Bushwalk Australia

This is due to zane's plant thread, but it really started two years ago, when I was coming down from the Crags of Andromeda, pushing through the scoparia on the side of Lucifer Ridge, and composed my own version of the most famous of Barret Browning's Love Sonnets titled, of course, 'To Scoparia':

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways;
I love thee burned, broken, splintered, crushed, uprooted, trampled into the mud . . .

Since then I have done both the Southern Ranges and the Picton Circuit amongst others, and on many occasions found myself actually heading for the scoparia, because it was the easiest bit to push through or climb up on. It's a solidly rooted plant, with a reasonable amount of springiness and, in the slightly larger specimens, plenty of bare branch for hand and foot holds.
My personal bete noir is Cutting Grass. It cuts scalp, eyes, arms, anywhere there's bare skin; it trips, it sneaks up behind you and wraps itself around your and your gear; you can't touch any part of it because it's all sharp and tangly.

Cutting grass is definitely the worst! My 2 trips into Mt Weld were enough to confirm this. The first trip I ended up feeling sunburnt all over my face from the cuts. Tea tree is my second least favourite. It is hard work when you can't see through that stuff. I have not seen tea tree like I saw on the slopes of the Sentinel Range - took us 5 hours to bash up what took 2 hours to get down!

Scoparia is not all that bad. It has saved my backside a number of times, and it is useful for climbing up ledges and cliffs etc. It is even better in the snow - the spikes are rendered useless!

Cutting grass is fine. You can just shrug through it - as long as you're careful and don't make sudden moves it's fine.

A little scorparia is ok. It gets bad when you've had several days of it, and the same bits between the top of your gaiters and the bottom of your shorts get hammered over and over again by prickles. After a day or two of that it's like having red hot pins slammed into your knees step after step.

I'd rank banksia and fagus as pretty harsh too. Actually banksia is a horror. And any of them are ten times worse when combined with macquarie vine...

Most other stuff is just tedious and tiring - ie: Horrie.

The survey is missing "Moss Jungle", and also "Bauera" should be replaced by "Bauera/Tea Tree" - as it is the combination of the two that is far far worse to get through then either by itself. We are talking about 1-2 km a day country - with a strong party and alternating leads. If you are in that type of country - then you dream of horizontal (and if you find any - then you think about camping). Scoparia is relatively mild - and high scoparia - is often quite open underneath - and not too hard to make your way through. Cutting grass is not too bad - but in combination with Bauera/Tea Tree or dead sick country - then it is far worse than cutting grass by itself.

Another interesting botanical oddity - is "rotten horizontal" - where every log you step on can suddenly turn to powder or ejaculate jelly over you.....

Dave

Riparian Scrub!! (am I allowed a combination of several different plant species?) http://www.dpipwe.tas.gov.au/inter.nsf/ ... LE/SRI.pdf
everything always goes to *&%$#! when I approach a river/stream crossing!!

The main problem with scoparia is that it will silently and invisibly render your expensive gortex jacket useless. Thousands of microscopic holes through the fabric through which rain has no problem entering. So the goretex labs told me after examining my old rain coat when I sent it back for a warrantee job.

Tea tree tangled with macquarie vine. Awful stuff. Had some fun with it today.

How many peaks did you bag, and which way did you go?

north-north-west wrote:How many peaks did you bag, and which way did you go?

2 less than me, and we went the right way and the wrong way oh and there was Baura for that ropey goodness...

I don't think there is a real 'right' way to get out to Sedgwick. Just a 'not quite as bad' way . . .

Scoparia has one saving grace which makes it OK! It is so beautiful when it is in flower.

All can be pretty bad & as some have commented in combination can be nightmarish.
Fagus thickets can be pretty horrible so as a singular species they get my vote...not often you actually get 'jailed' in the wilderness but a wrong turn in these thickets can lead to botanical custody

I'm not sure if you have Acacia Paradoxa anywhere in Tassie, but after spending yesterday in the middle of the *&%$#! I have decided that Hedge Wattle is my new pet hate. I'm licking my wounds today.

