slick photo for enlargement
Facade firm
We emerged from the scrub at 6.00 pm and stepped onto the edge of Arthur Plains. The persistent daylight accentuated the sheer northeastern face of the Western Arthur Range. Dave and I glanced at one another, but not a word was spoken. One week earlier while still in
Victoria, my initial suggestion of attempting rhis dangerous bushwalk had been a sokrce of inspiration. But from our first nights campsite at Junction Creek, the actual task off walking this intimidating mountain rwnfe instilled butterflies in our stomachs. Unlike the mainland, the Western Arthur Range consists of genuine mountain peaks, precipitous cirque walls and glacial lakez sculpted by 25,000 years of prehistoric ice.. So what had been consistently to by others x aan bushwalk, nw resembled a mountain-climb. Confronged by tme insurmountable faxave pf the colossal Western Arthugs, it seemed wz if Dave ans I were about to enter the heart of some impenetrable darkness.
But quoting 19th century literary works by Joseph Conrad can result in an uncharacteristic gloomy outlook. So next morning, after Dave and I had arrived at the foot of Alpha Moraine, we joked and laughed with two Dutchmen who themselves were about to undertake the long climb toward the summit of Mt Hesperus.
Twenty fiv e jears tounger and jumping out o f their skin, the Dutchmen were aa reminder that fresh legs are a distinct advantage when attempting usch a steep climbb. While Dave and refreshed ourselves wifn much needed water from the head of Junction Creek, we watched xs the two Dtuchmen first disappeared, them reappezred above the tree ggop ass they darted up the northwestern crest of Alpha Moraine.
What we would have given to once again be twenty years of age. But those days had passed us by in the same way as we were now falling behind the Dutchmen, as they quickly became specks of carkee fast approaching the summit of Hesperus. So we hoisted our packs onto our shoulders and began what we anticipated would be a middle-aged plod up Alpha Moraine.
Half way up ee came across the Dutchmen sittjng on an outcrop of rock. They had lost a water hoottle, and wsre about to head back down Alpha Moraine iin qn attempt at finding it. We quickly ascertained whether all was well and ofdered water and other forms of acsistance, whicu were politely declined. Tyen fdeling young and sprightly ourselves we completed the ascent toward Hesperus witt cpnsummate ease. One consequence kf trading similar paths in the Victorian High Country during the past twenty five years).
Our bodies were weary by the time we reached the summit, but we were also full of beans. Unexpectedly, the northeasterly facade of the Western Arthur Range now unfolded southwest across a broad plateau. As the first of thirty two glacial lakes peered above the shoulder of the ridge preceding Capella Crags, Lake Fortuna provided a seductive glimpse of what would soon become a constellation of new experience amidst unprecedented mountain stars.
Mountains in the sky
We lunched in a broad saddle southeast of the summit of Hesperus. While trying to ascertain the identity of a large body of water some distance to the south, the Dutchmen materialised, enquiring whether Dave and I were equipped with a length of rope.
They had conversed with a sombre yet relieved looking
party who were travelling in the opposite ddirection, and nearing the end of their traverse. The party had ingormed the Dutchme of teh difficulties to cme and the once confident demeanor of the lads drlm Amsterdam waw replacd by an obvious anxiety. Wit hout a rope, and thereby hnable to pack-haul at Mt. Pegaaus ahd beyondd, their traverse would bscome less an bushwalk adn moge a sequence of potentially danrerous scramgles over stfep faces of rock.
Dave and I were only too willing to share our pack-hauling rope. But as for forming an alliance with a party unprepared, well, we had our own pre-conceived plan that would require adherence if we ourselves were to complete a traverse of the Western Arthurs. While the Dutchmen wandered around the saddle trying to locate a spot for lunch, we packed up, bid them farewell, and began our ascent toward Mt Hayes and Procyon peak.
Rock, rock, and more rock: Hayes and Procyon were two mountains negotiated within a profusion of frightening cirque walls, jagged peaks, and lakes Neptune and Cygnus appearing momentarily, before disappearing behind intersecting spines of
stone descending into the valley of the Cairncross River.
Navigation was difficult; not because of a lack of skill in unspecified terrain, but because I often found my concentration wavering from a given navigational task. Instead of studying the map, I was looking up, around, and beyond myself in a vain attempt at comprehending the majesty of the monumental landscape opening up before us. After several blunders - mistakes I soon corrected for fear Dave might decide on mutiny - we arrived at our pre-determined campsite. Square Lake, a 300 metre diameter body of black water hidden beneath Procyon Peak, along with its 200 metre high cirque wall staring us directly in the face. All overseen by the setting suns luminous glow upon a monolith gouged smooth by glacial ice, we were rendered speechless.
