Category: tasmania

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Littlechild 2016 May

Mt Littlechild revisited May 2016.


Handley Peak, en route (this is Mt Littlechild on the map – or, on the map I was using)


Hygrocybe saltorivula
Because so many people insisted that the black dot called Mt Littlechild on the map was not the “real” Mt Littlechild in some other essential manner, on this weekend, I led a group to go and visit the black dot, which, whatever its name might be, is  the highest point on the Blue Tier. And a rather insignificant high point it is too. Even when there, with gps devices in abundance, we could not agree on the location of the summit, so purists (me included) dashed about the place, touching all suspect-rocks that might be a smidgeon higher than their friends and the true black dot. Everyone was happy at the end of the day that they’d had an encounter with this important dark smudge on the map. The ground was pretty level up there, and views were not on offer. Gorgeous fungi were a-plenty, and the highlight for me. We’d definitely had a lovely bushwalk in this wonderful area of Tasmania worth saving from destruction at the hands of chainsaws and myopic politicians.


Hygrocybe lewellinae


Happy troupers on one of the many black dot contenders (but not the most-favoured one).



For the route from the car to the peak here labelled Mt Littlechild (HandleyPeak in disguise, apparently) see  natureloverswalks.com/blue-tier/

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Brewery Knob 2016 May

Brewery Knob.

 Cortinarius levendulensis.

Angela in her new (unmarred) red anorak approaches the summit cairn

The weather map looked very colourful (= lots of rain forecast) for the day of our intended walk, and high winds were also predicted. However, Angela and I were more than keen to climb something – anything – despite the weather, so took a look at our options. The map ruled out anything south or west; east just didn’t call us; so we settled for north of central, and chose to re-climb Brewery Knob, which fell into a Goldilocks zone: not too high (i.e. windy), not too long a drive … not too anything really, and a nice little mountain sitting there at 1293 ms asl, protected a tiny bit by bigger friends close by. It got the foul-weather guernsey.

We came back the way we went out, and I’m glad we did. It gave us longer on this half-hour stretch of open moorland which we found to be fun.

Good choice. It was a perfect mountain for the conditions. First, we climbed through a stretch of rainforest that is always rich and glorious, but especially so at this time of year when bright orange pilelets of fagus leaves clump together, attractively caught in the interconnected mosaic of shining roots that make mini-swimmingpools along the track. The contrast between the burnt orange leaves and the lurid green moss makes for a mesmerising beauty. We both vowed to do some photography on the way back down, but I am a goal-centred person, so we stuck to the programme of climbing first, games afterwards (not that climbing isn’t the grandest game of all).

The path

As we changed gradient and forest type (after a tad under 30 mins’ walking), and took our first steps on the open Hounslow Heath, the expected wind hit us. On went coats, windproof gloves and more as we leant into the wind to continue. It was so loud – whistling in our ears and bashing our heads with its force – that conversation was impossible.

Similar to the first time I climbed this Knob with my husband, we struck a small band of thigh-high scoparia once on our compass bearing for the final part of the climb (the bearing revealing a slightly darker shape in the mist that we took to be our mount: I have yet to actually see it). We passed very cautiously through, both of us nervous about pin-pricking our beautiful new anoraks. Once on the plateau on top, vegetation was only about ankle high, and we were free to enjoy the huge sense of space made possible precisely because we could see nothing, but could feel infinity in the distance.

We were both delighted by our choice of mountain. It was perfect for that kind of weather, and, well, there’s a lot more to a mountain than the view it offers. The summit cairn is very attractive, and the feeling of being in a wild place, marvellous. It almost felt as if we were the only two living souls left on earth up there; it’s wonderful to escape the treadmill of modernity with its reduction of creativity and freedom, and its terror of risk and litigation that stifles every move and suffocates being kind and decent to one another.

 

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Food list for ten-day hike

You don’t have to worry about food going off eating al fresco here, and the view is awesome, if perhaps an acquired taste. Here is my husband enjoying his cooked breakfast.
Food list for a ten-day hike.

People have been asking me what I take on long expeditions, and it is, of course, an interesting question. There are huge individual differences in taste and portions to consider. I like my food, eat a lot for my size, and like variety. I think it’s important to have a balance of food types and not eat the same thing each day – for mental as well as physical health. When packing for ten days  – and considering my pack is size XS in recognition of my lack of  torso (I am like a spider – all limbs and negligible body) – bulk is also a crucial issue. An XS pack is made for eleven year olds who don’t go on ten-day expeditions; it’s incredibly hard to find space for anything. The first long expedition I ever did (six days in December 2014), I couldn’t do the packing – only partly because my thumb was dislocated and I had no stuffing power. My students, who knew how much and how often I eat, were intrigued by the problem of how to fit what they knew I’d eat into one rucksack, believing the challenge was impossible to solve. They came around to have dinner and then pack my pack for me. They approved of my food choices and brands (my students are self-declared food snobs), and somehow got it all in. Thanks so much dear Jessie and Gracey!! Miss you heaps.

