Lake Petrarch - the Secret is Out!

[Son of a Beach]

So why has nobody told me about Lake Petrarch before? It was absolutely stunning, eating my dinner on the sandy beach last night, and breakfast this morning, with Goulds Sugaloaf, Little Sugarloaf, Coal Hill, Mt Cuvier, Mt Byron, and Mt Olympus all covered in snow forming a spectacular panorama, most of which was reflected in the still lake this morning.

Note - the Cuvier Valley has no clear track (just a marker every kilometer, or so, which is almost useless). The route from the Narcissus end over Byron Gap is well marked which is just as well because the pad would otherwise be quite difficult to follow, but the section over the plains south of the lake to the Cuvier River is impossible to find much of the way, so you have to battle your way through the button grass, and occasional (thankfully thin and low) tea tree bands.

NB: This walk is not recommended for the inexperienced.

Byron Gap! When I reached the top, and started descending through the Pandanii forest, I got to understand the expression, "my heart soared". It was just so beautiful, It's the best example of a Pandanii forest I've seen anywhere (better than the one half way up the side of Mt Oakleigh, and better than the one around the corner of the forest near Pine Forest Moor). And the rainforest, and creeks were just astounding.

But you're all just going to have to take my word for it, because I don't have any photos of any of it. My batteries went flat (yet again) as I stood up on the huge cut-down tree trunk above the new Windy Ridge Hut to take shots of the snow covered Acropolis/Geryon/Massif/Falling panorama. Bummer. Strange thing though. I was talking to somebody else at Windy Ridge who stood on the same tree trunk for photos, and the clouds instantly swooped in and covered the mountains. Then at Narcissus, somebody else was telling me that he stood on that tree trunk and his lens fogged up beyond all use. I think it's bad karma for cutting down that tree to make way for the hut!

So the only photos I got were on the way in (of Mt Gould & Acropolis).

I spent my first night of this trip at Echo Point for the first time after walking in late after work on Wednesday. Great spot. Nice little hut. Noisy possums trying to break the door down and rolling square things down the roof, I'm sure, and I think I heard a rat on the bed next to me once. Thankfully they all shut up after a couple of hours. Thank the PWS for the food locker in that hut.

On this trip, I saw a wedge tail eagle, patted two echidnas, saw about 20 wallabies, and an incredibly noisy flock of about 100 currawongs. I also trod 5cm from a piece of bark that I thought looked remarkably like a snake, and then it slithered into the coral fern, and I realised there were no trees anywhere nearby.

My knees are very scratched and very sunburnt. A somewhat uncomfortable sensation. But well worth it.

[norts]

So why has nobody told me about Lake Petrarch before?

I have told you before Nik. Do a search on Petrarch, Ihave quoted that it is one of my favourite places to camp.

Roger

[wello]

sounds like you had a great walk!

It's also great to hear about the condition of the Cuvier Valley track. Last time I walked that (granted its close to 20 years ago!) it was a mud bath most of the way. If its barely visible now, that's a great advertisment to the resiliance of the Tassie bush.

Agree that Petrach is a top spot. My 19th brithday started by wading round the lake (on the track) in waist deep water, followed by climbing Byron which was covered in snow on a perfect clear day with views in all directions. Priceless.

Wello

[Son of a Beach]

So why has nobody told me about Lake Petrarch before?

I have told you before Nik. Do a search on Petrarch, Ihave quoted that it is one of my favourite places to camp.

Roger

aha... so you did. I should have used the search function, eh?

I must have not remembered anyone giving it the full attention I think it deserves.

[Taurë-rana]

I have very fond memories of Lake Petrarch as it's one of the earliest overnight bushwalks that I did (sometime last century) and the walk in is lovely, and not that hard according to my memory. In fact, I thought it was so easy that a friend and I walked in by ourselves overnight for our first walk with just two people. That didn't walk out quite so well, it snowed so it was cold, but beautiful, and our new chuffer did not behave so we had no hot food. We walked out again the next day!
My memories of climbing Olympus are not quite so fond, as there was no track. I don't know what it is like now.