DaveNoble wrote: "Bauera" should be replaced by "Bauera/Tea Tree" - as it is the combination of the two that is far far worse to get through then either by itself. We are talking about 1-2 km a day country - with a strong party and alternating leads. If you are in that type of country - then you dream of horizontal (and if you find any - then you think about camping).


Dave

Recently ascended to Geeves Bluff from the Old River Valley, taking the wrong ridge up. Thick Melaleuca and Bauera mixed in with fallen logs and cutting grass. Walked sun up to sun down and covered 4km, couldn't agree more with the quote above.

This is what my arms looked like when I got back.

backyard_botanist wrote:

DaveNoble wrote: "Bauera" should be replaced by "Bauera/Tea Tree" - as it is the combination of the two that is far far worse to get through then either by itself. We are talking about 1-2 km a day country - with a strong party and alternating leads. If you are in that type of country - then you dream of horizontal (and if you find any - then you think about camping).


Dave

Recently ascended to Geeves Bluff from the Old River Valley, taking the wrong ridge up. Thick Melaleuca and Bauera mixed in with fallen logs and cutting grass. Walked sun up to sun down and covered 4km, couldn't agree more with the quote above.

This is what my arms looked like when I got back.

In the case of the wrong ridge taking, a gps route plan might help.

dplanet wrote:In the case of the wrong ridge taking, a gps route plan might help.

Not if you go without GPS

(Just Joking)

Scoparia just hurts and that can be limited via gloves and clothing. It wrecks your hardshell but not any faster than I do via abrasion.
Tall (<2m) scoparia is annoying in summer, but bends out of the way and can be kicked/bent into submission easily.

I'm still not sure about the name of my most hated tassie botanical. It's a vine-like grass that grows over everything and covers them in a thick bed of vegetation. The runners are usually about 3-4mm thick and have about 4cm segments. The leaves are not as large as Macquarie vine leaves and it tends to grow intertwined with riparian vegetation in bands on buttongrass plains.

I agree icefest, that stuff is worse than bauera/teatree/cutting grass I think because it is impossible to get through! Met some going the wrong way up Mt Gog a while ago.

Taurë-rana wrote:I agree icefest, that stuff is worse than bauera/teatree/cutting grass I think because it is impossible to get through! Met some going the wrong way up Mt Gog a while ago.

Ah, I think i've suppressed that memory...

Otherwise, I'm with Dave for the bauera/tea trea combo. I remember picking both scoparia and cutting grass over that, on the basis that I could actually move forward. Both were less of an issue with long sleeves, long pants, scrub gloves & hat. No cuts from the cutting grass, but still some spikes from the scoparia.

Tortoise wrote:

Taurë-rana wrote:I agree icefest, that stuff is worse than bauera/teatree/cutting grass I think because it is impossible to get through! Met some going the wrong way up Mt Gog a while ago.

Ah, I think i've suppressed that memory...

Otherwise, I'm with Dave for the bauera/tea trea combo. I remember picking both scoparia and cutting grass over that, on the basis that I could actually move forward. Both were less of an issue with long sleeves, long pants, scrub gloves & hat. No cuts from the cutting grass, but still some spikes from the scoparia.

Interesting to have this thread revisited after a little more experience.
Have to agree with the combinations being the worst, but just two ingredients doesn't do the trick for me. Try Banksia and tea tree growing close enough together that you can't even fit an arm between the trunks, with a metre of Bauera as a base, the whole interwoven with Macquarie vine (or something similar). Being dumb enough to follow the Abels book instructions for the Packers Spur route up the Thumbs last summer, I ran into this combo at the far end of the bluffs. Never have I wished more sincerely - or more obscenely - for a chainsaw or flamethrower.

north-north-west wrote:Interesting to have this thread revisited after a little more experience.
Have to agree with the combinations being the worst, but just two ingredients doesn't do the trick for me. Try Banksia and tea tree growing close enough together that you can't even fit an arm between the trunks, with a metre of Bauera as a base, the whole interwoven with Macquarie vine (or something similar). Being dumb enough to follow the Abels book instructions for the Packers Spur route up the Thumbs last summer, I ran into this combo at the far end of the bluffs. Never have I wished more sincerely - or more obscenely - for a chainsaw or flamethrower.

Thanks for the warning!