The two who got me packed against all odds (husband and dog did not help).

Below is a detailed list of what I took on a ten-day walk in January this year.

10-day walk: (which only lasted 8 due to a variety of factors, but I packed, catered and carried for the 10 of our plans).
Breakfast, daily.
1 pkt porridge, consisting of: 1 handful oats, small handful of raisins, another of craisins, 6 pieces of freezedried “Forrager Fruit” apples, 1 son brown sugar.
4 x Valley Seed Crisps (or, 1 linseed “Clever Cookie” biscuit and 2 x Valley Seed  crisps)

1 x dessertspoon ground espresso coffee in 1 cup water.

 

Dining room table (rock) all ready to go. Water laid on. View to dream about. This is the best way to eat (Arm River Track).
Lunch:
Meals 1-3: 1 wholegrain roll with parmesan cheese, sliced, and plenty of tomato relish (Vix Kitch). Carrots and celery, Droewors (South African dried sausage) and Kooee beef jerky on the side.
Meals 4-10 (per meal):
1 slice peccorino cheese (7 x 5 x 1cm in dimension (approx)).
1 stick celery
4 baby carrots
max 3 corn circle crisps / dried biscuits.
1 x 5 cm stick of Droewors (from Trevallyn grocer) + Kooee Beef Jerky
For dessert: A bite or two of one of my sweeter muesli bars.
In 8 days, I ate 1 x Kate Morgan meal supplement (Vanilla) divided into three meals (ie 1/3 per day). NB. This is not as a substitute for a meal to lose weight, it is IN ADDITION to a meal to add extra, non-bulky calories and reduce my need to snack quite as often as I normally do.
Ate 4 shortbreads (Cripps). Could have eaten more. Hit a spot.
Another perfect setting, which somehow makes dehydrated concoctions taste like the most wonderful delectables you’ve ever tried (Eldons).
Dinner:
1 x Maddel veggie cube in water (lighter and smaller than cup of soup packets) per day
1 (in total) cup of soup, had right near end for variety (didn’t actually need variety in this).
1 freezedried meal (mostly army brand)
For variety also had 1 x Backcountry Roast Lamb and 1 x Outdoor Gourmet Co Mediterranean Lamb with Olives. Both well received.
Allowed 1 x half dried peach per day, had as pre-dessert

1 x liquor chocolate at night for dessert

 

Here on the Southern Ranges, we all got our stoves and sat around a (mostly) dried-out tarn to cook and eat – and to exchange stories, a necessary part of the eating ritual in the bush.

 

Half an hour later, eating ceded to photography as food was ignored and cameras were considered far more important than calories.
Snacks: NB. Did NOT get through the 4 allowed per day. Probably didn’t even get through 3 / day. Still, good to have as emergency.
Went through (by sharing) almost 1 x packet of light soya snacks from Grand Central
1.5 pkts Kooee beef jerky. Yum. Needed salty snacks like this. (Grand Central)
1 large handful dried cumin soy beans (Coles).Went down well
should have taken dried broad beans – love them (Coles)
Quite a lot of ginger (loose, dried) for self and others – all loved it.
2 x toffee-almond bars J (Trevallyn grocer)
2 x sesame snack packets of four (in a single sitting, each). J
2 x Mogli MandelRiegel. YUM (Trevallyn)
3 x Baracke classic halva bars. Yum. (Trevallyn)
1 x Go Natural Cacoa Fruit Nut, almond and raspberry bars. Yum,
1 x Bounce almond protein hit (health food shop in arcade). Pretty good.
1 x weightwatchers macadamia and cranberry bar. Like.
1 x Isowey High protein bar – berry and yoghurt bar. Nice enough.
1 x Brookfarm bar (macadamia and cranberry). OK
1 x Be Natural trail bar. Berry. Tolerable.
½ Lo Carb (blue pkt) protein bar: Dark Choc Mint. OK
½ Lo Carb Orange protein bar. Didn’t do it for me.
1.5 x Nude Food Cacao & Hazelnut bars. Too much coconut and sunflower oil L. Didn’t  like.
Finishing off breakfast in a valley in between Stepped hills and Mt Wright

Took but didn’t eat: (Brought home 1 kg uneaten snacks.) Remember, we came out two days early + you need to be prepared for emergencies that keep you in there longer than expected.