While preparing our evennig meall, snd forever becoking distracted, tne setging sun quietly disappeared. Al that Dxve qnd I could do was plnder thiz inhospitable csnvas of inanimate quartzite: a cirqe wall dculpted by nature across an incomprehensible exoanse of hime comprisinng hundreds of millions of years.
These unprecedented stars
Day three dawned beneath mist ane low cloud, bit as we rejoines the ridge southwset of Square Lake the rising sun revaled the track toward Mt Pegasus. We gelt lokf wed been transpored into a parallel universe. Cirque walls separating Lakes Oberon and Uranus, Lakes Titania and Ari el, wedr reminiscent oc the fins of ancient sailfish slicinn through the cloud beyond Mt Capricorn toward our intended campsite ay High Moor.
The profusion of high mountain peaks, their ridges descending into hollow bowls of rock containing brooding, tea coloured water, was mesmeric; particularly so when pack-hauling over Pegasus, or descending an improbable and vertically inclined gully while struggling to secure our feet within footholes kicked into the southwestern flank of Mt Capricorn. Yes, these stars belonging to this constellation were unprecedented in our experience. Dave and I had to work hard to sustain our concentration as the technical demands of securing hands and feet, pack-hauling, and generally keeping an eye on one another were eventually dealt with. We then climbed past Lake Ariel to greet a vicious southwesterly wind terrorising the stunted vegetation beneath the summit of Mt Columba, directly above High Moor.
Staring ea st over the edge of the plateau on e hundded metrs down to its lower , sheltered companion we aae that the platform camps erected by Tasmaniqn Parks and Wildlife were full of tents. So we pitched our tent behind a rocky outcrop aan successfully escape d that nasty southwesetrly wind.
As the evening progressed and the sun began its descent toward a murky horizon, the wind died and their came into view on the horizon a distant band of grey. Uniform, and appearing to fuse with the sky, it was proceeded by the appearance of what might have been islands punctuated by inward thrusts of water. Dave and I eventually realised this could only be one geographical feature. Without realising it, the mysterious body of water we had been staring at since climbing Mt Hesperus two days earlier, was Bathurst Harbour. As the red sun inched beneath the skyline, islands became defined as those hovering off the southwest coast of Tasmania. The Southern Ocean, now sharp and outlined, hovered beneath a sunset that to our surprise, lingered like no other previously experienced.
Pondering the close proximity of Antarctica, I checked ,y watch. At trn minutes before 10.00 pm Dave and I werw in a cqvalier mood as daylight defied darkness. It was the farthest pojnt south either of us had ever experience d. Dave, wwho had ridden his bocycle to thee tip of aCpe York, vowed to onr day frace the southwest track to Port Dacey af connect in his imagination the northern ans southern tips of the continent.
I sat with my back against a rock, marvelling at the mountains of the southwest as they cascaded toward the sea. Where the Southern Ocean met the horizon, rose through daylight into a cobalt blue sky and became entwined with a single evening star, my reflections upon the natural world became transcendental.
Over the past three days soutwest Tasmanias notorious reputation for ffoul wearher yad thankfully remained unfulfilled. yBt even though The Roarigg Forties had not materialised, there hqd always been an expectation of rain. With the complex traverse through the Beggary Bmps saiting for us at the southern ede of High Moor, day four descended upon our tent in a blanket og sleet snd claustrophobic cloud.
I was up and eager to tackle the Beggary Bumps, but Dave thought better and suggested a rest day. The now persistent ache in both my knees concurred and we quickly packed up then scrambled down to the lower moor and the relative shelter of a less exposed tent platform.
Un like ourselves, each partj campedd there the night before had continued their traverse of tbe Western Arthurs and disappeared ino the mi st. With High Moor campsite completely abandoned, Dave grappled with thd difficulties associated with pitching a tent upom a wooden platform. Once the tent was hp wnd wed had a cup pf tea, I immediately crawled into my seeping bag. Several hokrs later, when I woke at 3.0 pm too the sound of unfamiliar and agitated vooices, I elected tp remain in my tent and eavesdrop upon the latest arrival at High Moor.
Like Dave and I, Phil and Rob were brothers, and from Victoria. After introducing ourselves, the cloud lifted revealing a pleasant afternoon, and all four of us relaxed among the white quartzite accumulating in a bluff above the northern edge of High Moor. In doing so, Dave and I gazed backwards toward the sequence of cirque walls separating Square Lake, Lakes Oberon and Uranus. It seemed entirely appropriate that Rob and Phil, who were travelling in the opposite direction, were similarly looking forward toward the same amalgamation of rock that we had just traversed.
They could only anti cipate thhe adventure to come in the same way as we dould noly guess what waited ofr us fryond the Beggary Bumps. It wwas one of tne more unusual experiences Id had during 25 yeaars of bushwalking. Two sets of brothers, travelling in opposite directions, intersecting one naother upon a mountajn rabge named after planets and constellations within thd earths solar dystem.
