Tag: Tasmania

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Montezuma Falls 2018 Mar

Montezuma Falls Mar 2018.


Water tumbles quietly over the base of the falls
I feel rather ashamed to write that last weekend was only the second time I have ever visited the renowned Montezuma Falls. This is especially shameful if one considers how very beautiful the area in which they are situated is. And it is perhaps even more so if I add that I only actually visited them as I was on my way to other, more distant waterfalls; they just happened to be the first ones I came to directly on the track.

On  my first visit, they were pumping so wildly it was impossible to keep the spray off one’s lens, and I threw my picture out. This time, the problem was kind of the opposite, in that they were flowing so demurely that I could sit on top of them and not really get wet. As a result, the photos included here are more “details” of the lower outlet of the falls. You could certainly get up close and cuddly this weekend. Meanwhile, however, if you’re not obsessed with seeing massive and unphotogenic gushes of water down your falls, the delicacy of the offering was, for me, quite appealing, and I absolutely adored the lush green forest en route.

And why on earth did I visit these falls on a hot day in March when the water was bound to be undramatic and the forests bereft of fungi and mist? Because, essentially, this trip was a recce to check out Rawlinson, Frazer and Svengali Falls. I would be driving down from Launceston, and then covering about 22 kms over rough ground on foot, some of which would be bushbashing. I wanted to be able to move quickly (not too much mud) and to walk in river beds should I need to, just to suss things out and get a rough time-frame for the expedition. I now know, for example, that it takes about 55 mins to reach Montezuma, another 38 to reach Rawlinson, and 30 mins to climb up to Frazer. Such items of knowledge are handy when planning future trips. I also learned that bringing just one ETC salad roll and florentine plus OJ is not enough to keep me in food for such an expedition. As usual, I was hungry most of the day, and was stealing lunch by 10 a.m.. I got very low on blood sugar by the end.


Loved the cows early on in my trip to the falls, shortly after leaving Launceston.
For reports on the other falls, see www.natureloverswalks.com/rawlinson-falls/ and www.natureloverswalks.com/frazer-falls/. I was too tired and hungry to do any more than a brief exploratory journey in the direction of Svengali. They’re for another time.


The tiny “settlement” in the top right corner is Williamstown, where you park. The road to it begins 2kms south of Rosebery, and is 6kms long. The Falls are marked on the sign that says Williamstown.

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Bayeux Bluff 2018 Mar

Bayeux Bluff, Mar 2018


When we set out in thick fog in a general southerly direction, we were not at all committed to reaching Bayeux Bluff. We made our goals simpler, and said we’d at least go to Battle Ridge’s end, perhaps Odo Tarn. We’d probably then run out of time, as the fog had meant our start was later than we’d originally planned for.


Battle Ridge shots
However, from the end of Battle Ridge. with the swirling fog so very alluring, and the going so utterly pleasant, the group decided to reach our earlier goal. I was off photographing to the side when this decision was made, and jokingly abused them for not giving me a vote, but they claimed to know my wishes on this matter without asking, and off we set. Of course, they were right. As said in my earlier blog on this walk, my only regret concerning this day was not having time to also climb Norman Bluff. Doomsday Bluff would have also been a nice addition to the agenda. They’ll be there for my return visit.
(www.ntureloverswalks.com/king-william-circuit/ )


Odo Tarn babies


Bayeux Bluff area to Lake Eva and Guelph Basin
I was glad about the fog: it leant a certain charm to the scenery that one of those sunny days just can’t match. The whole day seems wonderful to me as I look back on it – the whole weekend does. I can’t understand these scoffers of club walking. My credentials are proof that I don’t need a club to help me navigate or get through the bush. Those two factors are only a small part of the whole bushwalking experience. Camaraderie with likeminded people out-trumps (sorry to use that word, which has now taken on very negative connotations) other factors. Yes, I also like the solitude one can have in the wilderness, but you can get that, too. A mixture is great. The scoffers, I note, almost always go bush with friends, so it’s merely a matter of how you define your company. I feel it’s being elitist if you happen to have a group of good and willing friends with whom you can always go bush when you want to, to scoff at those whose circle of friends is somewhat different. Clubs like LWC, HWC and Pandani contribute hugely to the well being of the broader community, in both physical and mental aspects by enriching people’s lives and providing them with access to others who feel the same way as they do about being in the wilderness. I greatly enjoyed the company of my companions on this adventure, and would not have enjoyed it a tenth as much had I been alone. Humans are social creatures, and sharing experience is part of what makes us happy. I love my club friends, and to see them turn out in force to help search for Bruce when it was needed, when we thought we had a chance of saving him, warmed my heart (and our daughters’  hearts) hugely.


