The Monday a little brother and I went for a walk and tried to get up the Black Bluff. It was quite windy, drizzly all day turning to rain for the last few hours. We walked up the track described in Chapman's Day Walks book.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3lfjXW3vew
It was probably a silly thing to do.
The track was like a flowing river almost the whole way and much wetness happened. We made it to Paddy's Lake and by then it was very windy and and my brother does not like the wind. I was dripping wet all over, so with that and not actually being able to see where the end destination should have been, we decided to walk back. Still good fun though.
Tuesday I heard there was quite a bit of snow at Cradle, so 2 brothers and a cousin went for a cruise up there with no real intentions for any walking or anything.
On the approaches to the Cradle road turn off there would have been one third of one lane and half of the other lane covered in about 15cm of snow. Unfortunately my camera is getting old and slow and doesn't function as it used to, but I think a few nice pictures happened. It would be better if the clouds moved.
Marion's Lookout looked so silky or velvety, it was unreal and the whole scene was pretty spectacular too.
None of us had been up Hanson's peak before, so we went up there. We made the first tracks in the snow which was about 10 cm deep for most of the first part of the track. By the time Lake Hanson was visible the snow was between 20 and 30cm deep. The map told us there were hand rails on the way up the front side. But we couldn't find any so it was great fun.
It was very blowy all the way up and there was quite a few hails, but it really was not at all cold.
On the way back we met some Wombat creature who would not move. We stopped and waited for it. But then when it moved it stayed on the track. So my cousin slowly approached it and it turned around looking very annoyed.
In beautiful weather on Thursday I drove to The Walls of Jerusalem and visited that National Park for the first time. Without knowing anything about the conditions there, I suppose I did set out to get up Mountain Jerusalem. As I found out, this was never going to happen.
It is probably the most spectacular place I have ever been. I was buggered before I got to the Park Welcome sign
, but this was soon forgotten as the awesomeness of the place took over. Everything was so calm and quiet and so very shiny.
Walking into the giant arena through the first gate, with the mountains with spots of snow, patchy, but deep snow on the ground and the sparkling water in the half frozen lakes was truly amazing.
I pushed on as far as possible but could not carry on past this little board bridge.
I met a bloke going the other way a few kms into the track who told me the snow was about waist deep where he reached his end point. I didn't really belive him. But, he was basically correct
I like this hill.
and this Bethany in particular
On Friday I drove down the West, planning to walk to Mountain Rufus, which I assume is the mountain below.
I dont know why I did not expect much snow, but I was wrong. I did not take many photos. But it was a nice walk. After probably 3 hours of the walk, I only moved about 300 metres in the next half hour trying to get through the snow without getting too wet. I didnt get wet, but it was a miserable attempt and when I stood under a tree with the snow piled up over where the track was, the snow would have been between waist and chest height. So not so good for walking.
On the Saturday, out of Hobart, my little sister and I went into the Hartz Mountains National Park for the first time. It was the windiest wind I have been outside in and when we reached the summit of Hartz Peak, after the previous days of not making the tops, for some reason, I was extatic
When we were back into the car it had taken us 2 hours and 20 minutes which from all the signs and books I thought was not a bad turnaround time. But it was just in time, as a massive hail storm followed by large snow pouring came over us.
There had been about 4 minutes of hails when I took this photo
Such prolonged hailing was also a first for me. It went on for another 5 minutes and then it stopped suddenly and heavy snow fell for 5 more minutes and then we left.
Sunday we went to the Mount Field National Park for the first time. Heading up the hill was not good, as some clown in a Navara thought he would be a hero and do 10km/hr for about 10 minutes, which if the conditions were as bad as he obviously thought they were, would have been perfectly acceptable. But it was a nice day
. We had a quick look around at the top. But did not do anything. So we drove back down and checked out the Russel Falls which were very amazing. The end.
