One last holiday adventure.

Sunday, 16 January 2022

With a perfect weather forecast it would have been a crime to not make the most my last day of holidays before going back into the coal mines tomorrow.

Jon and I did Mt Field East a few weeks ago and it was fantastic - I had never done it before.  This time I decided to do Mt Field West and the Tarn Shelf.  I did this exact walk back in 1989 as a training overnight hike for the overland track. I remember it was pretty tough going over the boulders of the Rodway Range with a full pack. It was certainly a lot easier today with just a day pack! 

The walk starts with a steepish climb up from Lake Dobson.

Then there's a nice stretch of boardwalk (which was rare on today's walk) which heads towards the Rodway Range.

After climbing then traversing the range it was down and then up and up again onto the surprisingly flat plateau which hosts Mt Field West (the rocky peak in the image below). 

It took me about 3 hours of hiking and resting to get there. The views over to Lake Pedder where Jon and I had been just a few weeks earlier were pretty good, although a low band of cloud kept lifting and then dropping again, so the views changed every few minutes.

I had already decided to go the long way back via the Tarn shelf which made the trip pretty long (it ended up being 24k), but it would have been a bit boring otherwise - Mt Field West is ok I guess, but as a day walk I think Mt Field East is much more interesting as it passes through more variety of vegetation (and amazing flowers) and the last 5k isn't such a slog!  So that meant I retraced about 4km of track then took another route over the Rodway Ranges (less boulders this time) before dropping down to the end of the Tarn Shelf where I had my second lunch on the little platform.

From here it was little ups and downs until the final descent back to the Pandani Grove and Lake Dobson.

It was definitely swimming weather, so I had a delightful dip in Lake Dobson before driving home with just one last stop..