photographers ROB SHAW and CRAIG SEARLE
It had felt like the archetypal Tasmanian wilderness moment even before the platypus popped up. I was standing on a gravelly shore of Lake Rodway, a spot I had been returning to since before 5am when only the light of a half-moon plus Venus had illuminated the scene. Making each trip with a fresh coffee in hand, I had been waiting for the exact moment of daybreak, when the sun would emerge on the eastern horizon across the expanse of still water.
At 6.30am, the first rays struck the highest extremities of Cradle Mountain behind me, and over the course of the next half hour the huge expanse of rock subsequently turned from a sinister, unwelcoming grey to a brilliant, almost unnatural orange.
Soon, the glow in the sky indicated the sun’s imminent arrival from the direction of the Forth Valley and finally light began to filter through the gumtrees on the opposite shore like the flashlight of a miner emerging from a cave.
The growing light was reflected in the water, picking out a veil of mist floating across the lake’s surface like stage lights through dry ice at a rock concert, and prompting the arrival of a duck-billed friend who basked in the minimal warmth on offer between foraging expeditions to the gloomy, chilly depths.
I had the Abels to thank for this magical moment. Two of Tasmania’s mountains above 1,100 metres (each requiring a drop of 150m on all sides and named after 17th Century Dutch explorer Abel Tasman) sat waiting to be climbed within a few hours of this spot. Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park is effectively Abel Ground Zero. Many of the 158 designated Abels are in the vicinity, not least 13 of the highest 16, including the park’s eponymous figurehead.
Having twice previously scaled that instantly recognisable summit, this adventure was to Cradle’s less visited but equally photogenic eastern side to tackle mountains with contrasting shape, fame, access – and appeal.
We based ourselves at Scott-Kilvert Hut, a building which tells a story of hardship, heroism and tragedy but provides a fitting legacy to a heartbreaking chapter in Tasmanian bushwalking folklore. In 1965, a group from Riverside High School encountered a blizzard on the final day of their hike from Arm River to Waldheim. Having diverted past Lake Rodway to escape the exposed western face of Cradle Mountain, the exhausted party splintered. Teacher Ewen Scott was last seen carrying young student David Kilvert through deep snow near Dove Lake. Their bodies were found the following day.
Partly to provide shelter for hikers in similar peril, and partly to help deal with their grief, survivors and bushwalking groups took just 10 months to build a magnificent, two-storey, A-frame hut that remains a refuge along that ill-fated route more than half a century later, the neighbouring mountain living up to its name by cradling the hut in its most sheltered and safest spot.
On two consecutive days we set off up the Lake Rodway Track, a nightmarish slog when I had last graced it 13 years earlier but now a delightful, manicured gentle climb around the contours of Benson Peak towards the Cradle Cirque.
Cresting the ridge on day one presented a stunning view of Barn Bluff capped by an extraordinary mushroom cloud. That peak would wait until tomorrow – this day’s target required a left turn towards the less-explored east.
Sitting 34th on the list of Abels, Mount Emmett is 1,410m, most of which is a homage to the mountainous pleasure that is scree. Named after Hobart Walking Club founder Evelyn Emmett, the mountain offers another stray peak in its path, some head-high scrub and a morale-sapping false summit. I’m conscious that I’m not really selling it here.
Skirting around the additional unnamed peak presented a pleasant saddle with some unpleasant scoparia which between them delivered us to the scree. Although a familiar phenomenon to Abellists, this particular scree field stretched to both of Emmett’s peaks and presented a combined three-hour rock-hopping ordeal ideal for exposing frailties in ageing knees, ankles, backs and temperaments.
Sandwiches and views teamed up to provide some welcome respite as Tasmania’s first, third, fourth and fifth highest mountains – Ossa (1,617m), Pelion West (1,560m), Barn Bluff (1,559m) and Cradle (1,545m) – formed an orderly queue from left to right on our horizon.
Retracing our steps, thoughts soon turned to Barn Bluff, now free of mushroom clouds and dominating the skyline, and the evening meals and Cribbage games awaiting us back at the hut.
Another early start up the Lake Rodway Track saw us take a right turn to join the Overland and then Barn Bluff Tracks. Few Abels are as open in their demands – approaching the peak along a ridgeline with Waterfall Valley down to the left and Fury Gorge deeper to the right, Barn Bluff looms ever larger straight ahead, making no attempt to sugar-coat the task ahead.
Gradually the track kicks up, then throws in a short section of scree before turning vertical, hands doing as much work as feet as a series of well-placed orange arrows and cairns signal the way up and through the mass of dolerite columns.
The Overland Track huts at Waterfall Valley, Windermere and Pelion are all visible from the summit, which towers 500m above Lake Will and the surrounding plateau, which feeds into Hartnett Rivulet, Commonwealth Creek and the Forth River. The previous day’s destination of Mount Emmett looked relatively tame and even fun to the east while the view north was dominated by Cradle Mountain, five kilometres away but just 14m below us.
One more night at Scott-Kilvert Hut preceded the walk out via the ridiculously photogenic Flynns Tarn and Artists Pool, round Little Horn, past Twisted Tarns and over Hansons Peak towards Dove Lake’s huge new visitor centre and the civilisation that lay beyond – but not before one more brief encounter with our early-rising resident monotreme.
After 13 years as a journalist in his native England, Rob Shaw moved to Tasmania with his young family in 2002. He has since continued to write about sport, covering two Olympics, three Commonwealth Games and many other major events, while also exploring the Tasmanian wilderness. His book, Shaw Things, is a compilation of some of his best newspaper columns. It was published by Forty South Publishing.