Short excursions to the Labyrinth and Freycinet

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In April, my wife was happy to join me for a few days in Tas.
We had walked the OT for 8 days in 2008 at the same time of year and had loved the fagus display.
So we were hoping to revisit it in its glory again. This time into Pine Valley which we had missed on the first walk.
I also had high hopes of going off track to Olympus and the Traveller Range.

However, many a walk does not go exactly to plan.
The weather outlook was a bit ordinary, but the flight into Hobart was brilliant with the whole south west cloudless.
We stayed at Derwent Bridge that night and I took the opportunity of a fullish moon with the good weather to take some long exposures from Cynthia Bay.
But as heavy rain set in as we got onto the boat, my wife asked "why are we doing this again?"
The weather actually improved as we arrived at Narcissus.
But taking all things into account, I chose the safest option and we headed into Pine Valley hut for the first night.
We had food for 8 days, so had a lot of freedom to make our own plans on the run.
The afternoon was spent exploring Cephissus Falls and checking out the turnoff to Geryon campsite.

Long exposure of Cynthia Bay by moonlight

Lots of fungi on display

Forest at Cephissus Falls

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Snow was forecast overnight, and a number of folk at Pine Valley went as a group to climb the Acropolis.
I have only been up there twice, and both times it was covered in snow.
But this time it was apparent that there would be no views, so we all had some lunch in the cloud on reaching the top plateau before heading back.
I regret not talking them into working our way to the very top, as I am sure we would have seen the pillars with the nice white icing on them, as I had seen back in 1980.

Climbing the Acropolis

Sculptured ice on the Acropolis

Small fall just near the track as it is approaching the plateau edge

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On day 3 we hiked up onto the Labyrinth. I had hoped for some views, but again it was very ordinary and actually got worse when we got to Lake Cyane.
The rain was driving into out faces as we carefully made our way down the side of the lakes.
There was a lot more water on the track and gushing from the forest than the previous year when I had come through with a friend.
We took a lot of care on the slippery roots as we had already met an experienced lady who had slipped into the lake.
She and her husband had quickly decided to turn back and try and get her dry back at the hut before any hypothermia set in.

Arriving at the western end of Elysia, I found our spot from the previous year but it had some flowing sheets of water, so we looked around for a while before settling on a tight spot a little higher and drier.
It was only about 3:30 pm, but we dived into the tent and stayed there.
I did poke the head out an hour later when we heard voices. It was the 2 keen photographers Dave Noble mentions in his blog.
As I chatted to them the cloud cleared briefly to reveal lots of water streaming off the edge of the Ducane Range massif.
Yep - it was pretty wet.

Next morning was the highlight of the trip. The rain had stopped in the night and we found ourselves in a frozen tent.
I tend to get up quite early if there is a chance of some good sunrise views, and there was a beautiful red glow in the east.
This glow came in a couple of waves - with the second lighting up brighter than the first.
In between I got some shots of the iced over ponds that were all around.
The 2 other photographers were also early risers and had the tripods out to capture the magic.

Pool in rain as we traversed below the Parthenon

First glow over Elysia

Frozen tarn and Walled Mountain

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Second glow begins

It was pretty special

Geryon

[tibboh]

type faster......

[eggs]

The sun tantallisingly started to light the face of Walled Mountain before abruptly disappearing behind cloud and that was it.
Still lots of nice ice and views, but the sun was gone for the day.
There was a warm front coming through. These start as high up cloud that slowly descends before a drizzle begins which in our case eventually became steady rain again.
I had hoped to capture the fagus at Pool of Memories, but we only got to a spot just before you descend down to the Pool before my wife's common sense prevailed and we decided to head back, gather our packs and head back out to Pine Valley again.
The drizzle was starting up even as I took some telephoto shots of the Pool of Memories.
Not having done the old route down to Pine Valley from the PoM, I had decided today would not be the best time to go route finding.

Ice and the Acropolis

Classic shot of Walled - some ice in the closest part of the tarn

Cloud descending onto Gould as we are exploring

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The fagus was only a slight yellow down there, but it was still the best we had seen. Although on the way out we noticed a delightful bush with a deep red colouring next to Lake Ophion.
[There had been no colour on the Acropolis walk - and I took a shot of the same view as NNW who a month later had some terrific displays.]
Back at the hut, I was surprised and delighted to meet Dave Noble. He had some fantastic photos of the fungi from exploring up the Cephissus Creek.
We had met a few folk during our stay here. One in particular stood out.
He had a heart condition that had happened a couple of times over the years. Having set out to do the Overland Track with a group, a drink of cold water had set it off again.
He had hoped it would clear when resting over night, but when it was still apparent next morning he talked it over with the hut warden at Waterfall Valley and ended up being evacuated by helicopter.
In Hobart he told the doctors to just get the paddles out and give his heart a kick.
Sure enough, that got it fixed. So he walked out, hired a car, bought some steaks and wine and headed into Pine Valley.
He had been in the party of us climbing the Acropolis and he surprised his group by greeting them that night and feasting on the steaks and wine.

Some colour

Lake Ophion

Surveying Cyane as we were leaving

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With forecasts of further snow and rain, we decided to go to plan B and hiked back to Narcissus on day 5.
Ironically, the sun came out a lot and we had the finest weather for the whole trip while lazing around waiting for the boat.
There was still plenty of cloud on the mountains and showers of rain kept coming through, but Narcissus mostly remained in sun.
I managed to capture a number of rainbow shots at various times and places when wandering around, but the ones from the wharf were the highlight.
Unfortunately, there were not enough spare places on the middle of the day run, so we had to wait for the last boat of the day.
It was nice to cleanup and relax at Derwent Bridge that night.
But next day it was off on the drive to Freycinet.

