First drive up Jeffries Track (Lachlan end) as far as you dare in a 2wd, which leaves about 45 minutes of unpleasant walking on a chewed up muddy 4wd track until you get to the western end of the east/west fire trail. Walk east up this for about 40 mins and you will find a cairn on the southern side of the trail, if you get to Mt Charles you have gone too far. I won't give more precise info because this is sort of off track. From the cairn there is a pad with pink track tape that winds through a variety of scrub including tea tree cutting grass, bauera and also some open rocky terrain. The closer you get to the peak the poorer the definition of the route. As I was heading out to the peak I could see it was going to be difficult following the pad back primarily because of how it is marked and the profusion of animal trails heading in all directions.
Anyone who looked at Mt Wellington yesterday will know it was not clear up there, indeed by the time I got to the summit 45 minutes later it was quite foggy. From the summit rockpile there were no views but I suspect on a clear day they would be pretty good.
The main point of interest for me was a ruin consisting of 3 stone walls and what appeared to be a stone fireplace inset into one wall. This is found on the small plateau just below the summit ridge. If anyone knows more about the history of this structure I would be interested.
On the return the inevitable happened and the pad was misplaced. I spent the next hour and a quarter bashing my way through the afore mentioned scrub using the GPS on my sort of trusty Nokia and my compass, only to rediscover the pad about 20 metres from the fire trail. Not really a mountain I would rate highly, 2 out of 5 is about all I could score it. It is however one that is worth taking precautions with because of the somewhat tricky route following.
bluewombat
- The not very impressive summit rock pile
