ON THE ROAD - travel & places...
A BUNK FOR THE NIGHT
Tasmania's highland huts...
ON THE MUNDANE LEVEL the huts scattered through the mountains represent shelter, warmth and safety. On the psychological level they exist as reminders of times past, of disappeared livelihoods, hardship and of the need for sanctuary amid challenging conditions.
Each hut has its history. Horse Camp, an old galvanised iron stockman's shelter in the Snowy Mountains of NSW, was built by the Snowy Mountains Authority in the 1950s to acccommodate survey parties and fell into disuse the following decade. Valentines Hut, a small, faded, red plank structure further out on the ranges near Mt Gungarten, was another built for survey crews. According to the Koscuisko Huts Association, the hut got its name from the white hearts that were painted on the red paint. Even further out is an old bush hut of brown planks that once served the cattlemen who grazed their mobs in the high country; from it you can see far into the high plains.
Walkers associate huts with memories and events. Horse Camp Hut is memorable, one wet and cold evening, for the straggler who wandered in well after the rest of the youths in his party. We could see that he was vague, not quite with it and it was suggested to the adults in his party (who were now comfortably relaxed) that he was hypothermic. The hut on Cradle Plateau is uninviting in both summer heat and when part-buried by winter's snow - it is essentially an emergency shelter, as is the rudimentary A-frame out on K-Col in Mt Field National Park. The big A-frame hut amid the pencil pine on the southern side of Cradle Mountain is notable for its comfortable spaceousness. Many huts, many histories, many memories for those that visit them.
Hut in the forest
IT WAS AS IF THE HUT had been concealed, though that was not the intention of its builders. It spoke of simpler times, of days on the tops and in the forest, of good company and simple needs, of the close, intimate banter of friends. I imagined those earlier visitors of the sixties or, perhaps, the fifties - I don't know when the hut was built - walking up the bush track in their wool trousers and shirts, the leather straps of their canvas A-frame packs - laden with clothing, sleeping bag and food - cutting into shoulders made too soft by city living.
Perhaps they escaped the city for an easy weekend in the bush. Or, maybe, they used the hut as a comfortable base from which to make forays onto the ridges above the treeline. Some, the hardier and more adventurous, surely would have come in winter, wooden touring skis across shoulders, to explore the white world of the high ridges. All this, I knew, was speculation, but in its gist it contained a degree of truth for it was for these reasons that the Hobart Walking Club built this small hut on the forested slopes of Mt Rufus.
It is easy to miss the turnoff to the hut. The trail that branches from the track to Rufus summit is indistinct and narrow. A few metres along it the small building nestles into the shrubbery as if being enveloped by it. Inside, the roof is low. There is a fireplace, a bench and bunks... the simple, basic necessities of comfortable accommodation in the mountains. Add the good company, hot food and a bottle of good red and you have the makings of a relaxing weekend. This hut has seen many of these.
Mawson's hut
MAWSON'S HUT. A makeshift but deceptively strong cabin by the lake shore, named for the famous explorer who trained here before making his voyage to the Antarctic. Many pass by here and many visit this hut on Tarn Shelf.
Mawsons hut, Tarn Shelf, Mt Field National Park
Like most huts in the Tasmanian backblocks, Mawson's is a modest structure of timber and galvanised iron roof. The door opens to reveal an interior still equipped with old food tins and the furnishings of the early Twentiety Century. There is an old seat, a table and simple bunks. The hut is a museum and it is respected as such by those who walk in to visit it.
Follow the track along Tarn Shelf in summer and you find the hut a convenient lunch spot. Go in winter and you have to look for it under its burden of snow. In late winter, when the weather is at its coldest, the more daring can walk out onto the lake. But be careful, the waters below the ice are very cold and extracting someone from a break is difficult.
The interior of Mawsons hut in the 1970s - slightly dilapidated but weatherproof
Free accommodation
PETER KNEW where to find free accommodation and it was usually in unused huts in out of the way places. Once, in northern Tasmania, he took us to a partially decrepit farm house. How he knew about it and to whom it belonged I never discovered.
This evening, Charmaine and I are with Peter and a friend as we turn into a small, makeshift parking bay high up on Mt Field's winding road. Here, we leave the car and notice, partly hidden in the scrub, what looks like an old house. This is where we will spend the night before driving on to Dobson carpark and walking up to the ridges. A hut over your head avoids the hassel of putting up a tent in the dark on those Friday evenings when you leave Hobart after work to get an early start to the next day's walk.
