Tag: bushwalk

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Cradle Plateau caper 2017 Dec

Cradle Plateau caper 2017 Dec


I feared that the grieving-type depression (innocuous; natural), which I was definitely experiencing, might morph into clinical depression (serious; dangerous) if I didn’t try to jolt myself out of this state of apathy and fainéant behaviour. Everything has seemed so much effort, and socialising has not been what I have wanted – unless it is with a very select few people, mostly ones who helped search for Bruce or who came to his service, ones who understand my grief. I keep telling myself I am going to join in this or that, … but then I back out of it and take the dog walking, or just stay at home. I haven’t been to Pilates once since Bruce disappeared; haven’t been to any club meetings; haven’t even been to film society. I also haven’t done anything but the most basic of dashes into the supermarket.

So. I decided that this week I had to stop being so apathetic and listless, and change, and thought I should partly achieve this by joining a club walk, and I would even try to return to film society. The latter was not such  a good idea, but the club walk (LWC) was wonderful. There were eight of us, my biggest ‘social experience’ so far, but I was kind of cheating, as several in the group had helped search for Bruce, and several had also been to his service, so it was a nice tame “coming out”. All of them welcomed me back into the club circle.

The weather was not nearly as friendly as the people, but that’s fine by me. My own trip to Nereus (a five-day expedition) I had had to cancel (well, postpone)  due to five days of forecasted horror, but I was sure a mere two days of howling wind and rain and no thick bush would be just fine. It was. Perhaps it nearly wasn’t when the wind picked me up in the air and tossed me into a bush. At least it was a bush and not over a cliff. I don’t mind wild nature. There’s something exhilarating about its fury, so long as it doesn’t kill you. Quite often on the Saturday, I had to just stand there, bracing myself against the wind, waiting for “permission” to take the next step – which would occur when this blast took a breath.

We got to our camping spot early in the afternoon, pitched our tents so we’d have a nice home to return to (I snuck some more food in in the interlude), and then we were off again, to climb one named (Artillery) and many nameless Knobs (Knobs one, two and three – how imaginative of us). We had grand vistas with menacing clouds and floating mist. I loved it.

Despite the fairly constant drizzle, we had a lovely protected spot (as in, from the wind), so sat in a circle to cook and eat our dinner under the shelter of an old spreading pencil pine that took some of the droplets for us. Port and chockies helped warm us. Nonetheless, an early departure to bed seemed like a good way to warm up after a while.

Next morning I set my alarm for 5 to photograph the dawn; looked out the tent flap and changed that to 5.30; looked out the tent flap again and just turned the alarm off. I woke again at 6.30. There was still a thick mist, but by now I was feeling guilty about so much time in bed, so got up to inspect my surroundings. I spent a happy hour photographing stormy scenes before I returned for breakfast.

This day we climbed the more imaginatively named (by Steve) Cows Rump, with Loin Tarn (thanks Vanessa) underneath. There were also more unnamed lumps and bumps that we summited and photographed and enjoyed before it was time to wend our way home, ultimately via a coffee shop. Every good bushwalk finishes with coffee and cake. I’m glad I urged myself to get back on my horse before it became too momentous a thing to do.

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Chasm Falls 2017 i Dec

Chasm Falls Dec 2017


Every time I have been past Chasm Falls, I’ve been in a hurry, and have only taken hand-held shots, not wanting to hold up my companions who were keen on this or that summit. I decided it was high time to rectify this matter, and give just these falls my whole attention for an afternoon.


The walk in only took me half an hour, so I had plenty of time to devote to setting up and exploring around for a bit. The photography thus took an hour and a half. It was nice to have the leisure to explore and relax and shoot what appealed, and I felt privileged to live in a place where you can set out from home and shoot waterfalls like these in between lunch and dinner.


The route I followed was exactly the route my blog shows when I visited Mt Ironstone (www.natureloverswalks.com/mt-ironstone/). Head for Meander, try not to get worried about the fact that the council signposts Liffey Falls but not the Meander, Chasm or Smoko Falls – or Bastion Cascades, Split Rock Falls or Shower Falls, for that matter. If you have enough patience, right near the end when you no longer need a sign as you’ve sorted yourself all out, you finally get one to put you at your ease. (First you want Meander Falls Rd and then Smoko Road).


Your early task after parking at the road’s terminus is to cross the creek before you set off up the hill. There’s a kind of open area with signs – ancient wizards with lichen beards – to the left for Mt Ironstone and Chasm Falls, to the right for Smoko Falls and Mother Cummings Peak. Obviously, if your choice for the day is Chasm Falls, you head left. If that creek’s flooded, then decide for Smoko Falls instead (which are not, actually, on the Smoko  Creek, just to confuse you).

