and lunch on Markham Heights, and assorted snacks here and there to spin out the day. My coils came off and another friend lost one of his mini spikes, so three of us got extra exercise retracing our steps, which also added nicely to the exercise value of the day, and the time spent moving in the white wonderland. I didn’t enjoy the stationary snack times as much as, well, minus 5 is minus 5, and even with 5 layers of warm clothing on, that is still cold. When I’m moving, I’m fine. Here is a small collection of scenes from the day. I hope you enjoy them.
Two friends and I spent three days in the Tullah region, climbing this and that, sleeping high and sleeping low. It’s a great area for exploring.
Camping high
Unfortunately, it has too often been my observation that pretty photos with names and locations attached have inspired the wrong sort of people to flood our beautiful wilderness and thereby ruin it. The Western Arthurs and the Walls of Jerusalem are two extreme cases in point.
Summit of Red Hills. I don’t mind naming this one, as it is not dramatic in an insta sense of the word; it is worth NO points; it is thus a thoroughly pointless exercise, ha ha. Not for us.Mycena interrupta never fails to entrance
And who are the wrong sort of people? People who have not been taught any bushcraft and have made no effort to learn any; people for whom the words “Leave no trace” are a foreign language; people who seem to think that it’s just fine to spoil fragile areas now that they have seen them themselves; people whose sole aim in being there is to take some insta-photo and exit, without ever stopping to understand the place where they are; people whose sole concern is the self, who don’t care about the people who live near the area, or the children and ones yet to be born who might want to see the place. In short, shallow, selfish people.
Lake Herbert seen from above
For some of us, these regions are our quasi “holy places”. They are places where we revive our spirits and refresh our souls; where we take time out to connect with the wider natural environment. They are not just precious to us: they are essential to our mental and spiritual wellbeing. They are not just huge playgrounds (which they are also. Give me a mountain rather than a gym and treadmill any day, thanks!!).
Core riseUp high
My lack of blogs over the summer has had nothing to do with any inactivity on my part – I seem to have lived in the wilderness this summer – but rather due to my not wanting to over-popularise the beautiful areas I have been in. These spots are, or rather, were, our playgrounds, but we are now being locked out of them so that the tourists can come in and spoil them. They have been turned into a money-making commodity.
Entoloma discrepans I believeDead tree – great caption huh.
Thus I don’t want to aid and abet that process by being too specific about anything much other than indicating “Tullah region”. If you can enjoy photos of beauty that don’t specify location, then please enjoy these examples of what our amazing planet has to offer to those who have worked on their fitness, and acquired bush skills to survive in lonely and challenging locations. We left no trace. Keep tassie Wild.
Having once climbed Mt Blackboy by the easy route, I was not all that interested in a repeat, but today we took it head on and did a traverse along the high rocks, and that made it a totally different and really fun experience.
Fingal Valley
Not only did we attack the boulders from their most challenging angle, we also began way, way down at Mathinna Falls, giving us a climb of over 500 ms in the process, and not from the nearest road access as is normally done if you only have bagging in mind.
Hypholoma australe – these were near the carpark, before the real fun began.
The actual climby bit was probably only about 2kms horizontally. Do your maths: that’s STEEP. People from our small group were falling and slipping the whole time. It only counted as a fall if you landed on your bum or worse. I was relatively unscathed with only three falls. Several of my friends got into double figures. One specialised in quite spectacular landings.
Delvin Ck track to falls
Even just standing talking waiting for the rear to catch up, you kind of slid down the slope unless you grabbed a sapling to prevent the descent. I was sure I spotted a flat bit of ground somewhere down below (and John backed me up); this became a source of many jokes as we tumbled our way downwards.
Russula viridis – very pleased to find this one! You don’t see them often.
Sorry for the lack of photos of rocks and forest: when you are above your head in ferns, it’s hard to get a shot, and the rocks were reached in midday glare, which I don’t find conducive to pleasing photography. I leave the massive and alluring boulders to your imagination. Meanwhile, if you know me, you know I love fungi.
Dermocybe canaria. I have also not seen very many of these in my hunting.