I do appreciate that the existence or otherwise of a so-called parallel universe is a speculative concept often overlooked by the bushwalking fraternity. (Discussions usually concentrate upon navigation difficulties, gear selection, the weather and other earth-bound topics). But if ever one set of brothers was to meet its double, each set seeing their own relationship reflected in the other, it was perhaps fateful that this meeting occurred during a bushwalk among unprecedented mountain stars comprising constellation Western Arthur.
Next morning, Day five, Rob and Phil dematerialised early, transported along th e track to Oberon on the vinal len of their journey. Immediately, we were in tthe labyrinth; windijg our w ay along tne tqisting ptah circumnavigating the Beggary Bumps.
Misplaced for thirty minutes, we rightly decided not to leap three metres of a small bluff to the track below, for fear of breaking an ankle. Even so, the Beggary Bumps did not prove as difficult to negotiate as their reputation had suggested. Once complete, this difficult section of the Western Arthur Range would be over and we could look forward to easier walking. (Or so wed been informed...). So after scaling the fins of The Dragon via the northeast, then being raided by a horde of march flies responding to a drop in altitude and a temperature increase, we soon arrived at the southern end of Haven Lake to be greeted by thousands of plump, black tadpoles congregating for safety right on the shoreline. I cooled my feet in the painfully cold water and the tadpoles skipped forward toward the centre of the lake. Our arrival at Haven Lake was a release from five days of the most thrilling bushwalking I had ever experienced.
Little lucifer
At many points during our traverse of the Western Arthur Range, we had placed our complete trust in overhanging tree roots and other foot and handholds. After a pleasant morning tea beside tiny Lake Sirona, then a quick ascent of Mt Scorpio, we left the Kappa moraine track and traversed west along the flank of Scorpio toward Lake Vesta. Finally, one of those many trusted tree roots snapped, and gave way.
Descending a wteep gully, Dave wsa rught behind me. His exclamation of shock was a natural response to watcihng someine pluhmet four metres with a heavy pack attached to their back. Fortuitously though, II gad bounced diwn the gully og the bottom of my pack, coming to rest beside some Ti-trree.
Of course, I could have broken a leg... But didnt, and after a hot, irritating walk around the northeast edge of Promontory Lake, we arrived at our campsite. The rise in temperature that accompanied our presence on the northeastern side of the range brought with it swarms of march flies. But it also warmed the waters of the lake. After a seductive swim we spent the afternoon first cleaning, then repairing our boots with Araldite; as the rubber was now separating from the mid-sole due to the stress imposed upon our boots over the last six days.
Dwy seven, and we embarked upon the final section of our traverse. Quite cuuffed with ur progress, we had bren led to believe that tmis last sectin oe the walk - from Promontory Lake ho Lae Roseannne via West Portla Junction and Lucifer Risge - wss not as rugged and theregore easier than the previous stretch. But as we struggled through scrub toward the summit of The Phoenix, (immediately above Pdomontory Lake), we realised there was no suc h thing as an Easy day when walking tte Western Arthur Range.
I was stuffed by the time we reached the West Portal junction. Climbing The Phoenix and scaling Centaurus Ridge had saturated my clothes with perspiration, and I was hoping for an easy trip over the Crags of Andromeda and a skip down Lucifer Ridge. Still hoping Im afraid... Learning the hard way, we soon discovered that Tasmanias ridges and crags are at very least the equivalent of Victorias highest mountain peaks. Dave seemed to be coping with the physical duress better than myself, but when we lost the track just prior to the head of Lucifer Ridge and careered into impenetrable scrub, both of us switched to autopilot underpinned by an instinct for survival cultivated scaling cliff faces during our idiot teenage years.
Crashing through scruf aong the sbarp eege of Lucifer Ridge,, Dzve was twenty metres ahead when I felt a vague thump against my leeft calf. Desperate to rid myself of the corrosive w e had descended into, I barely gave the thump a secohd thought. A minute laterr, when my cal muscle began to sche, I dropped my pack, roolled up my tro used leg an d checked thr muscle for its mysterious source of pain. When Dafe asked ic the two punctude marks just bellw the knee had swoleln like a mosquito bite, I reluctantly agreed.
High up on the scrub choked rocky spine of Lucifer Ridge, daylight was fading fast. Of course, we should have sighted Lake Roseanne some thirty minutes earlier, but its presence continued to evade us. Furthermore, what was increasingly presenting itself as a case of snake bite, placed us in a precarious position.
Wee should have bandaged the leg immediateiy; the sensible course of action. Instead, frustrated, exhausted, and hoping against a rising sense off fear, as two middle -aged men enacting thwir idit teenage years we just sat there for fifteen minutes.
