Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Lake St. Clair
From Hobart, as you may recall, our plan was to walk the Overland Track. As I was cleaning up the dishes from our greasy and unfortunately lamby "rissoles" at Narrara Backpackers, however, those plans were dashed by a fellow guest who seemed quite familiar with walking in the Tasmanian bush. He informed me that (1) bookings are required and last he checked, no space was available until the following Wednesday and (2) you are now required to walk from North to South whereas we had planned to start at Lake St. Clair. After considering our options, mom and I decided to stick with our plan to bus up to Lake St. Clair the following morning at 7am and to discuss the possibilities with the rangers there. I knew that at the very least, we could hike th beautiful Mount Rufus track which I had become so enamoured with on my previous visit to Tasmania.
It was odd to ride the bus up over the hills and along the plateau I had cycled through solo 3 years prior. The experience in the bus was so different - I had felt so much more connected with my surroundings when using pedal power. Then again, the experience of waking up at 2am to find my thermarest floating on an inch and a half deep stream which had engulfed my tent during the night was an experience I was happy not to be repeating.
When we arrived at Lake St. Clair, the weather was reasonable, but the forecast did not look particularly promising. We decided to take advantage of the clear skies to hike up to the Pine Valley hut from which two nice dayhikes were possible. In order to arrive before darkness fell, we took the shortcut of hopping on the ferry instead of hiking 5 hours around the lake. It was thus that we managed to arrive at the hut and sent up our tent on a nice squishy mud base and still fall into a deep slumber well before the stars came out. The sighting of 2 tiger snakes at close proximity had only helped to speed the 3 hours walk from the ferry to the hut along.
We awoke the next morning to the sound of raindrops on the tent. Still being very weary, the best course of action seemed to be to go back to sleep. A wise choice. When we were ready, the weather had improved sufficiently that we decided to follow some of our fellow campers up to the Acropolis. What a gorgeous hike! After a short ascent through the woods, we emerged on an open plateau where we pranced along boardwalks through grasslands and boggy areas punctuated by African-looking eucalypts with slender trunks and bushy tops. (Later I learned that eucalypts, well-designed for surviving bushfires, have dormant nodules under their bark ready to sprout out new leaves should their tops be consumed by flames.) After crossing the plateau, we scrambled up to find ourselves perched on the tops of tall towers of columnar dolerite with views of tarns and lakes and peaks all around us.
to be continued... first a few words from mom..
It was odd to ride the bus up over the hills and along the plateau I had cycled through solo 3 years prior. The experience in the bus was so different - I had felt so much more connected with my surroundings when using pedal power. Then again, the experience of waking up at 2am to find my thermarest floating on an inch and a half deep stream which had engulfed my tent during the night was an experience I was happy not to be repeating.
When we arrived at Lake St. Clair, the weather was reasonable, but the forecast did not look particularly promising. We decided to take advantage of the clear skies to hike up to the Pine Valley hut from which two nice dayhikes were possible. In order to arrive before darkness fell, we took the shortcut of hopping on the ferry instead of hiking 5 hours around the lake. It was thus that we managed to arrive at the hut and sent up our tent on a nice squishy mud base and still fall into a deep slumber well before the stars came out. The sighting of 2 tiger snakes at close proximity had only helped to speed the 3 hours walk from the ferry to the hut along.
We awoke the next morning to the sound of raindrops on the tent. Still being very weary, the best course of action seemed to be to go back to sleep. A wise choice. When we were ready, the weather had improved sufficiently that we decided to follow some of our fellow campers up to the Acropolis. What a gorgeous hike! After a short ascent through the woods, we emerged on an open plateau where we pranced along boardwalks through grasslands and boggy areas punctuated by African-looking eucalypts with slender trunks and bushy tops. (Later I learned that eucalypts, well-designed for surviving bushfires, have dormant nodules under their bark ready to sprout out new leaves should their tops be consumed by flames.) After crossing the plateau, we scrambled up to find ourselves perched on the tops of tall towers of columnar dolerite with views of tarns and lakes and peaks all around us.
to be continued... first a few words from mom..
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