Van Dyke and Claude

Dave and I went walkabout one good day last month to climb up the mountains. We had a plan, but ammended it along the way. Read the epic adventure <here>.


Dave on top of Mount Claude

A baby echidna!

Black Bluff with K

Full screen slides <here>

Today seemed a good day to go up Black Bluff. About a 40 minute drive from home, we started the ascent at 10am. Stopping every 10 minutes to change layer configurations (to cope with snow and heatwaves and everything in between), we made it up in 4 hours - including a few stops and lunch. Two hours is all it took on the way down! We were buggered at 4pm back at the car.


Black Bluff, at 1340m above sea level, is the highest peak along the 76 km Penguin Trail which starts in the northern coastal town of Penguin. Following the Leven River southward through Leven Canyon over Black Bluff Range to Cradle Mountain, this trail connects with the Overland Track.

Black Bluff is a true alpine mountain experience which includes a glacial cirque tarn called Paddy’s Lake ( a rounded like basin surrounded by cliffs). This is the northern most feature of its kind in Tasmania. Black Bluff summit track starts 2 km passed the Loongana Bridge and climbing to 980 metres it is about a 7 hour - 12km walk.

The above info was borrowed from <here>.

Quamby Bluff

Katherine and I got a chance to make a run for our favourite local mountain, Quamby Bluff. Great day to walk up! Was easy enough, almost routine!


We figured the people who live here at the trail head are regulars but not premanent.

Plenty of puddles up the top.

The rest of the photos are <here>.

Copper Cove Walk

Finally made it along a Dave Curtis walk. Dave is a colleaque of Katherine's.
We walked from the ranger station at Bakers Beach to Archer's Knob where we found a geocache.

At the end of Baker's Beach we had a rest, and Judy a swim!

View from Archer's Knob.

We walked around Badgers Head and ate lunch on the rocks at Copper Cove before scrambling back to Baker's along the rocks. Photos of the walk are <here>

Burnie Hash House Harriers

OK, I admit it, I went out of my way to run with the Burnie Hash... They are a good bunch of people, and I can't go to Devonport Hash tonight.


Bitofthis is looking at me pointing my phone at her...


Check out this rainforest pond! Almost difficult to spot the water due to the reflection. Double Click the image to see the full sized one.


Trust Giggles to prove a point and drag us up this hill!

Here are a couple more <slides>.

Gippsland and the Snowies

Martin and myself...

We drove to Jindabyne, on to the Snowy Mountain Highway to Adamaniby. Camped at Providence Portal, drove past Kiandra, turned off to Khancoban and up to Thredbo again. Up Kosciuszko, camped along the Thredbo River, drove through Jindabyne down the Snowy River Road to Gippsland, and ended up near Sale.

David's Hilux, ahum, I mean Martin's new Hilux worked a charm. We are getting about 30mpg out of it! And the last few days in Melbourne. There we parted ways. I caught The Spirit back to Devonport.
All the photos are <here>.

Deua National Park

A bunch of dirt roads from Araluen, past Majors Creek, and voila, the Big Hole. We camped the night after walking to the two main attractions here. Even spotted a life wombat at the camp after seeing a bunch of dead ones along the road :( .
All the exciting pictures from here can be seen in the slideshow <here>.

Araluen Camp 2008

It was that time of the year again... and for the first time in about 13 years I managed to make an appearance! Great to see old mates again, catch up a bit, relax, have fun... I was with Martin on my way to Melbourne and on a bit of  a schedule, so unfortunately we had to shoot off again the following morning.

For all the pics click <here> for slideshow.