On our way back from Bayeux Bluff and Odo Tarn, we laughed together about some of our past shared adventures where things had gone “wrong”. Such is the fodder of tales and merriment for years after the event, and is only possible in a shared context.


The more westerly route is our outward one, as we wanted to follow Battle Ridge. On the return journey, we followed the broad valley up. Both routes were wonderful.

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King William circuit 2018

King William Circuit, comprising Mt King William I,  Milligans Peak, Mt Pitt, Mt Harold, Battle Ridge and Bayeux Bluff, and visiting Wessex, Odo and Pitt Tarns. March, 2018.

Climbing Mt King William I. Lakes George and King William in the distance.
I had just returned from a fabulous week with friends at the beach near Coffs Harbour, and felt terribly flat to be back home in my now lonely environment. I looked at the approaching weekend: apart from my darling daughters, no one would ring; no one would pop in; no one would invite me anywhere. Life seemed bleak. I could sit at home and sulk and weep some more for Bruce, or I could be proactive and invigorate my life by joining in a club bushwalking trip. I chose the latter, and phoned the coordinator of the LWC trip to King William Circuit. HIs plans sounded great. All of a sudden I had to pack my bags pronto. The expedition was leaving at 5.30 a.m. the next day, which meant a 4.30 awakening. Yawn, but it would be worth it.

From Mt King William I looking towards Milligans Peak and Mt Pitt. The  Frenchman is in the distance, as usual.
I had already climbed King William I, but in a whiteout, so this time I got to see the expansive views. With our nice early start, the day was not yet too glary. It was, nonetheless, the rest of the expedition that held my attention.

In the saddle between King William I and Milligans Peak.
Once we left King Will I, we were in more interesting and less-frequented off-track territory, moiling our way towards Milligans Peak, which was very quickly reached (12 down, 13 up) from our first peak. (Note please: my times never include stopping to remove packs, take photos, eat or whatever; they are “exercise minutes”, as I am interested only in how much exercise I’ve had. Have I been lazy, or have I had a good workout?)


View from Milligans Peak to Guelph Tarn (L) and Pitt Tarn (R).
Milligans Peak offered more great views of old friends such as Slatters Peak and King William II, the Loddon Range, Lake St Clair, Lake King William and our future destinations of Mt Pitt, Mt Harold and Bayeux Bluff. The day was sunny and warm; the weather forecast for rain, a joke. Off we set to be reunited with our packs below, to have lunch by a little pool down there, and to then proceed to our tent tarn underneath our next goal, Mt Pitt.

Mt Pitt summit, looking back to Milligans Peak (R) and Mt King William (L)
Tents erected, day packs loaded with goodies and anoraks, we noted the amassing clouds but were unfazed. Off we set to inspect the views of Mt Pitt, quickly reached in 21 minutes from our tents.

Mt Pitt summit view, looking directly to Mt Harold, which has Wessex Tarn to its L and Arrow Tarn to the R. In the distance, slightly left, is Bayeux Bluff.
The next mountain was the best one of the trip, and a memorable mountain under any and all circumstances, with its hedgehog spikes all over its spine that caught your attention from afar, and had you wondering how, actually, you were going to touch the high point. I plotted my intended route from Mt Pitt, and carried it out with no problems. Having been initially daunted by the rock spikes, it gave a special feeling of pleasure to be on top of both the false, and the slightly higher, real, summit. Drama was all around.

Looking from Mt Harold real summit towards Mt Harold false summit. Mt Pitt is back right.
We all voted it the highlight, and abused the people who haven’t even given it a point. In fact, not only is it not worth a peak baggers’ point; it is neither an Abelette, nor a “Point of Interest”; neither did it get a nod as a “Bob Brown”. It is totally ignored by the people who sit in offices (or, reputedly, at the dining table after a few wines), staring at maps deciding what is “of interest”. We who visited this mountain think it is of extreme interest, and we loved it dearly.

