More training - mountains, forests and beaches

Back in May, one fine day - sunny, cool and no wind - I went for a solo walk up Mt Vandyke - the mountain beside Mt Roland, near my home. Vandyke is a little shorter than Roland but it is still a very decent hill climb to get to the top. Perfect place for lunch.

There are some seriously weird rock formations up on top of Vandyke. They are all conglomerate, a lumpy sedementary rock that looks like someone cemented thousands of round river stones and pebbles together into strange sculptures. Quite different rock to Cradle Mountain and its neighbours. Those snow-capped mountains on the horizon are the ones you walk by along the Overland Track, including Mt Ossa, Tasmania's highest.

When Kate and Gustav Weindorfer honeymooned in a tent on top of Mt Roland in 1906, this is the view of Barn Bluff and Cradle Mountain that they would have seen. Cradle looks very different from this angle compared with the commonly photographed view from Dove Lake.

I am loving this training! Over the Queens Birthday long weekend, I went east. To the Pyengana Dairy Farm cafe. These are BIG scones. Can I do it?

Yes! I can! But only just.

S and I had just finished a day of walking at the Blue Tier, in north-east Tasmania. At times along the Wellington Creek circuit, we felt like we were in an English wood.

This is a myrtle tree, but it reminded us of an oak.

A beautifully distorted view

Through ice from a frozen pool.

Then, before the scones, a couple of kilometres in the ferns along the river at Halls Falls.

Natures art work - tannin foam swirls.

The previous day - a totally different walk at the Bay of Fires. We spent about five hours wandering along the beach, trying to follow almost non-existent tracks through scrub over headlands, along a long white cresent beach and two secluded coves. There were footprints all over the beach but the only human footprints were our own.

Seal hides where Aboriginal women used to sit waiting, hunting for seals.

Morning tea beside a bird-abundant lagoon. Calm, still - reflections! More art work.

Could there be a more perfect way to train for a long walk?

"The rhythm of walking generates a kind of rhythm of thinking, and the passage through a landscape echoes or stimulates the passage through a series of thoughts...the mind is also a landscape...walking is one way to traverse it." Rebecca Solnit

Trail fairies

Have you ever seen a trail fairy?

Those wonderful invisible beings who find paths through forests for us to follow? Who tie pink fairy tape to trees to mark the way.

 And build fairy cairns so we don't get lost?

This is the walking track up Mt Arthur, about a 30 minute drive north east of Launceston. There was evidence of fairy activity. And plenty of fungi. We all know fairies sit on toadstools, right?

 

So much mossy beauty

 

 Imagine how much force was required to do this! Two giant trees, root systems over 4 metres in diameter - uprooted, side by side.

 And splintered

And then I saw it. 

It was irrestible. I was drawn toward it. Tiny toadstools covered it like acne on a teenager.

  I peered inside

And there she was! The trail fairy- who had sprinkled her magic fairy dust up the side of Mt Arthur to create a wandering trail for us to explore. I thanked her!

Walkers and mountain bikers are familiar with the magic of unseen trail fairies - those wonderful hard workers, often volunteers, who create paths through forests for us to enjoy. Thank you to all the trail fairies!

Training!

I am in training. Oh yes!! Devonshire tea, or clotted cream tea if you are in Cornwall.
At Fudge'n'Good Coffee in Sheffield.

In August, my fellow wanderer, Sheryl, and I are off to do a very, very long walk in England. It is called the South West Coast Path and will take us along the dramatic cliff-lined coastline of Somerset, Dorset, Cornwall and Devon - the home of the Devonshire tea, although Cornwall would dispute that. 

When we finished our last multi-day walk, the West Highland Way in Scotland, Sheryl fatefully said that she wanted to walk 1,000 kms! And I recorded that statement here: Wandering Walkers 10-11 over celebratory apple crumble in Fort William, after only 155kms. 

Recently I typed up my journal notes from that UK trip, all 60,000 plus words, partly because a few people suggested I should write a book but mostly just to reminisce. I don't think there is a book in it.  I was shocked by the number of times I had written, "had coffee and cake" and "good scones today". These things are not part of my normal diet at home. I was also shocked by the number of times I had written "took ibuprofen" for my hamstrings - the ones I tore off the bone in 2016. 

Me waiting for the luggage van in Italy to take me to Switzerland while every one else walked.

So, today I tried to convince myself I was walking in England. Green rolling hills, English trees, contented cows, even a few hedges...

But there were quite a few gum trees and warbling magpies. And there is the familiar Mt Roland in the distance.

I walked 7.5km from my home at the foot of Mt Roland into the town of Sheffield, enjoyed a Devonshire tea for my lunch, had a look at the new murals from the recent International Mural Competition, and then walked home.  

A total of 15 kms, a fairly average day on the SWCP. My feet hurt. My hamstrings burned just a bit going up the hills. I massaged voltaren gell into my feet and took ibuprofen when I got home. I need to do more training which obviously must include cream teas and cake!