Here’s a curiosity: To get to the Chasm Falls, you follow Smoko Creek. To get to Smoko Falls, you follow the Mother Cummings Rivulet and then seek a tributary flowing into it higher up. If that’s not counter-intuitive and confusing enough, (given that it might be reasonable to expect that the falls on Smoko Creek are called Smoko Falls), further troubles arrive if you go to the bother of reading the small print on your map, for there you discover that Smoko Creek miraculously changes its name to Mother Cummings Rivulet higher up – yet, as said, Mother Cummings Rivulet is the name of the stream (so the map says) which is to the right and comes from the Mother Cummings Peak direction. One of those two entries must be wrong. Luckily there are signs to direct you left or right, and only name peepers on maps get confused. However, photographers get confused, and post images of falls that are incorrectly labelled due to the myriad other confusions to be had in this area.

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Detention Falls 2017 Dec

Detention Falls 2017 Dec


As Carrie and I were in the Tarkine area, we decided to visit the Detention Falls not too far from Sisters Creek, despite the fact that I had brought a macro lens instead of a landscape one. The rotten sun was now shining brightly; our nice threatening clouds had all but disappeared. The gods were against us, but we still wanted to have a peep. Why not?


We found the turn off to Hawleys Road alright (having headed first for Meuna out of Sisters Creek), and eventually also found a place where that Hawleys Rd ended, so we decided we should stop there. There had been no signs to the falls. What we did find was a series of signs that said: “The falls are not here”. At last, one of the handmade signs said: “Falls Track”.  I followed my nose, watching the grass for signs that other humans had once trodden this way, and on we went, eventually finding a clearer track after we’d followed the farm fence straight ahead through two paddocks. There was also a sign warning us that the viewing platform had been taken away (excellent) and that it was dangerous (of course; life is a very dangerous business, full of shocking and debilitating risk in the 21st century. Luckily there were no blue forms to fill in before we were allowed to continue).

This is not the whole of Detention Falls – they were way too big to fit into a single photo with a 100mm lens 🙁
I steered us towards the top of the falls rather than where a viewing platform once was. The view from our arrival point stopped us in our tracks. There was marvellous tannin-stained water with pools and arches and mini falls debouching to the real ones that fell a mighty distance to the base below. Of course, the base called us. I said I reckoned I could find a way down if Carrie was willing to give it a try. Of course she was. Off we set. The drop looked truly formidable from where we were perched on top, but we made it to the bottom, and had great fun being there as well. There is a pleasant sense of achievement when you reach a place that looks inaccessible from afar. We delighted in being at the base, and I shot what I could with the wrong lens. This is another waterfall I need to visit on a nice (dull) day that stays misty all day – and with my landscape lens!!
The bumph says it’s a ten minute walk to the viewing platform. You will cheat yourself of a great deal of fun if you only allow ten minutes in each direction and no more at these falls. I didn’t time it, but my estimate is that we spent at least an hour here (and that doesn’t include the walking in and out part). There seemed so many things to explore, so many photographic opportunities, that the long time, whatever it was, dashed past quickly.

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Hebe Falls 2017 Dec

I had seen a couple of photos of the Hebe Falls – beautiful ones that inspired me to try to find these magnificent forest scenes. I located the Hebe River on my map, so knew my general ballgame, got a few tips from an experienced friend, grabbed my fun photographer friend Carrie and off we set to find these falls. I wasn’t completely sure I could guarantee success, but I’d give it my best shot.


Off we ventured into the forest, which was much less thick than I had been expecting (I was braced in head-to-toe armour for a full-scale bushbash, but it was only a moderate battle). Things went well, navigationally speaking; we seemed to be getting closer to a water source. The trouble was, said water-source was not a great distance – horizontally – away, but there was a very big vertical distance to negotiate. Oh well. At least three others have done this and lived. Down we go. It felt like a deep-sea dive, as if we should hold our breathe. It really was very, very steep.


Once at the bottom, I could hear the falls, but we still had some climbing to do, over another knife-edged ridge, and dropping – steering under and over fallen branches – to reach the base further along. At last we could see our prize. We both took in a breathe of wonder. We had found something very beautiful here. I got out my camera to shoot, but the focus seemed very odd. What was going wrong?


OH NO !!!!!! I had brought my 100mm dedicated macro lens and not my landscape one. There were a few darling bright red hygrocybes but that was not what I had just driven three hours to see. The photos here are my best effort with an entirely inappropriate  lens that wouldn’t let me photograph the whole falls at once unless I went half a kilometre downstream. In addition, I could not attach my little stopper to increase the exposure time, or my circular polarising filter to cut extraneous glare. I was pretty sad about this all day, but the falls were so beautiful, and Carrie such fun, that I did not weep. In fact, I had my first weep-free day since Bruce disappeared two months ago.