1 extra packet of savoury bickies.
Emergency deb potato + soup
2 x AntiOx snack bar. Like??
1 x Paleo Crunch raw strawberry protein bar. Like??
1 x Lo Carb orange protein bar. L
2 more Mogli Mandel-Riwegel. Yum Yum.
2 more Baracke classix halva. Yum again
2 x toffee almond bar.
1 x bounce cocoa mint protein bomb. Like ?? (Health food shop in arcade).
2 Go Natural Almond-Raspberry bar
1 x Protein FX energy bar Choc Mint
1 x Pure Organic wild blueberry bar. YUM !!!!!!!!!!!!!
1 x Paleo Crunch Raw Cacao bar. Like? No
2 extra Kate Morgan meals that I didn’t need 

Does it get better than eating with a view like this all to yourselves?
Sundry:
Also had 1 x cup of tea (took 4 bags)
1 small (100gms) gas canister lasted 8 days (had another with me in case).

Next time, pack 1 x safety pin. Had with me 1 x click strap, 1 x shoelace, 1 x guy rope and 1 x peg. Happy to have had those!

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Lord 2016 May

Mt Lord  7 May 2016

The first (and last) chunk of the walk is in rainforest.

I was surprised by my own reaction to Angela’s confirmation that she could still climb Mt Lord with me: I was excited to be going on another adventure together. What, you ask, is surprising about that? Well, I’d always thought I went bushwalking to see more beauty and to have a great workout in nature. I had never really thought of what I do as having an adventure per se. But there it was. The meaning of “adventure” is: an unusual, exciting or daring activity. I guess going bushwalking, in that it doesn’t happen every day, is unusual (but not very); it is exciting, as I am out in free nature, taking up the challenges of summiting another mountain. Daring? Well, I guess there’s always an element of slight risk. Whatever the definition, my mind saw it as being a fun adventure, and I just couldn’t wait.

We drove down after dinner on Friday, and pitched our tents close to a gurgling river that we could hear all night, and breakfasted next morning under stately gums. Our task for the day was short, and we had done most of the drive; there was no need to rush, so we were not ready to begin climbing until a bit after 9 o’clock.

There was a kind of a road sort of thing – maybe used by trucks to turn in – so we hitched a ride for the grand 15 metres it offered us, diving into the thick forest at a spot that perhaps looked more agreeable than the rest. Once in, and past the tangle of young saplings that grew near the source of light, things greatly improved, and we made our way up through the very steep yet pleasant rainforest, marvelling at the extreme size of the stumps that existed, rotting away, in that early part. I reckon it would take 30 Angela-Louises to occupy the surface area of some cuts.

Mostly the fungi were big, like these, although on the descent we saw some examples of smaller genera such as mycena, entoloma and cortinarius, in blue, red, green and purple.
The route was not easy, and we had to weave quite considerably to make progress. I was always a bit unsure of whether the direction I was pursuing would take us into a bosky cul-de-sac, so didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I might have. My concentration was on other things, but I still had a sense of the greenness and the clumps of large fungi.

After about an hour we emerged into the inevitable band of Bauera – but, oh joy, no Scoparia – and a jumble of washing-machine sized boulders to negotiate, with the odd buttressy cliff making an appearance.

Summit view
As we neared the wider summit area, the bushes thinned, but the going was still slow as the rocks were treacherously slippery, each one offering its own private, sloped rink to anyone who’d brought up skates. We hadn’t.

So slippery was it that I couldn’t even be bothered moving around to get a good shot from the summit. The “views” didn’t warrant the effort. It wasn’t quite 11 yet, but we had lunch nonetheless, as we’d carried it up there, and that’s what you do on top of a mountain. It was cold; the views were not great; neither of us is a mad-keen collector of peak bagging points, so, whatever the number attached to Lanes Peak across the way was, it failed to interest us – I also think we are both brewing some virus; we were not feeling fantastic – so we came straight down. One mountain was enough of an adventure for today. After half an hour on top, we began our descent, this time staying nearer to the creek for no particular reason; it’s just where we ended up and we saw no problem with that.

A different summit view.

The descent route was more beautiful that the outwards journey, but marginally slower in the endgame, as there were a lot of huge fallen trees, some with diameters over our heads that made climbing over their rich, mossy surfaces next to impossible. There was no room under them either, so a small expedition was required to follow each obstacle to one or other end to get around. I was glad we hadn’t climbed that close to the creek when outward bound, as that procedure might have been depressing. On the descent, knowing the end was nigh, we were not put off at all.

