Cradle mountain in the background

View before the bluf and before the walk to the top. An amazing rock formation, view, and penultimate day of the walk! (and very had going on poor legs after nearly 20km the day before)

A ‘Gorgeous’ moss-filled gorge….. sorry.

Arose to find that the water tank had frozen overnight, needed to resort to some (very cold!) water from the nearby fast flowing creek for the required morning tea

Snow in October…. now is that early or late snow?

Mount ossa is the highest peak in Tasmania, a gorgeous day for the ascent

Tasmania home to the famous devil and formerly home to the Tasmania tiger, shot into extinction some 80
years back.

Day 1 Hobart. The heavens opened and down came the first proper ‘English’ rain I have seen the whole time I have been down here – excellent :) checked into the well appointed hollydene ‘doss-house’ $22 a night… for a private room.

Second day was a walk up mount Wellington with spectacular views overlooking Hobart and lots of round dolomite boulders and things.

Next day took a bus to lake St.Clair, the start of the overland track, a 87km trade route used to connect the north and south of the island before they built roads. having not made the hut but about half a days walk(!) the first nights camp was by a lake Petrarch which google earth seems to call lake Mingundie – several leaches to salt off and horrible horrible cramps will be my lasting memory of that place, but it was very picturesque. (lakesomething pic)

Awoke to find it had snowed, just a little bit, didn’t settle tho, but it became clear why i was ‘okay’ in the -5c comfort sleeping bag and not exactly toasty like normal. grueling walk to the windy ridge but the most amazing lichen covered trees and tropical looking planty things (surreal looking with sleety snow coming down on them) windy ridge was not very windy but there was a nice and chatty Australian couple (and a dutch guy there who couldn’t speak much English) and a
hot stove! not conjusive to getting an early night! easy ish walk via some waterfalls (below waterfall pic) to Kia Ora hut – and yes i was singing it…

Woke the next morning to find the water tanks had frozen (frozen morning pic) this was the first day that the walk was not through the trees so you could start to see more than just, umm trees! it also bought a change in weather, it stopped raining (and never rained for the rest of the walk) in fact by the end it was t-shirt weather

A relatively easy walk to pelion hut, but punctuated but the ascent of mount Ossa, Tasmania’s’ tallest mountain, sweatted like a pig on the way up, even though a large part of it was on snow, it was one of those hills that has the ‘almost their’ moments only to come over a ridge to see there is another 200 meters to go! – several times!!!, was worth it – not for the view but sliding back a large part of the way down on my arse! :)

22k the next day via lake Windermere and it’s hut, and it’s flies… to get to waterfall hut (no waterfalls? – bizarre) by dusk, and then collapsing.

Penultimate day of the walk, this was where it got me (probably yesterday catching up), took about 3 hours to climb up barn bluff as you can see from the pic its kind of a steep scramble, but all of the energy just disappeared, and my trusty chocolate raisins just made me feel warm and sleepy. then a memorable (for all the wrong reasons) steep, horribly steep, downhill, (like stairs without enough steps) to the last hut. Scott-kilder hut named after a school kid and his teacher who died in a blizzard in the 60’s – the original newspaper from page for the mercury framed on the wall – just the sort of grim
touch I like to make the place feel special. later I take back everything I said about special camping food dinners in a bag, the dehydrated apple crumble and custard for dessert was great – almost justifying the extortionate price!)

Last day to Cradle Mountain, no tea and no pub! but the campsite did have beer, how there can be so many old dears coached into once place and no tea shop is beyond me.

Then back to Hobart for a day and time to come home to the heat and hay fever of Sydney, having used more than this (half) years miserly holiday allowance of 10 days!

I remember the name of this one, but it was nothing like as big as the one back in cumbria…

don’t ask me what the lake was called - I can’t rememember, but we camped here the first night of the walk

The plants looked tropical, but it was sleeting on them!