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Narrawa Creek Falls 2018 Apr

Narrawa Creek Falls 2018 Apr
Today I had a total waterfall spree, just going with the flow (ha ha) and visiting the next falls that my eyes caught on the map. I had no internet connection, being in the middle of nowhere, so no information. For each one (apart from my revisit to Phillips Falls), it was a case of park the car where it seemed reasonable, and try to get there. I am pleased to report success in each case. (The other four in the collection, which will get their own blogs, are: Cethana Falls, Hullabaloo Falls, Hullabaloo Upper, and Hogg Creek Falls).
I was actually heading for Cradle Mountain, but got so waylaid that I never even got near. My first stop was to revisit Phillips Falls near the Mt Claude saddle, as it had not been flowing last time I was there, and I had hopes that, after yesterday’s rain, there might be something to photograph this time. There was, so I have done another Phillips Falls blog. See
www,natureloverswalks.com/phillips-falls-2/

Narrawa Creek Falls pumping it out.
Second on my list, once I rejoined Cethana Road and began to climb after the bridge below the dam wall at the bottom, was the still unfortunately unspectacular Cethana Falls at the second hairpin bend on the climb. (Separate, very short blog with a map in case you need it – see www.natureloverswalks.com/cethana-falls/). And now came the challenge. Narrawa Creek Gorge. On inspecting the map, I saw a dirt road issuing from one of the hairpins that you could follow that went sort of nearby. I sought it out. It had a huge, no-arguments-will-be-entertained fence that, well, I could have climbed, but I decided they meant business, so resisted and had another map stare. OK. Let’s try from above, which would involve a fairly whopping height loss (to be regained on the homeward journey, but, hey, I’ve got all day and I enjoy exercise , so why not?).

Armillaria novaezelandiae
I exited the main, sealed Cradle Road on the dirt road that leads to Lemonthyme Lodge, and parked my car along it where a track leads down the hill, as per the map below. Would this one have a fence or a keep out sign? No. Excellent. Narrawa, here I come. Down, down, down I dropped on a route that is only for the enthusiastic. It was so steep that my boots had trouble not slipping on occasion. What I was on was a former dirt road, but there were no signs at all of recent (or even non-recent) usage. It was weathered into a state of definite disrepair that would challenge even a quad bike. It was totally fine for walking. Fungi as well as curiosity kept me highly motivated. At my chosen moment, I deserted this and went bush in quest of my falls, fearing all along after last weekend’s failed attempt at Cashs that I would just meet with cliffs and buttresses that hid me from my goal. As I got nearer, I could hear its mighty roar, so wondered: if you hear it, can that count as a bag? I knew the answer was “No”. Wow, though, it was sure pumping.

And, was I ever excited when I got my first glimpse. wow, what a mighty wallop of water to go with the noise. It was momentous. I perched on a somewhat precarious ledge to photograph my prize before returning, very satisfied to the car. I decided that that effort deserved lunch, so had a picnic in the bush right there.
Just as I was leaving, and consulting my map to sort out what I wanted to do next, a little piece of writing caught my eye: it said “Hullabaloo Falls”. It wasn’t far away – just down the road, near Lemonthyme Lodge.  It would be stupid to ignore being this close, so off I set. For continuation of this story, you will need to progress to www.natureloverswalks.com/hullabaloo-falls/.

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Phillips Falls (ii) 2018 Apr

Phillips Falls (ii) 2018 Apr
As you may well have noted, my previous blog on Philllips Falls had no photo of the actual falls – as nothing was falling. I decided to go to Cradle Mountain yesterday, and to revisit these falls on the way in the hope that Thursday’s rain would have had a positive effect on the falls.


This time there was water, so here are some shots. Take the C138 over the Claude Mt side ridge, and after you’ve descended, the first road (which is dirt) on your right. Stop at the bridge over Mechanical Creek (not signed). The road divides in two here. About 40 metres back in the incoming direction (SE), you’ll see a pink tape. The tapes lead to the base. (See route map below)


Looking downstream
As it so turned out, I got so involved in the process of visiting the next falls that caught my attention, and the next and the next, ad almost infinitum, that I never made it to Cradle, but did “bag” six falls, five of which were new for me. It was a successful and a fun outing. I have in retrospect dubbed it the Sheffield Waterfall Circuit. The six falls, in case you want to do a similar circuit, were: Phillips, Cethana, Narrawa, Hullabaloo, Hullabaloo Upper and Hoggs Creek Falls. If you want to mimic my route exactly, then you’ll also need to stop at Fudge ‘n’ Good Coffee in Sheffield for Italian Coffee and sweet treats at the end of the circle. The excellent cappuccino I had there kept me alive for the drive back to Launceston after a fairly full day.

