Hard Scrabble on Mount Scabby

I don’t know where or how Mount Scabby got it’s name, but I’ve seen the alluring open slabs, meadow and tarn that make up the U shaped summit area from multiple other peaks in the Namadgi Wilderness (Mounts Kelly and Burbidge, Mount Namadgi and Mount Gudgenby) enough times that a trip to Mount Scabby was unavoidable. It was my birthday in mid April, and, in leiu of parties, gifts and decadent dinners, I chose as my birthday celebration an overnight walk into the Scabby Range Nature Reserve to climb Mount Scabby. The older I get the more important these birthday events become; my annual benchmark for proving I can still “get shit done.”

There are multiple approaches to Mount Scabby, some involve more or less travel time on tracks. The final climb out of the valley is a bushwack no matter what approach you choose. We opted to walk up the Nass Valley on the Old Boboyan Fire Trail (FT). Not the shortest approach but not the longest either, and the first five kilometres were along a part of the valley we had not visited before.

I’m not a great fan of these fire trail walks as the ground tends to be hard underfoot. It would certainly be possible, if your partner was not recovering from a broken wrist, to bicycle the first 11 kilometres along the Old Boboyan FT and then Sams Creek FT. We walked, and although I did find the ground hard, the walk is pleasant enough along an open grassy valley once a farm, but now National Park.

We stopped for a break after 11 kilometres where Sams Creek FT meets Maurice Luton FT. Sams Creek FT continues north all the way to Rotten Swamp near Mount Burbidge except it is heavily overgrown now and is a bushwack all the way, most of the FT being indistinguishable from the surrounding bush especially the further north you get. Maurice Luton FT climbs up to a 1350 metre saddle before descending steeply to cross Sams Creek. The creek falls steeply through a massive tumble of large granite boulders.

The open grassland of Yaouk Creek valley is to your south as you walk along an old fire trail through open forest passing another two fire trails that lead south past farm land to the Yaouk Road (a decidedly shorter approach). We had been expecting copious water along this section given how much rain had fallen lately, but soon discovered that once we left Yaouk Creek many of the side creeks were dry. Just as we were thinking we would have to go back to find a camp, we came across a flowing stream that drains the Scabby Range near the junction of Maurice Luton FT and Reids FT. We made a good camp on soft grass under some eucalpyts and brewed up a well deserved cup of tea. Days are short, however, and within a couple of hours, it was dark and we were inside our tent.

The next day we continued along Maurice Luton FT for a couple more kilometres until we reached 1300 metres and a steep slope leading up to a southwest outlier of Mount Scabby. The first 200 metres (elevation gain) of bushwacking, while steep, was actually quite reasonable through relatively open eucalpyt forest. But, around 1500 metres that abruptly changed and for the next 200 vertical metres we fought through increasingly scrubby and thick brush eventually emerging onto a slabby clear area. We had just under 1 kilometre and 100 metres of elevation gain to the top which, from a distance, looked like more hard scrabble, but turned out to be reasonable travel again and ended in easy walking up clear granite slabs.

Mount Scabby is a U shaped mountain with the headwaters of the Cotter River cradled within the U. The 1:20,000 topographic map wrongly labels the western summit “Mount Scabby” while the eastern summit is actually higher. The entire summit area, however, is open and pleasant walking so we visited all three cairned high points, finally settling on the highest for a long lunch break. A small tarn, not the small lake known as Scabby Tarn, lies above granite corners and slabs on the long south ridge. Pleasant country once you manage to get through all the bush.

As we began our descent, a huge wedge tail eagle glided over the saddle and disappeared down the Cotter Valley. Unfortunately, our line down from the summit was just slightly tilted to the south and the fall line descent kept pulling us into thicker and thicker brush. Our initial expectation of a couple of hundred metres of dreadful bush became 500 metres descent through dreadful bush as we continuously tried to bear a little north, but terrain, granite boulders and bush all conspired to push us south.

Just after 3:00 pm we emerged from bush onto Maurice Luton FT and the short walk back to camp and cups of tea. Any thoughts of walking part way out that afternoon faded as quickly as the light and we were soon back in the tent for another frosty night.

When you’ve been asleep since 8:00 pm you tend to wake early and it was still dark when I got up and found the stove, crawled back into my sleeping bag in the tent and made us both a hot cup of coffee. Leaving camp just after 7:00 am, we walked past frosty grass on the big open plains and low fog lying along the base of the hills. A final few kilometres stony walk out watched by the mobs of kangaroos that live on the open grasslands, and the trip was over.

