Western Arthurs (Cygnus/Oberon)
Trip Start
Jan 11, 2008
1
10
16
Trip End
Feb 22, 2008
Junction Port Davey Track/Alpha Moraine,
Australia
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
We had just almost finished the Port Davey Track, eaten the last bit of our hummus, and were sitting at the intersection sign ... 10km to trailhead, and the Western Arthurs standing behind us... and the land around us was scorched from a fire in the last year or so. Continue hiking through the burnt button grass of the north western Huon plains -- which could (would. did. and again on the way down.) get soot on our backpacks, or climb from 300m to 1100m up into a Tasmania cloud-forest alpine environment, pretty much unique in the world? You can guess which we chose.
The Western Arthurs are done by some people as a week long traverse (perhaps by us, on a future trip), but the best parts (or at least, most visited and best) are in the north end. The main way up is nearly a 1km vertical steep ascent up Alpha Moraine, thereby gaining the ridge line. Once one reaches the ridge line it does not go flat. The trail continues to be steep, up and down continually, as it tries to gain and lose the ridge line around rocky exposed sections. Little alpine lakes tuck into both sides of the ridge line. Or so we had heard :) Details are sketchy. Tasmanian parks does not publish any information for the hike, they recommend you "contact them".
The best information is in Chapman's book... which is so badly out of print that every hiking store will (1) tell you to go to the library and photocopy it, and (2) moan about his next edition being late.
With the sun beating on us, we started hiking up the ridgeline.
01) Halfway up the moraine
First, off, we had to climb through about 300 vertical meters of burnt eucalyptus forest. The thin trunks are remarkably resistant, and scratched a lot against us.The steps up are nearly knee breaking -- 80 degree steps every single step. The soil (mud when it rains) is perhaps only half a meter thick, and underneath the rock is quartz boulders and such. The footholds are remarkably good and trustworthy. With a 17km pack on the back, it is a formidable effort. Luckily we had a wind from the north east to cool us a bit, and we climbed rapidly out of the dry lower levels. We started seeing our friends the skinks (little lizards, which we saw so many of on the Overland Track two years ago). Various other flowers started showing up. Then we started seeing flowers we had not even seen on the Ironbound crossing of the South Coast Track.
The hike steeped through giant boulders and gained a ridgeline of sorts, with views to all sides. Being at 1100m
now, able to see bits of ocean peeking out in various places, Theo tried to see if his blackberry could get reception. Nothing. We could see perhaps 1/4 of Tasmania,and could not get cell phone reception. Apparently such places still exist!
In recent years this first section of the ridgeline track has been upgraded slightly by placing large flat stones (from the local area) to form a track, so that the boggy heath does not get too degraded by the traffic. This probably also makes the walking a bit faster than it was in the past. We continued over various dips and climbs, and the third lake we could see below us was Lake Cygnus.
02) Pretty flower
To get there we had to climb something like 800m, then gain and lose 120m three times, and Lake Cygnus was a bit more than 200m below us! We hiked down to the lake, where there was noone, and set up our lovely yellow tent on one of the wooden platforms (these also recently added to protect the area). We filtered water, and basked in the sun. Such a lovely area! Nothing could go wrong! The lake had thousands of tadpoles swimming around in it, and the fields were full of insectivorous tendralled little plants.We ate a bit of extra food, since we had worked so hard that day (we were fools). Some more people arrived later, but it was so lovely that we could ignore that.
Early the next morning, it started to rain. Looking out the tent, we could not see ... anything except fog. We went back to bed, and checked again an hour later. Then we checked again another hour later. It seems like every 20 minutes it would rain, then start to show improvement. We finally made oatmeal in our vestibule at 9:30am.
By noon we had accepted our fate, and declared it a tent day (mainly because we believed tomorrow would be nice and we could still dayhike and hike out). Our hope had been to day-hike to Lake Oberon (three lakes further along the ridge). It became a much needed rest day. Nadine read her book, and after finishing it, she stole Theo's book and finished it too. Theo mostly napped. Meals were looked forward to more eagerly than on previous days as there wasn't much to do. Of course, some rationing had started, because we had eaten too much yesterday!
