Windermere Hut to Pelion Hut, Overland Track, Cradle Mountain Lake St Clair National Park - May 1998

We awoke on day 3 of our Overland Track adventure to slightly better weather, well it wasn't snowing on us anyway, but the conditions were still pretty cold and overcast. We had a fairly long day today, by Overland Track standards anyway, so we were up a little earlier once again, breakfasting while we gazed out at the winter wonderland on the other side of the windows. The walker's huts on The Overland Track are fairly basic affairs but they are very much appreciated in conditions like this, I don't know of a much better feeling than arriving at a lonely hut after a long days walking through the rain and snow, knowing that soon you can relax and will be dry and somewhat warm.

The snow was starting to thin out but the track was still pretty wet.

The Overland Track climbs a little today, slowly gaining height as it makes its way to the wide open expanses of Pine Forest Moor. The ground cover of snow thinning out slowly so that be the time we started to cross the extensive duck boards on Pine Forest Moor it was almost gone, in place of the snow was water and mud though. After checking out the Forth River Lookout we climbed a rough section of track over a small forested knoll, this short section of track over the small hill is possibly the roughest on the whole track in hindsight, but it's over pretty quick. Soon after crossing the small hill on Pine Forest Moor The Overland Track starts a fairly long descent down to Frog Flats.

If you look really hard you can see Barn Bluff and Cradle Mountain rising up in the distance.

Having a bit of a break on Pine Forest Moor.

Frog Flats marks the lowest point on the whole Overland Track, so after having a bit of lunch we had only one way to go and that was up. Luckily, while the track climbed fairly steadily it is never really overly steep, as we got closer to Pelion Plains we once again started walking along long sections of duck boarding which made the now gentle climbing even easier. Arriving at Pelion Hut we found that for the first time on the walk we would be sharing with another walker, although three people in the big hut was hardly an ordeal. When I say big hut I don't mean the Pelion Ponderosa that currently sits on Pelion Plains, the hut back in '86 was a green tin job, but it was still a welcoming spot.

Grabbing a drink, there is no shortage of drinking water on The Overland Track.

Sam heading across Pelion Plains, Mt Oakleigh is in the back ground.

The Dirt.

We walked 14.2 kilometres today. Like the rest of The Overland Track there is a lot of duck boarding today on todays walk which makes it fairly easy to cover the distance. Somewhat unusually there isn't a lot of easily accessible side trips on this section of the track, apart from the very short walk out to the Forth River Lookout the only other remotely well known side trip is to Mt Pelion West, a very tough route. Pelion Hut has been replaced since we visited in '86 and the new hut is massive and sleeps around 60 people in comfort whereas this older one was a lot more on the smaller side.

Relevant Posts.

The Overland Track 2003

Day 1 this trip. 

Day 2 this trip. 

Inside Pelion Hut, this was the first night that we'd shared a hut with any other walkers.

Waterfall Valley Hut to Windermere Hut, Overland Track, Cradle Mountain Lake St Clair National Park - May 1998

We had a short day today which was just as well as the weather was still little on the ordinary side. With such a short day in the offering we were in no hurry to leave the warm and dry Waterfall Valley Hut, we had been lucky last night and had the hut to ourselves all night so we were able to spread out and make ourselves at home. After taking our time over breakfast we eventually had to pull on the wet weather gear and head out into the cold. The trick this morning was not to go arse over on the slippery snow covered duck boards, with the author at one stage stepping back to take a photo and falling backwards off the snow covered track, which gave Sam a good laugh at least.

Climbing out of Waterfall Valley.

Waterfall Valley.

I think this is where I went arse over backwards off the duck boards into the bushes!

Gently climbing up towards Lake Holmes.

The route today initially passes above some of the waterfalls that Waterfall Valley is named for, before starting to climb up a bit onto an exposed windswept almost treeless plane. This windswept plane was a fairly inhospitable place to be today, even with the snow the track was still fairly easy to follow, but it was bleak. Reaching the turnoff to Lake Wills we stopped for awhile in a slightly sheltered spot and enjoyed a bit of a break, while the scenery was bleak it was still an enlivening, raw place and we were still enjoying soaking up what was a fairly new experience for us.

Having a break near the turn off to Lake Will.

Lake Holmes.

After passing by Lake Holmes the track climbs a little with the weather deteriorating with the height gained, so we were quite happy when the route topped out and started to drop down to Lake Windermere. Skirting around the shores of the lake we climbed up into a small copse of trees, with the snow cover now a bit patchy we arrived at the welcoming Windermere Hut. I'm pretty sure this old hut has been replaced with a new one now days. We once again had the hut to ourselves again tonight which allowed us to spread out in the comfortable hut, the rest of our afternoon was spent watching the pademelon's grazing in the snow behind the hut, heading out and exploring the area surrounding the hut in between snow showers.