How to Make Hill Sprints Less Painful: The Headlands Track Episode

The title is a bit perjorative implying that hill sprints are painful and no-one really likes doing them. But hill sprints are painful and it’s a rare person who says “Yay for today, I get to go run up hills until I puke and my legs shake. Woot, woot, can’t wait.” Maybe that’s you, and, if it is, more power to you, brother, as we used to say in the ‘80’s.

I haven’t been on the south end of the Headlands track since December 2023, so I hopped the bus down to Malua Bay with the intention of walking back home and using all the hills along the Headlands track for sprint intervals.

The southern start of the Headlands track is McKenzies Beach but the nearest bus stop is Malua Bay. I went south from Malua Bay to Pretty Point where a huge amount of track work has been done: trail clearing and widening, gravel laid down in the boggy areas, steps and stairs, and seats at the lookout.

After a lap around Pretty Point I sprinted back up the hill and slithered down the track to the south end of Malua Bay. This section of track still needs an upgrade. Malua Bay is getting a big face lift with a new picnic area, toilets, kids playground and adult exercise area. Sprinting up the north end of Malua Bay, I found two new lookouts with seats, one right out at Malua Head and one looking south from the top of the hill.

Then it was on to Mosquito Bay where I used the new ladder down to the beach and passed some more steps being installed on the north side! Up and down, up and down, until I was at the last significant hill, the steps up to the hill south of Wimbie Beach. The footings for a new bridge are in and a new track to access the bridge across the lagoon has been established, but no bridge yet. My legs were shaky by the time I got to the top of Wimbie Hill, and, by my count, I had done 15 hill intervals, which seemed like a pretty good number. The track is going to be so fantastic when it is finished.

The Happiness of Pursuit

“The happiness of pursuit…” Robert Sapolksy

I was two thirds of the way around the Dam Loop on my mountain bike when I realised that the reason the track seemed excessively rocky was because I had my front shocks locked out. The last time I rode the Dam Loop I was with my nephew (30 years my junior); he was on his electric one wheel and I on my mountain bike. Every 10 to 15 minutes he would ask “Are you alright? Do you need water?” I wasn’t aware I looked like death and actually felt pretty good even though I been out in my sea kayak that morning.

My goal on the Dam Loop is almost always the same – ride the whole loop without putting a foot down. I rarely make it, but soak up the “happiness of pursuit” anyway. Bike technology has come so far (I don’t mean E-bikes) that I am amazed what an old lady like me, who rarely rides, can ride once equipped with a drop seat, disc brakes, front and rear shocks. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all rise to the challenge of how technology expands the possible?

Avoiding Leeches: Tomboye Hill and Benandarah Trig

I think we’ve all been there. You’re sitting in the car just about to drive home after spending the past five hours out bushwacking, and, you feel something just a bit off on the back of your head, so you wipe it with your hand which comes away bloody. Flipping down the visor the make-up mirror reveals a big fat leech attached to your neck. Or maybe, you are driving down the highway, 100 km/hour and you glance down; a leech is dancing its way up your pants leg, and there is nowhere to pull over. You wake up screaming, no wait, it’s real life!

When I got home on Thursday, I had seven leech bites, including three on my head. My shoes were so destroyed I simply threw them and the socks straight into the bin. On Sunday, after all that rain, I had no intention of going back into leech country, so I started from Shannons Road near Cullendulla and ran north to Tomboye Hill and back. Tomboye Hill has been on my agenda for a long time simply because it is a hill with a name. There is a single track “moto” track that crosses Tomboye Hill but the moto tracks are known leech country being narrow and wet, best avoided after 100 mm of rain.

There’s no view from Tomboye Hill, although you can see the ocean as you contour past on the north side and the final track to the top is classic leech country: narrow, wet and overhung with vegetation. Benandarah Trig, more commonly known as Big Bit Lookout has views, but the superlatives given on various websites might be a bit over the top. There is a view, but the 360 degree views claimed include a fair bit of forest. According to my Garmin watch, where tracking includes unsolicited gamification – I got about seven new awards for the trip. The exact same number of leech bites I had a few days earlier.

DuCane Plateau and Walled Mountain

It is almost a decade since we walked into The Labyrinth in Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park. I would not have believed that if I did not check our records. Not much seems to have changed, except we have composite kayaks instead of plastic kayaks. But, the launch procedure was the same, from the boat ramp on the south shore of the lake. An easy two hour paddle north up the lake with the ferry boat passing us the exact same number of times (two).