Around 7pm it did finally start to clear up, and Theo jumped into his goretex and tivas, and ran up the next ridgeline.
03) Looking back towards plains
There, he was surprised to see a fantastic sunset setting over the mountains and sea to the west.It rained again, and the tent was covered in large settled droplets, because the wind had slowed down. That night was very cold -- we had to huddle very close in the sleeping bags. The next morning revealed an incredible sight. Over night the frost had settled so hard, and the tent had millimeters of ice caked onto it; dimpled with the rain droplets from the previous evening. Everything that had been left out was frozen. Plants around the area were also covered in a layer of frost. These are very tough little plants -- able to be wet, and cold, and frozen all at once, and then the next day, in direct sunlight!
The storm had passed, and we still had an opportunity to do our Lake Oberon daytrip, as long as we made it off
the mountain today as well. We hurried onto the trail and found that the next section onwards (southwards) was even more up-and-down than the previous section had been! We stopped for a numerous out of breath views, as the clouds and sun kept dancing around the ridgelines and summits. We could see islands in Bathurst Harbour (which we had hiked all the way around on the Port Davey Track), and even the ocean beyond that, way in the west! To the east the large Arthur plains stretched out, and various unknown peaks stood out in the distance.
We paused for a while at Square Lake to catch our breaths, then headed up the big climb towards Lake Oberon. (As you climb up that way, it becomes pretty clear why Square Lake is named thus, and from which direction it was likely named --- the south).
04) On the ridgeline
We reached the ridgeline to view Lake Oberon! Wow. It is not just the lake that is amazing, or the location, but the ridgelines visible behind it, and the vegetation one stands amongst that make it feel so unique. It makes us really excited to do the whole traverse in the future.At this point in the trail, it is possible to do a quick little side trip, so we climbed up onto Mount Orion, scampering on the rocks most of the way up. Then we turned around, and slogged our way down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up, back to our tent. We packed it up as quick as we could, happy that the sun had come out and dried it up very nicely.
We placed our (perhaps 15kg now) backpacks onto our backs and were basically in system shock going up
the climbs again! Day tripping is so much easier! We climbed the 200m out of the Lake Cygnus bowl, and started doing the ridgeline traverse back towards Alpha Moraine. At that point, we decended it rather uneventfully back towards the burned out area on the plain, and roughly 3km later we were nearing Junction Creek campground.
Two fellows who had just finished a 7-day Arthurs traverse told us that Junction Creek campground was full,
so we found an isolated flat spot in the eucalyptus forest just a ways in from the edge of the burn, got water, and ate our very last dinner! (The rationing system was fully in force now).
A warm evening and coolish night without any rain was followed by eating reconstituted potato flakes instead of oatmeal for breakfast (all the food we had left), with the last of our coffee and hot chocolate, and then we set out (fairly late, since there was no point arriving early for the bus) towards Scott Peak road.
05) Looking down at Lake Pluto
7km later of fairly hot (and mostly flat) walking saw us walking into the Huon River camp ground (ie. car camping), but a few times we were kept company by little birds that kept flying ahead of us down the trail and twittering.At Huon campground we washed up a little bit and hiked down the road to figure out where the bus might come from. We eventually found it arriving entirely empty, and we were the only people who rode out on it -- all the way to Hobart! We talked at length with the bus driver David about all sorts of things, and he was nice enough to stop somewhere for us to buy a snack since we were starving hungry! On the way back to town, he took us on a cherry hunting expedition -- visiting farm after farm along the road hoping to get fresh cherries (sadly, the previous day was the last day that cherries could be bought at all the farms!)
We arrived at our hotel in Hobart (Old Woolstore) where we had a little apartment booked for 2 nights... and immediately started cleaning our gear.... then we went to Fish Frenzy and had fish on a greek salad. One glass of wine was almost enough to have Theo reeling :) What a grand adventure we had!