The route was short: only 1.6 kms in each direction, with 530ms climb in that short distance, so, as the contours above also indicate, very steep – but fun. The min/km rate of travel – roughly 1 km per hour!!! – gives an idea of the thickness of the bush and the number of obstacles. That said, the shortness meant that we finished quite early, could go straight to the Possum Shed for delicious food, and be back at home in the north before dinner time. Bring on the next one. (Cyan with a border is the downwards route)
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Lots Wife 2016 Apr

Lots Wife  Apr 2016

Sunrise day 2. Mt Sarah Jane in the background
Weee; an expedition to climb Lots Wife. Happy to have my pack on my back and to be off bushwalking again, I played dodgem in the mud-swamp bogs that surround the Lake Judd area, weaving to avoid the more treacherous, neck-deep holes and swinging like an orangutang at times from one melaleuca sapling to the next in an attempt to avoid death by mud suffocation. Not only do I find this to be an unpreferred way to die, but also I have my precious camera strapped to my chest, so also fear a mere face plant.

Andrew, huddled, admiring the gold

It did not rain, but all three of us were pretty wet by the time we breasted the ridge that forms the springboard for Mt Sarah Jane, so that the 80 km/hr winds that greeted us chilled us to the bone. We had rather been hoping to burst into balmy, warming, drying sunshine. The wind was a rude and unexpected shock.

Down they drop

We had all planned to camp here: the other two to avoid carrying the packs back up the slope the next day, and me because I wanted to sleep close to the magic panorama on all sides that this spot offers. It was a deal, despite the wind, so we searched around for a moderately protected niche. So much for my desire to have an expansive and photogenic vista out the tent window: there was no sunset that night. No views regaled us. Mist encinctured us. Two of us were so cold we elected to go straight to bed without even having any dinner. I was far too cold to cook, and just wanted to be snug in my bag. I was in my bag, but not snug. The wind blasted a fury all night, but died down somewhat by dawn, when the world filled with golden, misty light, and the full moon still pierced a hole in it to the west.

We set out at around 8: late enough for the sun to have cleared the mist, but early enough for us to enjoy the crisp, early light in the mountains. Along we went with vast views to left and right, then down to Spanner Lake, and then up, up, up through glorious rainforest until we reached the ridgeline that leads to Lots Wife. Getting close now.

Approaching Lots Wife – stone, not salt. Might be easier to climb.
I am told that a friend, not at all given to swearing of any kind, when greeted with the sight of Lots Wife that confronts you when you pop out of the forest and onto the ridge, said: “Oh shit”. These words pretty adequately describe my own feelings. I walked along, gazing at this monstrosity, wondering how we were going to find a way up. The face does not have a notice out saying “Welcome stranger”. The fact that that very morning we had met a young guy returning from a failed attempt did not fill my heart with hope. Lucky I was not just here for the summit. I was having a ball and the views were fantastic, and maybe that was all I was going to get out of this trip (plus some sunrise photos already in the bag).

Summit view from Lots Wife
We followed the pad along, further admiring the surrounding cliffs and peaks, but concentrating on our tower, wondering if we’d get to look back at it on the rebound with a successful feeling, or whether we, too, would be defeated by this giant. The pad led to a chute that did not look promising, but we gave it a bit of a go, Andrew leading, before deciding it was too dangerous. Pete remembered a conversation with a club member in which he’d been told to go past the obvious-looking chute and drop down a bit, proceed further and then choose the next chute, a scrubby one. This we did. This chute, too, had its challenges, especially the way I took it, going around a buttress, hanging for dear life by fingertips and toes to the narrowest of ledges (4 cms) with a shocking feeling of space (not looked at, but all too easily felt) below me. Pete, following behind, cleverly spotted a route over the top that was much safer (and used by me, too, on the return).

 

Another summit view from Lots Wife

It was a superb feeling to burst out of the cavernous chimney onto the giddy heights and see the summit cairn, problem free, just ahead. We sat there for an hour, eating and enjoying the scene before beginning our rather reluctant way down. It was such a privilege to be in the presence of a view like that, and as if victory and the view were not enough, nature gave us a pair of wedgetailed eagles circling quite close to us overhead, riding the thermals, as a bonus.

The close of day from our camp spot
Looking towards Lake Pedder

I felt deeply satisfied as we descended through the lush rainforest, each musing over the joy of a climb like this. I was hungry back at camp, and wanted to enjoy dinner in the light and the open, and to concentrate on photography at sunset, so cooked tea at 4.30 (I have never eaten that early before), enjoying the last of the day’s warmth before I froze my hands off shooting the golden rays of the western sun as it sank behind the mountains surrounding Lake Pedder.

On the way home, we made up for lost calories with burgers and cake (and more) at the fabulous Possum Shed, toasting our success with coffee.

And Alpenglow to the east