It is 30 years since I spent a year in
Devonport, Tasmania as a student midwife at the Mersey Maternity
Hospital, and, riding the Spirit of Tasmania into port on the Mersey
River nothing was familiar, except, perhaps, a little bit of sandy
beach west of the Mersey River where I used to swim (almost all
year!).
I certainly don't remember as much
palaver boarding the Spirit of Tasmania at Melbourne. We were
astonished to find that, even though we arrived almost two hours
before the boat was due to depart, there was a huge traffic snarl
clogging up several streets in Port Melbourne as cars, caravans,
trucks and motorcycles queued across multiple intersections. Once we
actually crawled our way closer to the loading zone we found out why,
as not only was our car and caravan searched, but another official
climbed up to inspect the kayaks.
Luckily, we managed to convince
her that our wetsuits were clean and dry and we did not have to pull
those out as well. Two litres of Shellite were confiscated, never to
be seen again, and a small refill of butane was taken away for
pick-up in Devonport. No wonder the check-in line moves so slowly.
Add all this to a 9 or 10 hour boat
journey, another quarantine inspection for unlucky travellers at
Devonport, and arriving in Tasmania feels as if one has arrived in an
entirely different country. But, this is still Australia. Free
camping is still easy to come by and the country side and coastline
is as beautiful as anywhere.
Lake Macintosh
We arrived in Tasmania with a huge list
of multi-day walks and kayak trips we wanted to do, as well as some
rock climbing, day hiking, peak bagging and single day kayak trips,
and it was a bit hard to decide where to go first, particularly as we
seemed to have no data reception on our mobile telephone to get a
weather forecast. However, in a brief period of mobile telephone
reception we got what appeared to be a good weather forecast in the
southwest of the state and decided to head down to Strahan to do an 8
day sea kayak trip around Macquarie Harbour. On the way, we would
pass a track leading to the top of Mount Farrell near Tullah, an
alpine type peak to the north of the Tyndall Range, and welcome
opportunity to exercise our legs.
Tasmanian roads are as narrow and
winding - perhaps more so - as other roads in Australia, so, even
though the distance is not far, it was 3.00 pm when we left the track
head at Tullah on a well signed track leading to either Mount Farrell
or Lake Herbert (or both). The track starts climbing straight off up
through dense second growth timber passing a few very hidden old mine
shafts. After about half an hour, you emerge onto button grass and
more open terrain and you can see craggy Mount Murchison at the far
northern end of the Tyndall Range to the south. Another ten minutes
or so, and a junction is reached with one red arrow pointing to the
lake (left fork) and the right branch heading to Mount Farrell. We
took the right fork and the track immediately disappeared into dense
button grass and shrub. There is a foot pad, it is just a bit
obscured.
Mount Murchison
After a short climb of perhaps another
100 metres, the track emerges on a ridge scattered with conglomerate
boulders. The track becomes clearer again and steadily climbs south
along the ridge with views of Lake Roseberry and Lake Macintosh, and,
as you get higher, tiny Lake Herbert tucked under the slopes of Mount
Farrell. A false summit on the ridge is reached, but the track
carries on, a bit more obscured in places and, about 15 minutes from
the top, a cluster of boulders and thick scrub on the ridge is turned
to the right before the track climbs again and traverses with some
scrambly sections on the conglomerate boulders to the top and the
trig station. The best views are actually from a large conglomerate
boulder just before the trig station.
Doug on the track to Mount Farrell
Cradle Mountain/Lake St Clair National
Park is, of course, not far to the east, and I'm sure some of the big
peaks we were seeing are icons of that National Park but I am not
familiar enough with any (I did climb Cradle Mountain 30 years ago)
to recognise any. The view, however, is superb and highlights the
wonderful wilderness that still remains over so much of Tasmania. It
was 5.00 pm, so time to be away down the mountain again. Lake
Herbert is only 100 metres below and the track to the lake is much
clearer and more defined than the one to the summit, and, there is
nothing, apart from thick button grass and waist high scrub
preventing a descent to the lake and track, but we opted to follow
the track back down (I was wearing shorts - last time I'll do that).
Viewpoint over Lake Macintosh
There is, however, another junction,
about 20 minutes below the summit near some rock boulders where you
first get a view of Lake Macintosh on the way up and a red sign marks
this junction (hard to see on the way down). A deeply gouged trench
drops about 5 metres down to the east and you can join the better
lake track easily making a little bit of a circle route. All up we
were about 2.45 return, although it would be nice to also have time
to visit Lake Herbert and perhaps have a swim. A great and easy
reintroduction to Tasmanian walking with outstanding views. What
more can you ask for?
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