We lifted the kayaks out near a little inlet on the bay, only about 300 metres from the duck-boards that lead from Narcissus Hut to the ferry wharf, but a ridiculously hard bushwack if you take the wrong route. But first, second breakfast at the boats and pack our overnight packs for three nights. Stupidly, we thought we would walk a straightish line from where we parked our boats to the duckboards using a compass bearing. This was almost unbelievably thick. I managed to squirm through although I did have to wriggle on my belly under some tangled branches as if I was in a Tough Mudder race. Doug fared less well. I popped out into a clearer area and could hear huffing and puffing, grunting and groaning behind me, much like the times I had surprised black bears in the mountains of Canada. The trees and shrubs shook. Eventually, Doug pushed out. He had taken his pack off and pushed it forward in front of him unable to make progress any other way.

Half an hour to travel a few hundred metres to the duck-boards, there must be a better way. We had to strip off to clean all the vegetation from where it was wedged between clothes and skin. The usual walk north up the Overland Track to the junction with Pine Valley where we had a break on some big logs. It seemed to me some of the bridges had been replaced but it’s possible I just don’t remember.

On through dark rainforest to Pine Valley. Doug was going to stop for a break at Pine Valley Hut but it was very dark at the hut – as it always is – and we were hoping to get up past The Labyrinth to camp so we kept going up the track that climbs to the upper plateau and the many lakes and tarns sandwiched between The Parthenon and Walled Mountain. We did not quite make where we wanted to camp and had to scratch out a rough camp on rock slabs for the night. I made dinner by headlamp and we tumbled into the tent.

Next morning, we packed up and moved onto a better campsite where we would stay for a couple of nights. The first day we walked up onto the Du Cane following a rough cairned track. There are more lakes and little tumbling creeks, dolerite boulders and cairned tracks lead to various “Abels.” We went up the Du Cane Abel which is merely a high point on a broad ridge. The most spectacular mountain in the area: Geryon, does not meet the criteria for an Abel, which seems a bit daft but subjective rules often lead to daft outcomes. Back at camp in the afternoon we had a dip in one of the very cold lakes.

The next day we walked up Walled Mountain, which also has a cairned footpad to the summit and wandered about on the summit plateau. A sheltered spot out of the wind was grand for peak spotting, lots of Abels around the area, although the dolerite was playing havoc with my compass.

Our final day, we walked back out. The weather had gradually warmed and Lake St Clair felt warm for swimming and I had two swims, one before and one after the paddle. It will probably be another decade before we go back.

90 Years Old

Do what your 90 year old self will be proud of doing.

I wish that was my line, but it’s not. It’s from Gurwinder Bhogal from the Subversive Voices podcast with Alex Kashuta. And, it’s not a feel good episode about “being your best self,” or “living your authentic life,” or any other meaningless jingle. It’s about the increasing gamification of modern life. If anything, its either a depressing or a cautionary tale, or possibly both. 

Right now my 60 year old self is trying to get back into rock climbing shape after too many months spent ocean kayaking. The glorious autumn weather we are experiencing is soon to be a thing of the past as an East Coast Low moves in with up to 200 mm of rain sometime over the next couple of days. It was my fourth climbing day out of the last five so I must be getting in better shape.

I went down to Grey Rocks to boulder on the solid granite down there. I’ve been wandering around Grey Rocks, Bingie Bingie and Mullimburra Point for half a dozen years bouldering and never seen another person, but the boulders are now up on the Crag website and I saw the tiniest smidgen of chalk. It’s good to see other folk enjoying the area. I even got up the courage to top out on the highest boulders, something I had not done before.

Afterwards, I went for a walk. The water is so clear right now – that’ll be gone in a day or two – the wind was light, and there was a low swell. A more perfect day for sea kayaking was hard to imagine. But the bouldering was pretty good too.

From the Mountain to the Valley: Mother Cummins Peak and Lobster Falls

The Great Western Tiers was one of the first places I bushwalked when I was living in Devonport back in the 1980’s working my way through a midwifery certificate at the Mersey Maternity Hospital. Getting up onto the Tiers is quick and easy via various tracks that run uphill from every direction. I picked up a brochure from the tourist information centre in Deloraine (worth a visit), but the same information is available online here.

We did the circuit described in the brochure in a clockwise direction. Great views from the top and a lovely valley below. The higher point, to the south, would be a hideous bushwack, and the usual access route comes up Smoko Creek from the south.

After returning to the car (the walk takes no where near the four hours advertised) we drove back to Deloraine via Mole Creek Road and walked into Lobster Falls to round out the day. A brochure is available here. We did both side tracks, although I probably concur with the brochure that the first side track to the upper falls is not the best. There is a dodgy bit of garden hose to assist in the scramble down (which we did not use) and the steep descent leads to a wet slippery ledge. From the ledge, I waded the creek and scrambled over to the second falls, but the same location can also be easily reached by following the track to the end where a good rock platform overlooks both falls.