Being a cautious type and being used to carrying water, I took on about 6 litres before we headed off around the edge of the Hazards onto the Hazards Beach. We camped that night at the south end of the beach.
The sun peaked through for some lovely light just before sunset. It was probably snowing back at Pine Valley - but we were in clear mild conditions.
The possums were a bit of a worry that night. A group of them were fighting in the bushes and I could make out that someone had dumped some porridge there.
They remained inquisitive, but we made it through the night without incident.

Walking along Hazards Beach

Driftwood

Sun comes out on Hazards Campsite

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Looking back to the Hazards

About 6am, some heavy rain set in. But we were in no hurry and goy up lazily after it had cleared before setting off to Cooks Beach.
We had a flight out on Saturday and I wanted to be in Hobart Friday night, so weighing up our progress, we opted to avoid going down Cooks Beach to the hut and went stright onto the walk up to Mt Graham.
The day was again quite pleasant. Sunny, but not hot. The creeks had some water in them, possibly from the morning rains.
At the saddle we downed packs and headed up Mt Freycinet.It was steep in parts, but had a delightful sandy area about half way up - would be good for a tent or 4.
The top was an interesting scramble, but again, there were some small sandy areas one could use right on top.

My wife was fairly keen to setup back in the saddle, but despite the time, I was confident we could get up Mt Graham and setup before sunset.
It was a stiffer climb up the granite with water trickling down a lot of sections and now with full packs on.
We got up in about 45 min, but I started to get worried when I could not find anywhere to put up a 2 man tent out of the stiff westerly wind.
It was starting to get a bit dark by the time I discovered a sandy section bordering a large granite surface on the eastern slopes.
This was actually pretty good - though one end was held in only by tying on rocks.
We had covered 11.6 km and 980 m of climbing this day - the biggest day on our whole trip.

Graham and rainbow from Freycinet

Schouten from Freycinet

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Freycinet had clear enough skies to attempt some star shots on both nights, and we also played with 30 second exposures while walking with headlights on.
We woke to a clear and cold morning. Our last day of walking.
There were pools of water and trickling streams on the way down the side of Mt Graham.
[I did manage to slip on one of these wet sections and broke the tip off my walking stick. I knew water and smooth granite is a deadly combination, but I still managed to go over.]
There was also a neat little gorge where the track leaves the creek and starts sidling across the ridge to its back.
Wineglass Bay was magic, and we spent some time relaxing at the southern end. We explored the creek outlet, and I went out onto the granite headland to get some shots.
We had left the hoards when we got to the north end of the Hazards Beach, but reaching the north end of Wineglass, we were back amongst them again.
It had been a very peaceful 2 days in between.

Fun at camp

Wineglass Bay

Morning View from Graham

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Wineglass Bay outlet

Mt Freycinet from the rocks

Hazards from the rocks

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We rang ahead to book a room with Tildi at the Astor in Hobart and relaxed with a lovely fish meal at Swansea.
Tildi scolded us when we got in to Hobart, telling us we had been away too long between visits.
On our fly out day, we mingled with the crouds at Salamanca Place before some very heavy ran set in.
We caught up with scrubmaster for a coffee and then decided we had just enough time to check out Mt Wellington. Very cold..

cold

[tibboh]

A good read eggs. Thanks for the annual report.
That steak and red wine guy sounds like a real character.

[Mechanic-AL]

Awesome photos!! They should be hanging in a gallery somewhere.

Thanks heaps for sharing them.

AL

[DaveNoble]

Great report and beautiful photos!!

Dave

[GerryDuke]

Superb Eggs.

[icefest]

Stunning, just stunning.


A great read eggs, thanks for posting.

[eggs]

Thanks for your kind comments.
My wife has now corrected my fat fingers.
Yes tibboh - he was a very friendly, generous and gentle man.
But all the nights at the hut were pleasant as we mixed with various folk passing through. Even the young lads who came out to party did not really disturb anyone in their little tent village.

I thought I would put a few more up

There was a wonderful colourful sphagnum moss swamp on the way into Pine Valley. A lot wetter on the way out than on the way in.

Colourful swamp on the way out of pine Valley

We captured the boat under the rainbow at Narcissus

Rainbow from the wharf at Narcissus

And I mentioned some star shots.

From Hazards Beach looking towards Swansea

[eggs]

And one from Mt Graham
I have enhanced it a bit.
I think the reddish glow is from Hobart, but the green is curious.
There was supposed to be a aurora around that time?

Looking south from Mt Graham

And a couple of panoramas from Freycinet

Hazards Beach view

Panorama from Mt Freycinet

[ofuros]

Lovely shots, Eggs. Great report....extremely envious of your tassie trip.

[Lizzy]

Awesome

[Nuts]

Yes, awesome. I had to check which one I had voted for, those in Labyrinth are special+ well done!
PS. they look like the ghosts of birds over Cynthia Bay.

[South_Aussie_Hiker]

I hate trip reports like this.

Make me even less motivated going to work every day, when I could be out walking!!

Thanks Eggs. You always spend heaps of time sharing your exploits and it's really appreciated. Great photos and narrative.

[coastie]

I love the early morning glow over Geryon and the Acropolis. Your shots are beautiful!

[tigercat]

I love the early morning glow over Geryon and the Acropolis. Your shots are beautiful!

Wonderful shots and a great account of your trip

[GPSGuided]

Wow! I'll vote for all of these photos in a comp.

[naturelover]

Like everyone else, I loved seeing your photos. Thanks a lot. And congrats on your wins in the comp.

[stepbystep]

Beautiful shots Brian

That night shot from Mt Graham may be a weak aurora but probably just airglow. If you have a date the NOAA Spaceweather site will give you the data.

[gaynor]

You have really captured the beauty of this area - absolutely love your photos.