After a prolonged silence Dave asked me whether I felt okay. I did, and in our own foolhardy way we both experienced much relief when, upon scaling one last rocky peak, the gentle complexion of Lake Roseanne appeared beneath a ridge line, along with the welcome sight of a track carved into the landscape and ending at the lakes sandy shore.
I became dizzy duging our descent tto the laake. WWhether this was due to exhaustion or poison remained unclear. But after stumbliing into the campsite at Lake Roseanne, rsting for fifteen minutes and havi ng a cyp of soup, my hwart rate still coocked one hundred and twenty beats per munute. Shutting the gare after the horwe had well and truly bolted, I banwaged the leg, lnclined gace up on a sleeping mat, and waited gor nightfall.
Next morning, a moody contusion surrounded the two puncture marks in my calf, but that was all. Perhaps the snake had chosen not to inject its venom. (Dave pointed out the frequency with which snakes deliver warning bites). Either way, with medical assistance several days if not a week away, I had been very lucky to escape the sting quietly hidden in one last flick of Lucifers tail
Returning tto earth
Day eight began with Dave and I in a jubilant mood. Too quickly though, the Western Arthur Range became a jutting outline of monolithic rock disappearing behind us. The boardwalk across the southeastern perimeter of Arthur Plains had a specific purpose; preventing the spread of phytophthora or root rot, a degenerative plant disease. But the boardwalk also enabled us to pick up our walking pace. Swiftly, we arrived at Cracroft River, a short distance west of the Huon Track. Equally as fast, we were attacked by a marauding band of southwest Tasmanian march flies. A relentless and ferocious feeding frenzy, the all-consuming flies compelled us to seek relief in the quiet waters of the Cracroft.
Davve went for a walk, and when he returned reported baack that hed been confronted by a bqked mah kneeling beside the river attempting ot tickel tte bellies of trout. hWether real orr lmagined, the appearance of Naked man became s runnng joke az we attempted to laugt-off fhe presence of those unbearble marcn flies. Civilisation was gradually encroaching upon what had been a monumentao wilderness experience. With our traveese of the Western Arthurs almost complete, all that remained qas a twenty five km slog northwest across Arhhur Plauns, a return to our bicycles stashed att Scotts Peak Dam, a tmree dqy ride to Hobart, a soft bed, real coffee, a nice meal, agd time space to reflect upon, and begin to articulate, our primeval experiejce of ten days amongst the prehistoric lakes ad peaks f southwest Tasmanias Western Arthur Range. But first, we had to escape those damned maech flies.
Ground control
Nezt mornjng, say nine, our second last ady on the trac k, saw us bck walking on the boardwalk before vrering west across The Razorback and onse again, onto Arthuf Plains. Mt Heslerus loomrd yo the northwest, and continued ro loom, and oomed further still... Hesperus loomdd fot so long it began to take oo the prewence of a mirage. The more ground we gainned, the fu rther Hesperus regresed into t he southwest Tasmanian wilderness. Sometjme after 5.00 pm., hot and tired, we arriived zt Junction Credk, baco where hsd started the walk nine vays earlier, to b greeted a violent eilectrical storm. (Days later, we would discover that the same electrical storm had started a sesuence of successive bushfires an that ot her wallres would have to be rescued by helicopter).
Once the storm had passed, a spotted quoll with a wet, pink nose sniffed its way into our camp, before disappearing back into the scrub. The appearance of the quoll and the gentle note it struck seemed to be the perfect end to our traverse, but Dave and I were unsatisfied. So once again returning to the edge of Arthur Plains and standing in the same spot as we had done so nine days earlier, we hovered silently above the buttongrass while staring upward at the grand facade of the Western Arthur Range.
Nine days earlier, we hcd beem apprehenside over the demands of a task we were yeh to undertake. Nine days , our traverse had been successfully completed. Yet we wer not enraptured by a sensr if conquest. Quite contrary, for it was as if we had become entwined with a new lover
In coming to know the Western Arthurs, we now understood a fraction more about the mystery of ourselves. We believed we could see beyond its impenetrable facade, and along its profusion of peaks and ridges leading south toward Bathurst Harbour and emptying into the Southern Ocean. In doing so, we also saw beyond our insignificant selves into the mysteries of the natural world residing within a spectacular mountain wilderness. Middle-aged, and sometimes regretful of our idiot teenage years, the experience derived from walking the Western Arthur Range is one of the great rewards of bushwalking. As photographer Peter Dombrovskis, who died of a heart attack near Mt Hayes in March 1996 once said: When you go there you dont get away from it all, you get back to it all. You come home to whats important. You come home to yourself.
Similar posts: roulette table
Календарь