Wessex Tarn. Battle Ridge to the left.
Off the top of Harold, we lowered ourselves through the scrub until we reached the beautiful Wessex Tarn. Now, from even before we climbed Harold, we were in the Battle of Hastings territory, with Arrow and Wessex Tarns on either side of our spiky castle and Battle Ridge in front. Norman and Bayeux Bluffs were up ahead, as were Odo Tarn, Battle Creek which runs from it, and Doomsday Bluff, beyond Bayeux. (To refresh your memory, in case you’d like it, the Bayeux tapestry depicts the Battle of Hastings, in which the Normans, under William the Conquerer, invaded and defeated England – under the leadership of anglo-saxon king, Harold Godwinson, in 1066. The Odo of Odo Tarn refers to Bishop Odo, who is depicted holding a club – presumably not a nice one like LWC, but one with which to bop you off. He was William’s younger, half brother. Later, William, now King William, commissioned the Doomsday Book (1086), an assessment of the land he had conquered and its wealth, so he could raise the taxes). It was fun to be in this territory, and to have as our culmination Bayeux Bluff, which we would reach next day. I am very sad that we didn’t have time to climb Norman Bluff. But then, it’s nice to have a reason for coming back other than just a revisit of old territory.

Our trusty tents
Oddly, List Maps has nothing in the area called Hastings. Surely someone could have popped in a creek or tarn or bump … but they didn’t. There are plenty of unnamed features remaining. Adam Guelph, (from Salisbury), who helped William, gets a guernsey (with a tarn and a watercourse), but not Hastings itself. Godwin Tarn presumably stems from Harold’s full name. Of course, from most of our mountains we could see the huge Lake King William; we were on the King William Range. William won. He gets all the big stuff. The victor gets to write history and grab all the best mountains, ranges and lakes.

Meanwhile, with all this history and four mountains under our belts, we retreated to our tents, arriving about five minutes before the clouds that had been slowly accumulating while we checked out battles, decided to dump their contents with a vengeance. We filled in an hour, and then cooked in our vestibules to the sound of wind howling and rain pelting. My flap buffeted most of the night, and we awoke to pea-soup fog. That did not deter us, however. On our agenda were Battle Ridge, Odo Tarn, Battle Creek and, at last, Bayeux Bluff, from which we would gaze at Doomsday Bluff. This blog is already quite big. For day 2, see the blog entitled Bayeux Bluff
www.natureloverswalks.com/bayeux-bluff/

Route Day 1

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Sedgwick Bluff as a day walk 2018 Feb

Sedgwick Bluff, Feb 2108.


From the slopes of Sedgwick Bluff, unique views of Mt Geike are offered.
Dear Louise, Would you like to join us climbing Sedgwick Bluff tomorrow? Would I what?? What a silly question. Well, not so very silly. I actually did have a fullish programme on the morrow – like an important appointment, and packing my bag for a holiday in Coffs Harbour beginning the day after, but some things get to push the queue, and Sedgwick Bluff as a day walk is one of those. When would I get another such invitation? Probably never. I “needed” this walk for my healing after Bruce’s death. And I would enjoy the company of these people, and I needed to get out and about and mix with other people more. You can see the “excuses” for impetuosity flowing in. My daughters said it was a great idea. I quickly packed for Coffs, cancelled a few things on the home front, packed for Sedgwick, and, somewhat out of breath, arrived that evening to do most of the car trip down. We were away. Whew.


Having fun before the last amble to the summit.
At 7 o’clock on the day in question, we were at the now-unlocked gate leading to the Lake Margaret Power Station (having gained permission in advance to do so). By 7.30, we were ready to start walking up the exceptionally steep path that runs beside the not-quite-vertical pipes that carry water down from the lake to the powerhouse. We all agreed we would NOT want to drive up that track! In twenty six minutes, nonetheless, we were at the top, looking over the edge at the others approaching not far behind. It was so steep you had to go to the edge to see them. Their heads popped up out of nowhere.


