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Mountain adventure

Join us for a hike to the summit of kunanyi / Mt Wellington – AT NIGHT!

We set off early evening around 5.30pm last night (27/9) for one of our most epic night time adventures yet. Evan had never walked to the top of the mountain in our backyard from home before, challenge accepted. Plans and preparations were made for the 1000m plus climb to the exposed, wind-swept summit, over 20km of track would take us several hours.

While I’ve done the summit twice previously, it looked a long way to the top from the start of our local mountain biking trailhead, around 100m elevation from our starting point. You can see the visitors viewing shelter perched on top in the photo below … will we make it?

We passed O’Gradys Falls, across the bridge and up Betts Track to Shoebridge Bend, then up the North/South Track to The Springs.

Did I say preparations? At The Springs we used the Council BBQ to make ourselves a steak sandwich for dinner to fuel ourselves on to the top.

Feeling energised, we headed up the Pinnacle Track, then onto the Zig Zag track for the steepest part of our assent. This track has recently had a lot of work done to it and made the climb a little easier.

On and on, we left the shelter of the lea side beneath the mountain and donned our coats and beanies for the final windy and exposed assault to the summit. Excuse the blurry trig point below, I couldn’t stand still!

View overlooking Hobart and surrounds from the top.

Often the visitors viewing shelter is closed at night but tonight it was open and offered some welcome shelter at the top. Pic from inside.

Because it was so windy, cold and exposed, and with only three options to descend, we decided to head down the road to a track on my bucket list, The Panorama Track, where it would be more sheltered. This track has not seen any maintenance for some time, steep and rocky with rotted duck-boards “over” muddy sections, but it was much shorter than taking the road which we ended up back on further down.

We stopped in at The Chalet where fortunately for us, someone had left a fire going to warm our aching legs briefly before continuing.

We continued on down the road to The Springs again, then took the most direct route straight down the steep Fingerpost Track and back home around 2am.

Thanks for joining us 😀
All photos taken with Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra.

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TasView (Tone)

Tone Bacon - Tasmanian photographer. tasview.com

24 thoughts on “Mountain adventure”

  3. It must have been quite an adventure to climb at night under cold and windy circumstances. The reward was worthwile, a fantastic panorama and even a warm shelter that was open.

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      2. There’s been plenty of pain lately … I’ve yet to post about our recent mountain bike adventure/ misadventure … and to be fair, a bit of gain, I’ve been pushing harder after bouncing back from Covid 😀

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