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Harridge Falls 2018 Apr

Harridge Falls Apr 2018


Harridge Falls, tacked onto the end of our Cashs Falls mission, were a kind of consolation prize: at least I wouldn’t go home totally empty handed from our expedition. Craig kindly drove the extra distance to enable this.


As we both believe that bushwalking is best combined with coffee drinking and cake eating, we stopped at Crank It Cafe in Derby on our way through. In both directions passing through Derby, cycling-gear clad people of all ages were drinking coffee, coming in or out of the supermarket or parking their bikes preparatory to doing the above. The place seemed abustle with cyclists, which is fabulous to see. What a wonderful use of our glorious rainforest.


The Harridge Falls walk was only very short, but that doesn’t matter: we’d had our exercise at Cashs. The flow was not full strength, but, as Craig pointed out, that gave us more freedom to go places that would be covered were the volume of water its winter fullness. Even so, I was very wary of the sloping granite. I was more worried about my camera equipment than my body, but the effect is the same in deterring too many adventurous leaps.


As with Cashs Falls, the fungi were starting to appear for the autumn, and provided colour and interest to the forest floor. Unfortunately, passing motorists had tossed a variety of debris out their car windows, so the first few metres of the bush were less attractive than they should be, but once you were out of throwing range of cars, you were into a glorious place. Little wonder that the father of the Australian conservation movement, Miles Dunphy, hated touring motorists.
(See www.natureloverswalks.com/cashs-falls/ )


“Context statement”: Coming from the west, drive through Derby. Turn south to Weldborough on the continuation of the Tasman Highway, A3. Cross the Ringarooma River and start paying attention. When that series of sub curves is at its most easterly point, and where there is a four-wheel-drive track going into the bush, come to a screaming halt. You have arrived, and need to park where the dirt track provides some room. Overshoot, and you’ll have a longish drive before you can turn around. The pad to the falls is visible to the left of the 4WD track, and has some ribbons.

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Cashs Falls (not) 2018 Apr

Cashs Falls (not), Apr 2018


What is failure? What constitutes success? If you set out to achieve the impossible, realise it can’t be done (or, at least, not under the conditions of that moment), set new goals and achieve them, have you failed or succeeded?


Cashs Gorge from the lookout
Craig Doumauras and I set out on what was, for both of us, a second attempt at Cashs Falls. Now, sure, we could persuade a friend with a drone to just get a shot for us, but what would be the fun or merit in that? No. For us, the need was to see the gorge personally, or not at all. But meanwhile, these falls were winning the protracted game of hide and seek we were all playing.


Lunchspot
Along the Ralphs Falls-Cashs Gorge Track we went, plummeting downhill at the agreed-upon point, where, the contours looked perhaps spaced enough to allow us through the plentiful cliffs of the area. At first, the leads went quite well, although at one point Craig lost his footing and fell a “warning” number of metres, just from a trip. We were in very steep country, and both exercised great care.


The land went from steep to steeper. We were still on the most promising area this side of the river, in terms of the map’s information, but all around us, unmapped cliffy obstacles were accumulating. This was hostile territory. Eventually, there were cliffs to left, right and in front of us. I am not prepared to slide down what I can’t climb back up, so we both agreed that we needed a new tack, and should climb back up the steep slope and try again on the other side.


I am waiting the confirmation of an expert, but I believe this is Athrotaxis laxifolia, a cross between a King Billy and a Pencil Pine. Unbelievably, it is growing in a branch outlet of an ancient Leptospermum!
Off we set once more – around to the Cashs Gorge Lookout, across the river at the top, around the opposite (beautiful) spur, until it was time to descend. Now, when staring at the map from our first turn-around point, I noticed a bluff that might, with a bit of luck, give us a view of our grail, or, even better, produce a passageway that would allow us down to creek level. We agreed to make this bluff a preliminary goal. It was nice to have something to aim for. Given the totally obscure position of our bluff, we did wonder if we could be the first people ever foolish enough to explore this particular territory. That added spice to our adventure. Meanwhile, we were drawing nearer. At the very least, we were going to make this goal, and that felt like an achievement in this terrain. Would it yield a view? Na. That is, we had a gorgeous view, but not of our elusive falls.


 (The bluff is the bluff feature to the NE of the falls depicted above).


Interestingly, this map depicts the falls as being slightly more upstream than the map above from ListMaps. With a canopy that dense, how is one supposed to know?
We sat on our prize, our shapely little bluff that I christened Cashs Bluff, and had an early lunch so as to prolong our time admiring its unique vista. Somewhere below us, tantalisingly close, lay our falls, but there was not even a tiny speck of white to be seen, not a minuscule rush of water to be heard. Given the inaccuracy of the position of some waterfalls on TasMaps, we could not even be sure it was exactly where the map said it would be. It was a mythical beast that would not yield a hint to us today.


