We scratched our heads for a while at the start of the walk, at the end of Mountain Rd, but found the well signed, well marked entry before long. The first 1.5 kms of the track weren't completely obvious but the tape all along the track and the chapman notes made it fairly easy going. For the next 3 odd kms the track was very easy to follow with plenty of cairns, tape and track markers.
From the first tin shed to the summit plateu were resonably tough going. With many rocks and ledges to negotiate. I don't know if this is what they call rock scrambling, but in places we were scrambling!! But in no place were we worried or doubted we could make it, I think we just underestimated how steep it was going to be. After about half an hour of this we were rewarded with some awesome veiws! We heard one group on their way down and met another at Livinstone hut.
The main reason I wanted to head up was to see the beehive cairn at the summit, after consulting the chapman notes again we set off across the saddle in search. This was tougher than I had imagined, mainly due to the thick scrub. Gaitors would have been great at this point, but explorer socks pulled up to the knees worked pretty well. (although I wouldn't trust them against a 6 foot tiger) The trek to the cairn took about half an hour, but i was very glad we got to see it. The cairn itself is quite amazing, somebody must have had a lot of free time on their hands. After a quick photo opp we signed the visitor book (with the manditory plug bushwalk.com) and headed back to livingstone for lunch.
The trip down was uneventful, with the first steep section slow going. But after that it was a very pleasant stroll, back down the hill through some lovely forrest. All in all it was a fantastic walk, very close to home and easily completed by amatuers. Took us 5.5 hrs all up, with about half an hour on top for lunch.
- The beehive cairn
- some of the veiw
