On a previous visit to Tasmania, Nadine came to Mount Field National Park and began a walk that appealed to her. It had been a cold, foggy day and although she found herself enchanted by little lakes and the wild alpine setting, she recognized that it was imprudent to continue on her own and turned back regretfully. As a result of this excursion, she held this spot in her heart and convinced me to return with her on this trip.
So, Nadine set to planning to make sure I was headed the right way!
The area is not much more than an hour drive north of Hobart and is a large, bare, rocky mountain surrounded by large areas of bush (remember my American friends, this is our word for 'the woods').
It was not a mountain that I could photograph - never could get a distant view of it - but this shows the type of rocks and bush that I'm talking about.
It is under snow in the winter and is a hobbyists ski resort.
I say that, because the huts are a long way from the slopes and the only tows we saw were old-fashioned rope tows such as we used as kids.
The walk is along a shelf parallel to, and below the summit. The full circuit was only 11 km in length, and is called the Tarn Shelf Walk. (A tarn is a lovely Scottish name for a little pond or lake in the mountains. Wikipedia says it's an old Scandinavian word and that it is often related to glacial activity.)
It was a beautiful day and we set off in high spirits. The path began easily - a wide road we walked up for several kilometres. Great start! Once we began on the path, it was a mess of rocks of different sizes. That marvelous dolerite one sees all over Tasmania was broken up and jumbled. The path was mostly well marked with cairns and little orange tags, but many foot placements required one's complete attention.
There were also large slabs that required rock-hopping and sometimes hands had to become involved on very steep steps. Every now and then there were wooden walk ways to protect the bogs (for which we were SO glad!).
And how enchanting the little tarns were - especially on this beautiful blue day. There was lots of alpine vegetation and many photo opportunities. Nadine especially liked to get close-ups of the little flowers. Gradually we realized that the hours were slipping by, but we were not keeping pace with the targeted 5 to 6 hours that it was predicted to take.
To complete the circuit, rather than going back from half way added an extra hour. However I knew that 'back' involved all those rocks and more climbing, whereas I hoped the 'extra hour' below the tree line would not be as rugged, so we decided to push on after lunch at one of the huts.
We ate at this hut.......
....but were charmed by this lovely one with the porch at Twilight Tarn.
The view from the front was quite nice, also.
We were intrigued by an expanse of ghostly king billy pine skeletons that were probably victims of fire some time ago that have become bleached by the harsh elements up here.
I thought this one looked like a reindeer!
And this looks like a tree graveyard!
But, we kept pressing on and suffice it to say, that when all was said and done, two older women emerged back at their car at 6:30 pm (at least 2 hours longer than the estimated times). Happily, my hunch had been correct - that the path below the tree line became more even, but we were VERY tired. Happily, the tiredness was offset by our feelings of victory that the challenge had been met, that our knees and ankles were still intact and by the profound knowing that THIS objective did not need any further return!
The following day we loosened up our bodies with a short walk into the beautiful Russell Falls, then our excursion back to Lake Pedder as described in my previous blog. It was a good finish to our Tasmanian travels. On returning to Hobart, we had a day and a half to squeeze in as many relative visits as we found possible, and on Friday May 3rd, headed separate ways back to the Australian 'mainland'.
No comments:
Post a Comment