[MJD]

I'm surprised by the missing track. I haven't done the entire Cuvier Valley for many years but in the last year I've been up to the Byron Gap and from the southern end up to the large cairn at 0428690E 5341370N before turning off to Mt Orthys. I did do this latter walk in winter so the track was wet but it was still very muddy. The cairn is about 40% of the way to Lake Petrach from the Southern end. It has always amazed me that whoever made the original track kept to the plains when a few hundred metres away there was a nice forest to walk through.

[johnw]

I spent my first night of this trip at Echo Point for the first time after walking in late after work on Wednesday. Great spot. Nice little hut. Noisy possums trying to break the door down and rolling square things down the roof, I'm sure, and I think I heard a rat on the bed next to me once. Thankfully they all shut up after a couple of hours. Thank the PWS for the food locker in that hut.

Sounds like you had a great trip overall Nik! I also really like that little rustic hut and the spectacular views across to Mt Ida and the Traveller Range (even if the peace was interrupted once or twice by ferry daytrippers). Everyone seems to say the same thing about Echo Point intruders but, in my only visit there, that wasn't my experience. We didn't see or hear any nocturnal wildlife at all. Either there were better pickings elsewhere or we smelled so bad after a week on the OT that they left us alone . I was a bit fanatical about sweeping the hut floor and keeping food supplies secure, maybe that helped.

[Son of a Beach]

even if the peace was interrupted once or twice by ferry daytrippers

In the past, this has been one of the reasons why I've always avoided staying at Echo Point - the ferry interrupting the Wilderness feel. However, on this occasion, I left Cynthia Bay after the last ferry had returned, and the next morning, I arrived at Narcissus before the first ferry. So I never heard or saw a ferry on the entire trip.

[ollster]

I've only gone past Petrarch once, and I think spirits were a bit down at the time so we didn't have a good look at it - the Cuvier Valley was very muddy. Kinda "lodden" level mud.

Very tempted to have a crack at Byron, Manfred etc from the Nth end though.

[Nick S]

Hah seems my experience wasn't any better than yours ollster. Along the Curvier valley 'track' we were upto our waist crossing a stream, and then had to wade through icy cold knee deep water for a good portion of the track alongside lake petrarch.
Finishing the track along the way (yeah its not actually there at some points) was still a fun challenge though. We finally reached byron gap when it started snowing heavily, and on reaching Narcissus hut we discovered that the previous owner had left no dry kindling and had resorted to burning all but 3 pages of the logbook! All good memories though, well, now they are..

[corvus]

Dry kindling is almost always available in Tassie if you only take time to look for it

[Son of a Beach]

By the way, the reason I didn't climb Mt Gould, as originally planned, was due to the snow cover (I didn't feel up to doing it on my own after reading about others' experiences with Mt Gould in the snow):

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[kramster]

I remember camping there about 5 years back, and yes it was a really pretty spot.
We had stayed at Lk Marion the previous night, and taken a navigational exercise to get to Byron Gap from there (which took longer than we first thought - "as the crow flies" is a technical term best applied to air-borne transportation, and not topographic plodding). Some amazing huge myrtle forest coming up the gap, before the pandanni bit on the other side that nik mentioned.

Not so fond memories of Cuvier track back to Cynthia Bay however - buttongrass slog that just goes on and on and on....

[Son of a Beach]

buttongrass slog that just goes on and on and on....

It was tough. I was prepared for mud, but not for trackless button grass. It was the first time I've done more than a few hundred metres of trackless button grass, and it really is very tiring. Nothing is flat, even though everything looks flat. The tops of the tussocks are high enough to require significant effort to get up on if not already up; the ground between is often wet and muddy (and invisible), and covered in overlapping blades from neighbouring tussocks which can get suprisingly tangled and good at tripping. All in all, it's a recipe for rolled, strained or broken ankles. And very tiring. I think I actually fell only the once, but my feet were both so tangled in grass, and somehow in each other, that it took me quite a while to get up again.

Thankfully, I had great weather for walking (sunny day with light cool breeze), and chocolate covered sultanas to eat whenever I stopped at a creek for a drink (chocolate sultanas always keep the spirits up, I reckon), and I was able to enjoy it a bit.