It can be a little bleak along here in bad weather.

We're about to start the gentle descent down to Lake Windermere.

Lake Windermere.

The Dirt.

We walked 7 kilometres today and while this section of The Overland Track isn't as high in elevation terms as day 1, it's still a fairly exposed and bleak bit of track, a place that needs respect in bad weather. Like a lot of The Overland Track there is a lot of duck boarding along here which makes the walking fairly easy in reasonable weather. The old Windermere Hut in my photo has been replaced with a newer hut now days.

Relevant Posts.

The Overland Track 2003

Day 1, this walk. 

The gentle climb up to Windermere Hut.

The old Windermere Hut.

Waldheim Chalet to Waterfall Valley Hut, Overland Track, Cradle Mountain Lake St Clair National Park - May 1998

Those posts I did about my trip around Australia with my mate Leigh almost did my head in, the amount of data almost did blogger in too, I had a lot of formatting issues trying to get those mega posts up. So, with another multi day post in front of me I decided to break it up into small bite size pieces, if this works alright I might keep going in this direction for awhile. Now there may be couple of issues with this method though, the first one is that some of the posts are going to be incredibly anaemic. The other issue is that the trips will be split up and all over the place, I'll try and link the posts together, but it's not ideal. So anyway to test out the new format I thought that I'd start with a classic, The Overland Track in Tasmania.

The fagus was a golden brown on this visit.

This was our first time on The Overland Track and we weren't disappointed, it certainly is a great walk. Before we could set off though we spent a couple of nights at the flash Cradle Mountain Lodge,  a softer way to ease us into the adventure I can't think of. We spent the day before our Overland Track walk checking out some of the pretty day walks around the area, the Lake Dove Circuit was particularly scenic with the fagus a golden brown, you'd almost think we planned it...but we didn't even know what fagus was until getting down to Tasmania. Being late May the weather was a little on the marginal side though, Cradle Mountain's flanks coated with snow drew our eyes whenever the cloud parted a bit, oh well tomorrow we'd get a close look I suppose.

The weather looks a bit grim up there.

That's Crater Falls from the Dove Lake Walk, you can just see it through the mist.

Enjoying our last cooked breakfast at Cradle Mountain Lodge we were slightly perturbed to be looking out the windows at snow flurries coming down, we were going to be in for a cold days walking. After getting dropped off at Waldheim Chalet which was the official start point of The Overland Track back in 1998, we set off across the first of many buttongrass plains on the ubiquitous duck boarding. The Overland Track starts off pretty gently crossing Ronny Creek and then starting a beautiful climb up towards Crater Lake, passing the pretty Crater Falls on the way. By the time we got to the boat shed at Crater Lake we were in proper snow, although the Beech Forest gave us a bit of shelter as we climbed.

The old boat shed at Crater Lake.

We were now in a proper snow storm.

It was very pretty walking as we climbed away from Crater Lake.

Meeting the track that comes up from Dove Lake we started really climbing now, this short pinch up to Marions Lookout is the steepest on the whole Overland Track and we were doing it in a full on snow storm, Sam must have been wondering what she'd got herself into, she's not keen on hills or cold so we had it all really. Passing by the views of Marions Lookout, hidden in the cloud and snow, we levelled off onto a fairly bleak Cradle Plateau. The walking is fairly easy across here normally but today we were pushing through snow around a foot deep so we had to be a bit careful (years later I'd get caught up here in a blizzard and spend a very crowded night at Kitchen Hut).

The steepest climb on the Overland Track is this climb up to Marions Lookout.

Conditions were a little bleak up on the Cradle Plateau today.

Slowly but surely we made our way along the flanks of Cradle Mountain and out towards Cradle Cirque, the weather clearing enough to give us a quick glimpse of the stunning scenery that we were passing through. With the weather deteriorating we were quite happy to leave the high ground and start the more sheltered descent down into Waterfall Valley. It wasn't long until we arrived at the short side track to Waterfall Valley Hut, after scraping the wet snow off our packs we went inside to find an empty cold hut, but to us it was as welcome as any other accommodation that we have ever stayed in. Soon I had the water boiling for a hot drink as we made ourselves at home, it was a novelty for us to be sitting in the nice hut while watching the snow fall outside through the window, and that's how we spent the rest of the afternoon, reading, drinking and gazing out the window. We did venture outside during one lull in the weather, spending a bit of time checking out the waterfalls in the valley as well as the Old Waterfall Valley Hut, I was glad that we weren't sleeping in this basic hut tonight.

Every now and again the weather would break a bit to give us a bit of a view of the stunning scenery that surrounded us.

Yeah I think we'll give Barn Bluff a miss today.

