Tasmania = Beautiful

The tour of Tasmania and our tour companions were great, and we’ve been blessed with excellent weather. That just about sums up last week.

We got a taste of the whole island on the tour and it was all well worth it, but for me two things stand out: climbing up to the summits of Cradle Mountain and Mount Amos. The views from up there were awe-inspiring, totally surreal… just wonderful. The ascent up the mountains were a challenge and involved a lot of climbing on rocks and keeping good balance on steep ledges. First time I’ve done something like that (aside from climbing up to the summit of Ben Nevis in Scotland, but that was a walk in the park compared to this), and it is definitely something I’ll be doing more of in the future. It’s a great feeling. The rest of the tour took us around the highlights of Tassie and illustrated it’s beauty, diversity and convict history perfectly. The west coast is covered with lush rainforest, while the east is dryer and houses different plant life. The centre is mainly made up of alpine landscape. And that’s were we’ll be heading to tomorrow morning: Cradle mountain – Lake St. Clair National Park, home to the Overland Track. It will take us about a week to complete the walk including some side trips that take us out to lakes, waterfalls and the summit of Mount Ossa (The highest in Tasmania. Hopefully the good weather holds up so I can climb up there. Our tour guide, Lannie, told me it’s well worth the effort). Yesterday and today we spent getting ourselves organized for the trip and we are all looking forward to it. We still got quite a lot to do today, so I’m keeping this short :)

See you in about ten days.

David.