The saturday morning started early with a decent drive thru the forestry roads and a clear(ish) sky.
The start of the track is tagged as below and leaves you with an instant impression that the cutting grass is there to welcome you and acompany you for the next hour 45.
- start of track
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After the flat push thru the cutting grass with patches of mud, a nice little creek (easily crossed) tells you the end of the cutting grass , and the start of uphill thru relatively open dogwood and rainforest terrain. A few climbs over and slides under large fallens adds to the climb. After about an hour the vegetation becomes very dense scrub, with pandani, scoparia and snow gums. Very overgrown and dense and you are punching holes thru and over and at times reaching complete blockage and a little detour is needed. Care is needed here to follow the marker tape. At this point i had a boot malfunction , but the strapping tape came in handy, as did all those wasted hours of youth watching Mccuyver haha.
- The scrub bash
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After an hour of the scrub,a small rise is reached and ahead is some open flat land which was a WONDERFUL site at this stage. Also the first clear views of Mt Weld and its range are the reward
- Open land and the Weld range :-)
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From here the walking is relatively open, except for a few little patches when climbing the creek that is the outflow of the unnamed tarn. From this point you are looking at about an hour n half to the tarn , which was the camp location for my night
- unnamed tarn(1089m) with Mt Weld out of shot , top right corner
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From the tarn i beleive it is 2 hours return to the summit of Weld.
Now i knew the weather was not going to be perfect and the change rolled in just after the tent was pitched. Was well prepared and equipped so rode out a fairly windy ,wet night. Did get a small break late afternoon to do a little exploring. Not enough time to summit Weld tho. But when morning rolled around , the sun put on a morning display
- good morning ; Lakes Trout(foreground and Lobster and the Weld range
But before i had time to prepare to summit Weld the weather again said no , thick fog. Being more of a view person than a peak bagger, i accepted defeat and packed up for the hike out. With more of an idea of what to expect and more preparedness, covered multi layer head to toe, the return only took five hours. All in all a nice spot once out in the open on the high ground , but a fair slog thru nasty grass and dense scrub make for a challenge , mental aswell. Glad tho another expedition is in the books. Iain.