[Son of a Beach]

I forgot to mention one aspect of this walk that I particularly enjoyed. The reason I forgot was that it happened on the rushed section on the first day of the walk which was after work when I was plugging along as fast as I could to get to Echo Point before it got dark.

The rainforest alongside Lake St Clair is very beautiful, and it's a wonderful walk, even when being rushed. While walking through some parts of this forest, I noticed that there were many many little flowers on the ground. At first glance, I thought they were leatherwood flowers, but of course it's the wrong time of year. But they were about the same size but with smaller and more numerous pointed leaves, and more cream coloured than white. I looked carefully at all the trees around me, but couldn't see any flowers on any of the trees. It then occurred to me that maybe they're growing directly out of the ground - after all, they are all right side up. But alas, when I picked them up, they were clearly not attached to the ground (or to anything else!).

I kept scanning the trees around me carefully as I walked, and eventually just stopped completely (despite my urgency to get to Echo Point before dark) to seriously search all the trees nearby. Eventually I noticed one such flower on the end of a sassafras twig, and then noticed a few more here and there. There were not many, so I presume it must have been towards the end of the flowering season. I'd never seen sassafras flowers before which made me realise that I've never done much walking in September/October before.

In any case, the dense scattering of flowers on the walking track was very pretty.

[Ramjet]

Hi

Myself and a friend are planning a trip to Lake Petrarch this summer for some fly-fishing - are we better of approaching the Lake via Narcissus and Byron Gap or up the Cuvier Valley?

Any advice appreciated.

[Son of a Beach]

It depends on your experience with button-grass, bush-bashing, and route finding, I think.

The route via Byron Gap to the northern end of the lake is much easier to find and follow, however you need to keep a close eye out for the markers in the rainforest between the turn off from the Overland Track and Byron Gap, as the pad is almost non-existent in places. Once you get down on the flat plain just north of the lake itself, the track peters out again, but you can see the lake right in front of you. If you want to walk around the lake to the better camp sites near the beach at the south end, the route is usually done on the Eastern side, but I could find no track for much of this distance, and there is some considerable scrub bashing. I think the scrub was a bit thinner away from the lake, but I could find nowhere where it was really easy.

The Cuvier valley route has virtually no track at all once it gets onto the button grass plains. The track between Lake St Clair and the plains is reasonably easy to follow, although very overgrown and a bit scrubby in places. However, once on the plains, the track peters out to nothing, but the occasional marker every couple of kilometers (most of which I missed completely, I think). There are also a few bands of scrub crossing the plain which although not as thick as some scrub, still makes from some slow frustrating progress. Thankfully these bands of scrub are not terribly thick. The worst part of this route for me was the actual button grass itself. It has the potential to be very demoralising - whether you walk on top of the tussocks or in between them, or alternating, or tripping over the blades, or stepping in the mud and puddles, or rolling your ankles (make sure you've got good ankle support! ), etc, it is quite tiring and could be rather demorialising. I did enjoy it myself, because it it was a great day, and I'd been really enjoying the walk, and the plains do not go on forever.

[Ramjet]

Thanks Nik

I think we will try accessing via the northern route - we've done our share of slogging over button grass plains and, quite frankly, I've had enough to last me forever!

Given the predominant wind direction, we will most likely base ourselves in the NW cnr of the Lake - are you aware of any good camp sites up that end - I like the sound of the sthn ones but the wind will probably hamper our fishing down that end unless we get postcard weather....

[Son of a Beach]

Sorry, I didn't really pay attention to what the camping was like at the northern end of the lake. I recall thinking that there was plenty of space where camping would be OK, but I don't remember noticing anywhere that was particularly ideal (only because I wasn't really looking for it).

PS. Is the fishing there any good - have you heard? One of the guys I go walking with is obsessed with fly fishing, and really only goes walking for that purpose, and I'm sure I'll be looking for an excuse to get back to Petrarch some time and could talk him into it if I knew the fishing was good.

So why has nobody told me about Lake Petrarch before?

Now we're going to have to kill him.

[Ramjet]

I have heard that the fishing there (and nearby) is good - low natural recruitment means that the fish tend to grow larger and the lack of angling pressure also helps... hopefully find out this Summer - been meaning to check it out for years but keep getting distracted.....

Many thanks for the advice.