In addition to the wrong lens and inability to use the filters I had lugged into the location, we both had problems with the wretched sun which, despite our beautiful forecast for rain, insisted on making unwanted guest appearances every time we set up somewhere. That’s OK by me. I have to go back anyway!

Hebe River Cascades (higher up)
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Cathedral Mountain 2017 Nov

Cathedral Mountain Nov 2017

I have wanted to sleep on Cathedral Mountain for years, and am very pleased to have done it, and yet my venture caused me to question the assumed power of the wilderness to heal our sorrows and / or our soul.
Can wilderness do this? The wilderness presents to us infinite sublimity that we can use to transport our being outwards to the universe, but it is not a force with a mind. It can only heal us if we let it, and allow that infinitude to bring us peace.
Wilderness exists as an objective and real part of our environment, indeed, but the value of that thing and its meaning for us depends on what we bring to it. For the wilderness to offer me healing, I need to meet it half way, as it were, and permit the expectations and connotations I give it to do their  work. I need to lose myself in that beauty – to allow it to overwhelm me so I can lose myself. On the weekend, I could perceive the wondrous sublimity, I loved my little tarn and my magic view, but I still felt empty. I couldn’t lose myself at all or join a wider universe. I was stuck in my own misery.

A long time ago, back when I was an international athlete, I thought that nature had the power to completely satisfy me. I remember clearly the day that debunked this theory: I sat on a rock up very high above the dramatic and impressive Aletschgletcher and looked out at infinite space. This was the quintessence of sublimity, and yet all I wanted at that moment was to have Bruce beside me, sharing that magnificence – not necessarily saying anything at all, just being there, sharing. And so I realised that it is not nature per se, but nature in the context of meaningful relationships that I find to be so wonderful.

And so it is hardly surprising that there, on top of Cathedral Mountain last weekend, witnessing a beautiful display of, first, a golden sunset and, next morning, a thrilling sunrise with pink mountains above white cottonball fluff, I felt far less moved by nature’s wonder than is normally the case. I have lost half of who I am, the person who defined how I saw myself for most of my life and who helped mould who I became; the person who gave me incredible freedom by granting me his love.

In seeing our relationships as the most important aspect of our lives, I am hardly alone. I am reminded of Goethe’s Faust, who sought fulfilment in a variety of sources (learning, magic, nature and more) and yet, who found it in the simplest of solutions: in the love of Gretchen. In a similar yet very different vein, C.S. Lewis whose whole life revolved around reading and writing, found no solace after his wife’s death in the act of reading. Our relationships are like a taste-enhancer, lending flavour and zang to anything we devour. Lose a meaningful relationship, and everything becomes bland and uninteresting. The view from on top of Cathedral Mountain was hardly bland or uninteresting, but, for once, it could not pull me wholly out of myself and give me that enjoyable feeling of merging with nature I so often enjoy on a summit. I am fighting to retain my self in the presence of huge forces; it is hardly surprising that I can’t give to nature right now. And if I can’t give, then neither, of course, can I receive.


And so And so it was that with the deep sorrow of losing Bruce operating below the surface of everything I do, the extreme beauty of Cathedral Mountain, although it moved me, failed to heal my sorrow or to transport me to infinite places where I could feel soothed. Not now.


Only family and close people can soothe me right now. Later, things will change. I am still glad I went.

 The problem, I guess, is that in the past, when up a mountain, even when solo, my solitude has occurred within the wider context of a waiting Bruce at home, who would be pleased to see me on my return, would want to hear stories of my adventures and to share in my photos.
The great poet, John Donne, used the image of a protractor to describe how it was between him and his wife: one partner stayed at the centre while the other one roamed; both were joined while apparently separated. This is also a fitting image to describe the way it was for us. I climbed while Bruce stayed at home, joined in spirit whilst prevented physically by his illness. I guess you could say I was only ever carrying out a pretended solo. Now, for the first time, my summits are truly alone.

But you, lucky reader, can presumably visit this wonderful summit without these cares, and the majesty will have more power to impress you. Getting to the top involves a combination of track following and navigation. A rough (and not always distinct) path leads from the carpark at the end of the Lake Rowallan Road to the beautiful Grail Falls, after which a cairned route takes over, getting you as far as Tent Tarn. If you are not a confident navigator, you should stop here (or even earlier, by one of the other beautiful lakes). From Tent Tarn to the top, there is a route which is cairned, but the cairns are not always as close together as you might like and you do need to know what you’re doing in between their guidance. You need to be happy about branching out and not caring if you don’t find any more cairns today. (For the climb of the next day, Twin Spires, see separate post,viz:
www.natureloverswalks.com/twin-spires/).