Category: waterfall

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Storys Falls Feb 2020

Rumour (the web) has it that Storys Falls are visible from the road (presumably, the bridge). It is true that Storys Creek, with its multitude of cascades merrily tumbling down the slope, is visible from the road, but the actual falls, according to the map, and also according to what I saw, are another few hundred metres upstream, and need to be walked to – and definitely NOT by a person with a disability. Such a person can delight in the scene from the bridge, indeed, but that is not the actual waterfall.

Storys Falls

However, hold your breath if you are wishing for a huge waterfall. This one is even smaller than Chasm Falls or Cephissus Falls, but it does FALL rather than cascade when you are at the exact spot on the map where it says “Storys Falls”. Note also, in accordance with the dictates of authorities that have acknowledged that Australians are no longer educated in their own language, the apostrophe which would otherwise be there is omitted.
As for your choices of reaching the falls: if conditions are suitable, it would be possible to do most of the short hike along the river bed, boulder hopping. I chose to stay in the bush a couple of metres away to keep my shoes dry. It was fine to negotiate. It took me 6 minutes in each direction to reach the falls, although I then went on further for a few minutes, just to make sure I hadn’t missed something exciting, and, well, maps aren’t always accurate, so I thought I’d check for something bigger and better higher up.\

Aristotelia peducularis

Storys Creek hamlet is not quite a ghost town, but almost, and feels interesting to visit. It is fabulous to look up to Stacks Bluff, which is rather imposing, high above where you are standing. In the late afternoon, when I was there, it forms a grand silhouette.
Photographic note: this is the fourth time I have accidentally managed to go photographing landscape with my macro lens for fungi attached to my camera rather than my wide-angle landscape lens. I thought I had both on board, but I was wrong. Hence the photos are of a different style to the norm.

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Bear Falls Feb 2020

The descent to, and then climb back out from, Bear Falls is exceptionally steep. The first 700 ms are flat, on a fire trail (Mt Wellington), after which you dive head first down a landslide (which I presume is the shocking 1872 “Glenorchy landslide”). In this plummet, you drop 440 ms in about a kilometre. That is whopping!!! Not only is it steep, but also, much of it is of dubious stability, that being the nature of a landslide. I personally treat landslide rocks with a great deal of respect. Sometimes the whole land can feel like it’s running away from you.

Bear Falls

As a result, I took far longer to descend (1 hr 38 mins) than I took to come back up again (1 hr 20 mins). I love climbing, and if you stumble going up, you don’t do nearly as much damage, so I feel free to exercise less care. On the way down, I tested every single rock before committing to it, and had three points of contact the whole way. Coming back up, I climbed like a bear on all fours, as required by the slope, and had fun and went as fast as I wished, which was actually pretty fast, as I was under time pressure: I wanted to get changed and have lunch before picking Abby up from Kindy. Relaxing before the onslaught of an exhausted four-year-old just released from the rigours of newly-imposed educational demands was also appealing. A tantrum is far more demanding than a steep slope.
Bear Falls are not marked on the map, let alone named. The tributary they are on is also not named – or not up that high, before it has amassed all its tributaries to become a rivulet. There are two mapped, and many unmapped tributaries. As most people don’t like ascending at the rate I do, I would allow far more time for this excursion, should you attempt it, than I did. I was squeezing it in between other demands on my life.

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Guildford Falls 2020

These mossy falls are beautiful because no one knows where they are. Alas, long may it remain so, for publicity seems to lead all too quickly to destruction, in a one to one correlation. Keep Tassie Wild; keep Tassie beautiful. This post is for those who are inspired by how beautiful nature can be.

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Upper Marriotts Falls Jan 2020

Today seemed like a pretty good day to visit Upper Marriotts Falls, which, like mama bear’s soup or chair was neither too big an undertaking, nor too small. It was a middle-sized adventure, which suited my time constraints. The drive from Launceston is not formidable, and the walking time commitment was a lot less than anticipated.
(For the walking route to the lower falls, named Marriotts Falls, see my blog http://www.natureloverswalks.com/marriotts-falls/).
I was expecting these falls to be very easy, as the WoT site mentioned tapes, so didn’t bother telling anyone what I was doing. Hm. However, AFTER I left Marriotts Falls proper, I had been in the forest for thirty minutes before I ever saw a tape. This did not hassle me in the slightest, as I know what I’m doing in the forest; however, if you want a taped route or a pad, please stay away from these falls, as they are not fully taped, and kindly do not tape them.

Tyenna R, which is followed for the first part of this walk, before it is departed to begin climbing up the tributary that contains the falls.

Can those of us who like to have the fun of finding our own way please be allowed one or two waterfalls left over? There are many of us who like to combine beauty with that special sublime sense that we are in a very remote place.
Tourist paths 1 m wide, viewing platforms, fake-material bridges and the like remove all sense of enjoyment for some of us who want our nature wild. Wilderness is by definition no longer wilderness when you build paths, bridges, platforms and other infrastructure to remove its wildness: when you dumb it down and defang it of its very nature. Our government departments seem hell-bent on de-wilding every square metre of our formerly beautiful bushland and forest.

Upper Marriotts Falls

Those of us who like hiking away from the ubiquitous tourists are being shoved further and further from our homes, like the bears and wolves of Canada. Tourists now have enough places that have been destroyed on their behalf. Please leave this and other still-wild falls as you find them.
We have to earn the right to visit some places. I would possibly like to see the view from Mt Everest. I do not demand of the Nepalese government that they build me a tourist way to get there. If I want that view, then I must earn it by increasing my climbing and general alpine skills. Otherwise, I do not have the right to demand that view. Why does our government think that every living human has the right to see what is otherwise to be earned? – that people should be helicoptered or cable carried in to places that they lack the skill or knowledge to otherwise reach? If you gain the skills to reach such places, you will, at the same time, learn respect for them and become aware of the need to preserve them in their original, untouched state.