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Tassie trip - some highlights and musings 24-Mar-2010 At 2:42:58 PM evanbb

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I've just been to Tassie and Christ I love the place. Good example of how geology drives everything; The geology in Tassie is recent and interesting, so there's lots of kooky little folds and ripples, which means nice little specialist plant communities and weird mammals.

We didn't do a whole lot of climbing, just 2 days at Freycinet so this isn't really a climbing trip report, more some musing on the logistics and Tassie.

Well, 2 things stick in my mind to tell you clowns about.

1) Getting the day time boat sucked balls and despite being cheaper was false economy.

Day time tickets were cheaper, by maybe $100 or so. But, the boat leaves at 9, which means being there by 7.30 or so, which for us meant a night in Melbourne with all the attendant costs. Then in Devonport, we got held up with quarantine checks and outrageous rain so stayed there for a night. False Economy I say. Worse still was driving home from Melbourne after 12 hours on the boat from 9pm onwards. God the Hume is boring.

2) The National Parks in Tassie are superb. The facilities are terrific, with good toilets all over the place and showers in a lot of parks. Also, the track work in a lot of places is also tremendous. Mt Field and Jerusalem Walls spring to mind. I don't know what they're doing differently down there but the NSW parks are embarrassing compared. I suspect it's something to do with the trickle of cash from the Grey Nomads who pay their parks pass then barely use the facilities.

Otherwise we did a lot of scroggin munching and ticked a lot of walks. Did the Skyline Traverse of The Hazards which was a total sandbag. We pulled out somewhere between near Amos, hung up on a 15m cliff after not taking any gear. It's not a terrific line overall either. Spent a lot of time route finding and meandering back and forth.

Did a good circuit walk through the alpine bit of Mt Field NP, which was cool country. Would be excellent there during winter.

The Walls of Jerusalem walk is totally superb and well worth the effort. If you're repeating it keep in mind the Wild Dog Creek campsight is VERY COLD. Not sure why, but it was -6 or so when we were there and a balmy 6 or 7 at the other end of the valley at Dixon's Kingdon. First cold night sleep I've had for ages.