I was quite proud of how clean my pants still were at the finish – ripped and muddy pants were the norm by the end of the day – until I got home and discovered a huge red patch base right, courtesy of a hitchhiking leech.
Blackboy Falls from above. We could see them, even if you can’t. This was as good as it got today. Work in progress!
We also visited the top of a waterfall en route, which, given its location and in order to be able to talk about it, I have dubbed Blackboy Falls. (It is an unnamed blue line on the map). We lacked time to visit the base, but at least we have now seen it, and have also (of course?) plotted our route for a more extensive, close-and-personal visit some other time. As it was, we didn’t get back to the cars before 5 pm, and it was more than dinner hour by the time we returned to Launceston. It’s worth being hungry to have had such a fun day. Very little beats real bushbashing, with its engagement with nature, and its total workout value. Keep Tassie Wild.
Traversing the ferns back near the bottom. Thanks for the photo Phil Andrew, who, being taller than I am, had a little less trouble taking a shot in the jumble.
Freycinet peninsula wasn’t exactly plan A for Easter, but when the forecast turns to snow down to 200ms with gale force winds, then you change your plans: Freycinet it was. Even so, there were electrical storms the day we were supposed to leave, so we ran in the forest in the morning, and climbed Mt Parsons in the afternoon instead of setting out with children and rucksacks, and began the tenting part of our trip a day late.
Omphalotus nidiformisUnderway
Even with an improved forecast, we weren’t exactly sure how the youngest, seven-year old Abby, would deal with the wind and light rain that would be our lot. The elements were kind to us, and we got in lots of activity, working around patches of rain. As it turned out, all three children loved it.
Abby and Karen arriveTristan playing near the campsite
I left my camera behind on several of our mini expeditions, as getting my camera wet is a very expensive thing to do, but luckily there were plenty of fun things to photograph around the campsite.
Wombat on Wineglass
For fungi, we saw ghost fungi (Omphalotus nidiformis), Russula clelandii, Cantharellus concinnus and more, sighted dolphins swimming at dusk, noted pied oyster catchers and black-faced cormorants having evening strolls along the water’s edge and even saw the most obliging-ever wombat. Wallabies gate-crashed our Easter party, and Gussy and I had a most persistent (and insistent) possum that came into our vestibule three times during the night in an attempt to carry off Gus’s rucksack. I shone the torch in its eyes (useless), hissed menacingly at it (also useless) and hit it on the head with Gus’s walking boot (temporary victory). In the end, I only got some sleep by putting the rucksack inside the tent.
My friends Alex and Nitya had one Abel to go – The Needles – and were kind enough to invite me along to share the journey and, hopefully, the joy. I hoped to be a help should an extra pair of hands be needed, for they now had the additional challenge of bringing a 9-month old baby to complete their task. Off we set, me with high intentions of being useful at some stage, even though we are talking about two extremely fit, strong and capable bushwalkers (and parents).
Austroboletus nivea. Hoorah. The first fungi for the season were beginning to appear.
The creek crossings between the carpark and Junction Crossing were all significantly higher than usual. They were not impossible to cross, but they did cause us to wonder whether we would ever get beyond the first significant body of water (JC), which, with a baby and deep mud, was just under three hours in.
Alas, Junction Creek involved a compulsory baptism as the tree block only helped for part of the way, and a goodly part of it was submerged anyway. The steps were underwater, and the rope for stability was down around the ankles, which offered help only to those with excellent imaginations. Sigh. In we go. Not tooo deep. Having now nicely filled our boots with a swimming pool of water (which wasn’t too chilly, actually), we sat on the other side and had some food.
Early crossing. The early ones weren’t too bad, and were not what we were fearing.
We thought our next major hurdle would be Seven Mile Creek, and were not completely confident, but you have to get there to be sure. However, Two Mile creek proved to be the scariest crossing of the day. The way across (and the only possibility in waters this high) was to use a wide but excessively slippery, slimy log which had nothing much nearby to cling to for safety or balance. Going uphill in straddle position with a heavy pack wasn’t an option. It was a very long way to fall – and into deep water.
