Well, in my desire to walk up a few more hills, yesterday I drove up to Arthur's lake from Hobart and walked to Mount Penny West. Not one of the most inspiring peaks I have ever been up, indeed you really cant see it is a peak at all until you get on top of it and the rather nice view of Arthur's lake unfolds. I was following the directions in The Abels book, they are pretty good but there are a few things to highlight
1. The start point (11.1 kms from the start of the Arthur's Lake road) is not far after the hamlet of Yangena, the signpost at Yangena says Woods Lake, so I am not certain if this is still the Arthur's Lake road
2. You can start pretty much anywhere towards the top of the rise of this road, but I could not find any marked track or start cairn despite going for a good stroll along the road
3. Mt Penny West is on the left hand side of the road as you head towards Woods Lake, some tourist maps show it on the right. The hill you see on the right with a trig station just as you start up the rise is Yangena Hill, if you walk up it you get a rough idea of the topography of Mt Penny West. The photo below shows Mt Penny West looking from Yangena Hill, the road clearly seen in the mid ground
4. If you get to the cattle grid with a sign on the left saying that the bushland is now private property you have gone a bit too far along the road
5. To get to the summit is not much of an up, 50mtrs elevation from the top of the road. It is reasonably open lightly forested walking, low scrub in places and will take 15-30 minutes just gradually trending uphill, however there are 3 or 4 false "summits" before you get to the real thing. You can avoid these by staying to the north of them but I use the word summit very loosely, I climbed up them all to make the walk longer
6. The real summit has a clear view of the lake, two large wooden stakes in the top and an impressive cairn about 3 metres around at the base.
7. From the top you can see the road on about a 60 degree bearing but this part of the road is inside the private property boundary so you should probably just go back the way you came.
Should you bother walking up Mt Penny West? Well its charms are pretty limited but if you are in the vicinity why not. I climbed Sandbanks Tier in the afternoon, which was a nice contrast to the mornings walk and I did get to look at Arthur's lake from both sides
bw