Descending down into Waterfall Valley we got a break from the worst of the conditions.

Scraping the wet snow off the packs before taking them into the welcome Waterfall Valley Hut.

The Dirt.

We walked 10.4 kilometres today. This section of The Overland Track passes over the highest elevation of the whole walk, it also features the steepest climb, the short pinch up to Marions Lookout. We started from Waldheim but that track is closed now and most people start from Ronny Creek, although you can just as easily start from Dove Lake. Once you arrive at Marions Lookout though the majority of the climbing is done for the day, its then just a matter of heading across the plateau before you drop down into Waterfall Valley, if the weathers OK the side trips to Cradle Mountain and Barn Bluff are very much worth doing. The only real shelter on the route is at the small Kitchen Hut, until you arrive at the more salubrious Waterfall Valley Hut at the end of the day.

Relevant Posts.

Cradle Mountain 2007

Lake Dove 2007  

Overland Track Winter 2003 

The Old Waterfall Valley Hut, incidentally you can still stay in this hut.

A couple of cold Bennets Wallabies checking out the crazy visitors.

As the name implies, there is no shortage of waterfalls in Waterfall Valley, this one is near the old hut.

Kings Falls, Arthurs Seat State Park - July 2016

We'll I've finally got the bandages off my leg so I decided to head out on my first hardcore excursion post op. Yeah, I decided to head down the Mornington Peninsula a bit and check out Kings Falls, the rational behind that was that hopefully with all the rain that we'd been having the falls would be flowing and, more importantly the circuit is allegedly only a kilometre long. So after slowly lifting my ever growing arse off the couch, I jumped in the ute and motored down to the start of the trail on Waterfall Gully Road arriving after a nice easy 40 minute drive. Easing my leg out of the ute I was glad it had only been a 40 minute drive actually, as my leg was already doing a fair bit of throbbing, they'd be no crawling around on the ground getting photos of fungi today.

This is why there has been so many retro posts lately, I had these on for a week.

This is what it looks like now the heavy bandages are off, hopefully it should be good as gold in three or four weeks, well that's what the doc says anyway.

This is a really easy walk, initially the route drops steadily through dry eucalyptus and casurinas with the odd grass tree to break it up a bit. After a few minutes walking the track starts to head up the steep sided valley of Kings Creek, its along here that you get your first, and probably best, look at Kings Falls through the trees. The falls had a good flow of water today but it was a little hard to get a great shot through the trees and I was definitely not going to be doing any feral off track stuff today. The water cascades down over brown granite which looks quite good with the rushing white water covering it, it's definitely best seen after rain though.

So needless to say I was looking for a fairly easy stroll to test the leg out, 1 kilometre sounds about right (although my GPS came out at 1.7ks).

Passing through the she oaks there are a few grass trees sprinkled around the forest floor.

This is the best I could do of Kings Falls, there was definitely going to be no off piste action today to get me any closer.

After leaving the first lookout I continued on with my throbbing leg, the next lookout is above the falls but it doesn't really give you much of a view of the falls really, it does give you a view down the valley and out to Port Phillip Bay though, although in todays overcast conditions it was nothing to write home about. Leaving the second lookout the track climbs for a few metres before coming to the turnoff for the loop back to the car park, there are extensive board walks along here which make the walking even easier, especially as the track crosses a few damper sections.

Some of these grass trees must be hundreds of years old.

As the track passes over the damper sections along here it also passes through a lot of coral ferns, which are probably the botanical highlight of the short walk. For such a short easy stroll its surprising how remote it feels, a lot of this area has never been cleared due to the rugged topography so for the the most part you've got no idea that, for all intents and purposes, the track is basically walking in a suburb of Melbourne (well the extreme outer suburbs really). After crossing Kings Creek one more time upstream of the falls the route climbs gently up towards the car park, the open forest along here allowing for some more far reaching views down the valley. With my leg throbbing a bastard I was glad to see the ute, stopping one last time to take a couple of photos of a rock while I played with my ISO settings on my camera.

The walk passes through quite a lot of coral ferns. 

It wouldn't be a feral walk without some kind of obstacle.

The Dirt.

I walked 1.7 kilometres on todays stroll and climbed 61 metres, and the good news is that my leg held together and didn't spring a leak! The Kings Falls walk is a very easy walk that it would be suitable for young kids, although be careful around the lookouts. Parks Vic have plenty of stuff online about Arthurs Seat State Park. I used the notes out of Walks of the Mornington Peninsula by Ken Martin, it's walk number 28 in his book. Either Mr Martin's or Parks Vic's notes are enough to complete the circuit as its well signposted.

Relevant Posts.

Arthurs Seat 2014

Bald Hill 2014

The Two Bays Track 2014

This is an easy, well constructed track.