Two Mile Creek. I wouldn’t dream of crossing this without help. The log was slippery.
Alex offered himself up as our sacrificial anchor point, thoroughly saturating himself in the dark, bottomless waters, and reaching up to us to provide a hand. He would, of course, catch the baby should Nitya overbalance but the thought of that scenario was utterly horrifying. Little Adi (Aditya) is just the cutest bundle of joy imaginable, and of course, no one wanted a single hair of his head to be ruffled. Alex is as solid as a rock, and they completed the task without mishap. Then it was my turn. Once over the other side, having twice now needed Alex’s help, I knew I had burned my bridges. Whatever happened, I could not dare attempt a crossing in reverse without Alex being there.
A happy little Adi enjoys knocking around Seven Mile Creek campsite with his team.
Wullyawa Ck offered only one rather messy way across, but one is all we needed, and there was enough to cling to for us to be able to do it unassisted. Alex, with his pack higher than the Empire State, probably had the hardest job of all of us. And thus we came to our Reckoner: Seven Mile Creek. Not today, Josephine,. She looked high and mean, but tomorrow’s crossing was over twelve hours away. Maybe the river would go down a bit overnight. It didn’t rain heavily or for overly long today.
Day 2.
Seven Mile Creek campsite
We only needed to get to Pass Ck today, so were in no particular hurry, and a relaxed start would give Adi some nice crawl time, and let the creek drop some more. For the first time, Alex was the one who took Adi across for safety. He had already taken his monster rucksack across (trip 1) and helped me across (trip 2). Adi’s turn was trip 3 and then I could mind him while Nitya became trip 4. Safety was always our primary objective, and none of this would have been possible without Alex and Nitya’s massive skills. It is not something that an average person could or should even dream about. This was not about heroics or being fancy. It was about carefully executing what was definitely within the capabilities of the crew.
Empire State rucksack. It weighs 30 kg.
The next most adventurous part of the day was getting over our final hurdle, Pass Creek. Again we needed Alex’s strength. There is a rope there, but when the water is that high, it just rushes your feet out from under you and makes losing balance a very likely possibility. If you lose your contact with the bottom and are not strong enough, you can’t get your feet to go against the current to go vertical again. As a teenager and a champion swimmer, I was humbled to learn that water is far more powerful than I was. I have never forgotten my lesson.
Seven Mile Creek crossing. Adi cheers his dad on.
At last we could take off our wretched boots, tip the 300 mls water out of each, wring the same out of each sock, and dry our poor wrinkled feet. Joy. My feet had not been cold, but ‘wet all day’ is not a pleasant feeling. This was my first fight with damned platforms, which are not made for non-freestanding tents. Nothing works; nothing quite fits; the tent sags ridiculously as you can’t apply correct tensions. Grrr, but at last, after much quiet swearing I kind of had it up. We ate dinner and I said : “Goodnight”.
Pass Creek crossing.
Now, a totally ridiculous thing happened. I felt 100% fine, but as I lay down, a continuous, hysterical and fruity cough began. And it didn’t let up all night. I got very little sleep. I had flown in from Sydney immediately before this trip, and it seems I must have picked up a bug and brought it along for the ride. Unbeknown to me, my daughter had gone into major production as a snot manufacturer up there.
Day 3
An easy part within the challenging Boiler Plates
I felt totally washed out this morning, but blamed the lack of sleep. I didn’t have a temperature, so was only under the influence of URTI. Up we climbed to the Stuart Saddle. During the first hour, the weather was not friendly, and rain and a biting wind from the south made life unpleasant. We found some shelter from the extremities after an hour and waited for the weather to improve, using the time to eat and give Adi some more play. The steep part going around the Boiler Plates was two hours of playground fun that reminded me of Moss Ridge, but I knew I was not well, and was glad to know I had managed to arrive at our destination before things got any worse. It took about an hour to pitch on these awful platforms, and I was obviously losing it, as I required a second person to help me set up any tension at all. Tent up, I fell inside. I no longer cared about anything much – not even the scenery.