Our total height difference for the first climb was more than indicated here. I forgot to turn my tracker on before we were half way down the first descent.
Believe it or not, I haven’t given up on Cashs Falls yet. I want one  more try, and have planned my next route, but for this day, we both felt enough was enough. My track data said that by the time we’d returned to the car, we’d spent four hours on this exercise (including lunch and morning tea). We’d walked 7.5 kms and climbed and dropped over 300 ms’ elevation though thick, unforgiving scrub. It was time to visit a waterfall that was more welcoming of visitors (Harridge); one that would let us do this lovely thing called walking, where you put one foot in front of the other, and got somewhere. As for Cashs Bluff, we gave each other a high five once we breasted the top of the climb out from the bosky tangle. THAT mission was successfully accomplished, and we felt good about it.
For the rest of this day, see www.natureloverswalks.com/harridge-falls/

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Sprent 2018 Mar

Mt Sprent, Mar 2018.


Mt Sprent was not actually my first choice for Easter, nor even my second, but, … well, let me begin at the beginning. My birthday was on Good Friday, and my wonderful (firstborn) daughter said that, as a present, she would fly down and spend the night on a mountain with me. Can you think of a nicer, more special present than that? I certainly can’t. Presence makes the best presents. Time is surely the most marvellous thing we can give each other. But WHAT mountain do you choose when given such a fabulous offer? I wanted it to be new, preferably an Abel, and beautiful. It also needed to be done in two days, as we had to be back for Sunday’s all-important Easter Egg Hunt for the children.


Ambitiously, I chose Bonds Craig. That was before I got a crippling chest infection and before I got news that, given all our recent rain, the Gordon River would be flooded anyway. OK. Plan B. Sharlands Peak. But, with a fever and weakness, I really didn’t think that was possible in two days either. Plan C was Mt Sprent, which I had’t yet climbed. We would hopefully get great views, and it’s just a tiny climb to the top, and even a sick Louise can do a climb that short. I was right. I coughed my way to the top, but had no trouble doing the physical ascending bit.


I picked Kirsten up from the airport on Thursday afternoon, whisked her away while Abby maintained that “Mummy’s NOT going” (how dare we have a girls’ adventure without her), and headed for the south west, with the skies getting increasingly ominous as we drove. At the sign that announced we’d now reached the wilderness area, the rain added its confirmation by bucketing down and the temperature dropped about twenty degrees. We pictured ourselves huddled in some windy shelter having the picnic dinner I’d packed and shivering while at it. Kirsten suggested we check out the Strathgordon Wilderness Lodge. Now, there’s a good idea if ever I heard one. There was room at the inn. In we hopped with glee.


Next morning (Friday, ascent day), it was till bucketing, but the forecast said the water amount would decrease after midday, so we did a rainforest walk and had a picnic lunch so as not to eat in a downpour, and set out in the afternoon. I was right about the shortness of the climb. Even with my illness, we were on the summit in two hours, and had oodles of time to find a spot for our tent on the Wilmot Range before the elements closed back in. Problem: all flat spots were a handspan deep in water, and, of course, all slopey spots were, yes, slopey. We chose the best spot available, which sloped on both the X and Y axes, and practised rolling towards each other and sliding towards the foot end of the tent before thinking about dinner.


We seem to have a bizarre sense of humour, as we found all of this rolling to  be hilarious, and knew we were in for a long night.  Dinner was also a bit of a problem as, since the combination of motherhood and a demanding and fulfilling job has compromised my daughter’s fitness, we were squashing ourselves into my solo Hilleberg which I carried. It’s delightfully spacious for one; for two, well, it is a solo tent. It was cuddly. I found it tricky to cook given the cramped nature of our environs, and the fact that rain was pelting down outside and we had wet gear strewn about the vestibule. I therefore cooked just one dinner which we shared between two, so my special birthday meal was half a dehydrated, rehydrated cottage pie dinner. I thanked my darling daughter for bringing me to a thousand star hotel, and we ate our fare with relish. Pity we couldn’t see any of the thousand stars.
It was, indeed, a long and giggly night. She apologised about the lack of comfort. I explained that I thought that comfort can hardly be considered one of life’s necessities. Given what we, as a family, have experienced and endured over the past few months, I think comfort is a very low priority in life. We had each other and we were happy. Isn’t that all you need?


Next morning, we descended, and reappeared at the Strathgordon Lodge in time for some freshly made vanilla slices (YUM) and a hot drink before heading east via some waterfalls to the eagerly awaiting rest of Kirsten’s family. (My second-born daughter was in Africa, so couldn’t join us this year.)