Floundering

Come for a walk with me, floundering through life, into the wilderness. Will it save you, or will it destroy you?

My new book is mostly fiction with a bit of non-fiction too, born out of all my many wanderings around Cradle Mountain.

And, did you notice there is a new tab at the top of my blog? It will lead you to the Wanderment Publishing page where I will list writings as they are published.

Sally's first adventure

Adventure and creativity - my goals for 2019. So, I decided to start the year with a little adventure. Well, to be honest I started 2019 at home watching the Sydney fireworks in my pjs. But, the next day I headed off in Sally for a mini solo adventure. Here we are settling in for the first of 2 nights of free camping at Ben Lomond National Park.

The campsite was full. I was lucky to get the last parking spot. But it was quiet once the small crying child was asleep and the out of tune singing from up the hill stopped, mercifully before sunset. A wallaby came quietly to share my dinner time. Just after 8am the next morning I had breakfasted, packed my lunch and driven up the road a few kms to Carr Villa, a scout hut and car park where more people were camped. I was ready to climb Tasmania's second highest mountain. The sun was already hot.

 There is something mystical about being up above the clouds.

 The locals kept a wary eye on me.

This is what I came to see - scoporia in flower.

Scoporia richea is endemic to Tasmania, only grows up high in the mountains, has sharp pointy leaves, grows 40-100cm high, flowers are a range of reddish, yellow and orange, and sometimes white and pink.

The plateau looked like an artist had come along and dabbed orange, yellow, russet, orchre, burnt sienna paint on a background of grey and green. Autumnal colours for summer.

 There were other flowers too. Mountain rocket.

Orites revolta

Some sort of yellow daisy

 Sundew, a small insectivorous plant growing amongst pineapple grass.

Cushion plants which look like soft mossy cushions but are quite hard to touch

Morning tea. What a view.

Eyebright, I think. At first they were in occasional clumps. A little higher they were sprinkled across large areas of short grass, an alpine flower meadow.

 A meadow of mountain rocket.

 More scoporia, lots more scoporia.

What the heck are these regular sized dimples in the tarns? Looking closely, I could see they were made by tadpoles, nosing around in the soft sludgey silt on the bottom.

 A disused alpine club chalet from the mid 20th century.

And then I was at the top. Legges Tor is the highest point on Ben Lomond. For a few minutes I was the second highest person in Tasmania at 1572 metres. That is assuming there was also someone standing on top of Mt Ossa at the same time, which I figured was quite likely given the amazing weather and that this is the time of year that the Overland Track is often fully booked out. I have been here before, but that day was in June, snow was beginning to fall and there was no view at all.

Shame about the ugly ski buildings and infrastructure dotted about the place, albeit only in one small part of the plateau.

 There was more brilliant scoporia behind the ski village.

I was hot. There are no trees. The only shade I could find was on the veranda of the only pub/cafe which was closed, but I took my boots and sweaty socks off and made myself at home. The village was eerily deserted, devoid of people although there were three cars in the carpark. Some wallabies were hopping around. One stopped to stare at me through the railings. Two magnificent wedgetailed eagles soared above me. One human appeared, a tourist from NSW, who had driven up Jacobs Ladder. She was suitably impressed by the beauty of the landscape.

After my lunch I had to decide which route to take back down to my car. I wandered around the scoporia fields for a bit.

The scoporia lit up the plateau into the distance.

It was hard to see the flittering birds I could hear twittering. This is an Australasian or Richard's Pipit.

Then I walked down the road. The only road up to the plateau and ski village. Jacob's Ladder has six hairpin bends, all named - Gateway, Watchtower, Waterfall, Hanging, Black and Strickland. I waited at these corners for a few cars to pass me on the narrow gravel road.

More flowers on the roadside.

And dramatic views of forested valleys and towering dolerite cliffs.

Look carefully and you can just see a red car on the lower section of the road and a white campervan near the top. I had flagged the van down as they had left the back door open when they drove off after taking photos from the bottom of the ladder. There were three very excited young women in the front seat, clearly enjoying their adventure too.

I walked 7km down the road admiring the views, appreciating the patchy thin shade of the gum trees back to where Sally was waiting at Carr Villa. Three cars slowed to offer me a lift and the park rangers pulled up to check I was ok and tell me that tomorrow was a total fire ban day.

Back at the camp I found a site with dappled shade. I tried to sit outside but the mossies wanted an early dinner so I retreated inside. There was a nice breeze and I needed it to cool the van so I pegged up my mossie net across the back door. It worked very well. I could get used to this lifestyle - reading, walking, writing, drawing, exploring, wandering...

These last photos are obviously not at Ben Lomond but I have to share. The next day I drove to St Helens on the east coast to visit a friend. We spent the afternoon in front of her air conditioner as the temperature was 35.5, and it seems that Sally's air con and fan have stopped working. The next day we went for a stroll along the breakwater at the entrance to the bay and watched a large seal chasing fish back and forth beside us.

A great start to the year. Feeling blessed.