The Needles, in view at last.
Day 4.
I felt really weak, and disappointed at letting the others down when I was most needed, but I barely had the energy to get to their tent to tell them, let alone to climb with them. They didn’t need me. All three made the summit, and Alex and Nitya became the first ‘parent couple’ to have done all the Abels together. It is so fabulous that little Adi could also be on the summit with them. He had climbed one other Abel as a baby, and several, including Federation, in utero. Visibility was about five metres. Louise slept. I don’t think I was running a fever, but I felt really weak, and that I was really treading a fine line.
Adi is sad to hear I won’t be climbing too, haha. He is the best dressed bushwalking baby I have ever seen. If you are going to bring a child of any age into the South West, you need to bring twice as many clothes as you would bring for yourself. Adi owns all the gear, and more.
But down is easier than up. And it was fun. We made it to Pass Ck after lunch and my insides let me know they were displeased. There’s a toilet there. Weee.
Day 5.
Boiler Plates descent
I had now suffered three nights of what felt like incessant coughing. Days were somewhat easier to take, however, as exercise cleared the passageways a bit. Off we set, over Pass Ck, over Strike Ck (we even made good time to there), over Razorback Saddle the Smaller, then Saddle the Bigger. By the time we neared the top, I wanted to spew. I had overdone it, but then I heard little Adi singing, and he cheered me up and I made it. He had long conversations with his mum in the papoose, with her moving the conversations along with questions like “Really?”, or “Tell me more about it”, and Adi would gurgle happily along, answering her.
Boiler Plates descent
At lunch I mentally scanned the foods I’d brought. Suddenly everything I had made me feel sick to even think about. I rejected the lot. I wasn’t hungry anyway. I was offered vegan salami and flatbread with gherkin. Scrumptious . I could eat that. The other two enjoyed in exchange my beetroot dip with Dr Karg 5-seed crackerbread. This felt like a party.
Down we went, over Nine Mile Ck, over Seven Mile Ck and on, to just a bit short of Wullyawa. When you point out a magnificent view of the Arthur Range with pinking sunset to Louise and she just grunts disinterestedly, you know something is wrong. It was.
Day 6.
Boiler Plates descent
I woke knowing I just couldn’t do it. I don’t think I was running a temperature, but I was no longer quite so sure. If I continued as per yesterday, I would grind my body into a very deep hole out of which I might never climb. I hated the idea of going on, but calling for a helicopter was equally, if not more, abhorrent. We were too far out for me to easily come back and collect all my gear, and my car was in the carpark here. How on earth would I retrieve it? And I hate hospitals, and my purse and phone were in my car. I would be where I didn’t want to be with no means of communication and no money. And my dog was in a kennel waiting for me and I needed her hugs.
Playtime Day 5. Adi prefers crawling without those heavy gumboots on.
Then I thought of a solution: if I lightened my pack by ditching my tent, I reckoned I could make it. I could come back in two or three weeks and get it. I stumbled my way across to where Nitya and Adi were playing to tell her what I thought. Little Adi crawled up to me and gave me a hug. I had trouble not bursting into tears. Alex then said he was taking my tent. I said ”No way”, but he insisted. His pack was already 30 kgs and now all the nappies were wet, yet he was insisting on adding my 1.6 kgs – well, a bit less. I did’t give him the poles and hoped he didn’t notice. I pointed out that even if he only took the thing 100ms, that was further than I could do, and he was NOT to carry it any further than was bearable. I could come back to get it later, as planned.
We sent me on ahead so I could get out to help as quickly as I could. I made it to the end. Two days later I was diagnosed with community induced pneumonia. The wilderness is not to be blamed for my condition. I was never even cold enough to get my gloves out. The whole business is just really bad timing.
And if Alex hadn’t taken that tent, it would have been sitting there a very long time. The doctor says I’m not going anywhere for quite a while yet. We’ll see about that, but it is sure good to know my next trip, whenever it is, doesn’t have to be trudging along the Arthur Plains hoping my tent is at the end of my journey. No real bushwalker would take it, but there are a lot of tourists these days.
