The first part of the walk from the Ada car park till about Christy's is quite featureless, exposed and boring except for the occasional tarns, lakes, cushion plant and scoparia. The whole track is an old 4wd track right to Hut No.5. The first 5km or so is very easy going (especially on the way back) but a bit uneven in places and quite rocky in places as well. Towards Christy's it turns into more of a track with sections of the old 4wd track visible in places. It is amazing how the bush reclaims tracks and it is quite evident going down near Hut No.5. It took us aprox. 3hrs walking time from the Ada car park to the turn off.
The turn off is easy to find and well marked with many cairns,tape and sticks. You would have to be blind to miss it!
From the turn off down to Theresa Lagoon is easy going with only a few muddy patches and simple step over water sections. We did take a wrong turn crossing the creek at the lagoon but recovered easily. Looks like many others did what we did trying to avoid walking on the cushion plant.
From Theresa Lagoon you soon head down into the forest and sort of follow Powena Creek although higher up on the ridge for quite a bit of it. The track becomes very closed in and scrubby for this section and you will be pushing through a bit of scrub often but it is relatively easy going and navigation is fine except for one small section where you do a sharp left turn in an open rocky section. The track appears to go straight ahead but a rock cairn is not visible to your left hidden behind a bush. Easy to get back on track here. This section of track has many large jack jumper nests right on the track if they are a problem for you.
Call into Hut No.5 for a look and then find a nice place to cross Powena Creek. Conditions will be a lot better in March as to the amount of water around and you will probably be able to cross the Powena Creek and the Pine River without stripping off and wading like we had to. Apparently there was 2 inches of snow at Dixons Kingdom for a couple of hours before it melted according to a walker we met on the way in who had come from there. So the water was a little bracing!
We crossed Powena Creek about 41 53.466/146 22.721 and Pine river about 41 53.34/146 21.963. Powena creek was flowing quite swiftly. There is a well formed pad from the creek along the edge of the ridge for the first half then it peters out and you follow faint pads and your nose around the ridge line until you may pick up another well worn pad down across the Pine River and onto the camp site. The biggest problem with this section is the large amounts of cushion plant and you need to be careful to not tread on it which can be difficult at times as there is so much of it.
We took aprox. 3hrs walking time from the turn off to the camp site at Silver so aprox. 6hrs walking time at a gentle pace. Over all we spent aprox 8hrs on the track with photo's, lunch, coffee stop etc etc. Total walking distance is about 14km with only about 200M elevation change. Finding a tree or some shade for lunch stops was the hardest part of the trip in before we got to the turn off and some forrest. We expected to stay two night at Silver but for various reasons it turned into an overnighter and we walked out the next day. We were a bit tired at the end but no real problems for us on this walk as it is relatively easy going and predominantly flat. There is nowhere to hide from the wind for the first half of the walk and take plenty of sunscreen.
There were large pockets of Scoparia that will look magnificent when they are in full flower. Unfortunately for us a few were out but most are a bit away yet with only the odd flowers out.
There was plenty of camping in two spots at Silver but the edge of the lake was so boggy and water logged we had to camp further up the bank on a small mound next to the most convenient rock table and shelter for the trangia etc. You would get plenty of tents here if you could camp on the waterline like I have seen in other photo's. The second camping spot a bit further back along the shore would cater for maybe 3-4 more tents as well I expect.
Plenty of day trips and longer walks possible from here so there is plenty to do. We did not catch any trout this trip but quite a few seen. It was blowing to hard on the second day to fly fish so I only got a few casts in for the trip. Bring your rod for some early morning / late evening fishing and you may be rewarded.
Some photo's are quite poor as they came off my phone camera.
- Typical track profile at the start near Ada lagoon.
- TrackStart.jpg (67.31 KiB) Viewed 5180 times
- Track near Hut No.5
- TrackNearHut.jpg (103.83 KiB) Viewed 5180 times
- Powena Creek crossing point.
- PowenaCrossing.jpg (207.1 KiB) Viewed 5180 times
- Pine River near crossing point.
- PineRiver.jpg (93.46 KiB) Viewed 5180 times
- main camp site on Silver Lake
- MainCampsite.jpg (136.98 KiB) Viewed 5180 times
If anybody happens to find my collapsible spinning rod and lure some where between Pomena Creek and Silver, send me a PM?