Summit Cairn, Sedgwick Bluff. You can see Barn Bluff, Cradle Mountain, Mt Emmett and Pelion West there to the left of Mt Sedgwick, and the Acropolis and Geryon to the right if you know your shapes. It was a grand view.
The next phase of our journey was a stretch that was on contour, on a kind of disused miniature railway line. This was a beautiful and easy section, and we all knew it was a brief lull before a storm, for, at a point agreed upon by all, we took a deep breath and dived into the thick scrub just before the saddle, figuring things were slightly less thick there than in the saddle itself (or after it). It was so thick that we all took turns of a mere three-minutes at the front, politely calling these five-minute turns, but really, three/five was enough. By the time my second turn came, the scrub was less dense, and soon enough, we made it to the high-point on the ridge just before it dropped to the saddle. The saddle itself was great fun, as it was so steep to left and right, that the merest divergence had one dropping an enormous amount of height. Due to the trees, one couldn’t see this directly; one just noticed that the person in front had dropped out of sight.

One and a half hours of walking after first joining the railway line (with stops for food and thinking and photography added in), we “topped out” of the steep zone, and only had about a half-hour’s gentle “doddle” along the alpine tops to the summit. By 11 a.m., we were sending victory sms’s to doubters who said our trip couldn’t be done in a day.

Yolande River – the first time I had made her acquaintance. Beautiful.
The best part of the trip back was our decision to be different, and come home via a very interesting spur the other side of the saddle from our approach one. Do NOT try to climb by this route! It was hilariously steep, with perhaps the most fun being watching John descend about five or more metres in a single step, but, due to the aid of the thick bush, laughing while he did it and coming to no harm. I gulped and followed. We all knew that we were committed to this route in the fullest sense of the word. There would be no climbing back up. We absolutely had to find a way around all the cliffs we kept meeting and continue downwards. It worked. …. And the next day, early in the morning, I flew out to Coffs Harbour. Life is a good thing.

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Alberton Falls 2018 Feb

Alberton Falls Feb 2018
The web remains curiously silent on the topic of Alberton Falls, and I am an incredibly curious person who likes visiting outré places. Alberton Falls yelled out its challenge to me: “Come and get me if you can.”
I suspected that this wouldn’t be a brilliant mission with respect to photography, but, well, you never know, and we did have a huge storm last night, with a cloudy, possibly rainy day forecast for today. Of course, seeing’s we were there to photograph, the sun shone brilliantly nearly the whole day. The aim with this waterfall was, more than anything else,  just to get there and to satisfy my curiosity. Any good photos would be a bonus.

Off we set. It seemed by the sound of things that Carrie was not appreciating walking through marshy button grass in summer heat. Early on she thought she heard a snake. I forged on, trying to pacify her by saying they’d bite me first. I don’t know how convincing I sounded. It seemed she was of the opinion they could bite either of us, and more likely her, as I had on gaiters. I kept pointing to where the forest began: “See, just there. Once we’re there we’ll be in lovely forest with no snakes.” And I was right. The forest was really beautiful, and we didn’t see one single snake. Now we could both start enjoying ourselves.

Once we were in the forest, we just followed the creek down. I spotted signs that someone had once walked this way, and Carrie, whose eyes were not so glued to the ground, started spotting old bits of faded, rotted tape, many of which were above my head in height, so I guess a kindly giant put them there. They were not to be relied upon, but that’s fine. I was navigating using the normal methods, but their reassurance was a friendly one.

Eventually we came to the “falls” – except that nothing much was falling today. However, just as you can tell that a building was once beautiful by inspecting its ruins, you could tell that this waterfall would be a lovely one when the water was flowing. The drop away from us was huge. We looked out from where it exited the rainforest past a whopping cliff and out, out into the way way yonder. We were both determined to have some photos for our efforts, so snapped away just because that’s what you do when you’ve arrived.
As we both enjoyed the magic rainforest, which was surprisingly open, and so beautiful that we spoke in whispers so as not to spoil the feeling of peace and serenity that prevailed, I took us on a route back to the car that maximised our time in the forest, and thus minimised our time in open land. (The crookedness of the line exists because I was using the parts of the forest with almost no undergrowth, as opposed to areas where this was not the case.) To the north, the land dropped to eternity below us. It was a gorgeous forest and a fun adventure, and we have now documented a previously web-neglected waterfall, and had the pleasure of experiencing a place that not many others have seen, one suspects.

I nearly forgot to add: it took us 23 minutes to the falls, longer on the way back, due to weaving and more map consulting than on the way there.