The so-called Rangers Hut in the forests of Mt Field
"It was used by the national park rangers", Peter replies in answer to my question about ownership. "Nobody uses it now except the occasional party of bushwalkers like us".
By the door is a partly-full woodbox. This tells us that the hut is used by visitors who understand the etiquette of the high country - replenish the hut's firewood for the next party. We push open the door.
"It's just an empty hut", Peter explains. And that is exactly what it is. There are no furnishings in any of the four small rooms, not a bunk, not a table. "We live and eat on the floor".
There is, however, a small fireplace built into a wall and into this we pile twigs and a bit of paper and set it alight. Soon we have a fire to keep out the chill of evening as Peter reveals his cache of bush luxuries - a can of mussels, a bottle of olives, a length of pepperoni and a bottle of wine. These, I am to learn, are regular fare on easy walks and overnight camps and we will share them with him on more than this occasion.
The bottle of wine reminds us of the time at Mole Creek - we were there to go caving - when we realised we had no wine. Knowing that this was not a good thing, we drove to the Mole Creek hotel.
Peter approached the woman behind the counter. "Hi. What red wines do you have?".
She looked to the bottles on the shelf behind... and it was then we realised that red wine is not a top-selling beverage in these parts.
"I don't really know", she answered apologetically. "We have white wine and there are others in dark-coloured bottles... you can't see what colour the wine inside is". We settled for one of those dark bottles.
Over the years, before we went our separate ways, we made use of this little hut in the high forest on Mt Field. It provided us with a dry night, a sometimes smoky fire, free accommodation and the pleasure of conversation among friends. Nothing better can be asked of a hut in the bush.
Dixon's Kingdom
WHACK! Missed. He tries again... backing away a little he raises the stick high and brings it down hard, but the snake slithers away as fast as it can go. Its pursuer breaks off his attack. "That was a big one", he says to the audience who had gathered to watch the combat.
The original Dixon's Kingdom hut amid the indigenous King William pines
It was a big one too - a long, fat, jet black tiger snake of the type that inhabits these highlands. The walkers among the audience suggest that such reptiles are best left alone but the horseman, one of a party traveling in the area this weekend, has other ideas about what should be done with them. The reptile having wriggled off, the horsemen joins his friends in Dixon's Kingdom.
A strange name for a log hut in the mountains, Dixon's Kingdom. Presumably, it is named for its builder who might be the same person who once held grazing rights to this place. Those rights are long gone but the hut remains.
Log construction was never a popular form of bush building in Tasmania. Log huts are occasionally found but most are of cut timber. Dixon's is a massive structure, the logs which form its walls are so thick and heavy it must have taken a lot of muscle to lift them in place. The worn iron roof falls from the ridge to meet the low walls, giving the impression that the hut is hugging the ground, grabbing onto it hard so the fierce winds don't blow it away. Inside, you notice how dark it is and realise that there are no windows though there is a large fireplace that burns the local King William Pine and a broad sleeping platform that spans the rear of the building. Here, walkers spread their sleeping bags in communal comfort. This is a hut built to last.
Dixon's Kingdom hut after the addition of an extension for a film
Dixon's Kingdom was here when mountain walkers started coming into the Walls of Jerusalum. Just how long it has stood on the edge of a clearing among the native highland pines is a question nobody seems able to answer. It pre-dates the 1950s and could date back to the thirties, perhaps. Dixon's Kingdom has sheltered generations of visitors.
The hut underwent a rebirth in the 1980s when it was used in a film. The producers gave it an extension to give it the appearance of an early farm houses. This, rather than the simpler, older hut, is what walkers see today.
Dixon's Kingdom is easy to find in summer. Enter the Walls through Herod's Gate and follow the West Wall to turn east and cross a low pass that exits the Walls proper. The hut stands not far from here on the edge of a wide clearing. Winter brings a different story. This is the north-western edge of the Central Plateau and, being high by Tasmanian standards, is subject to heavy snowfall. Given a deep enough fall, not only is the going exhausting but Dixon's Kingdom can be a little difficult to locate.
Mainland walkers standing before Dixon's Kingdom see a terrain different to what they know. The pines are alien, the terrain is alien and so too are the mountains and the hut. For Tasmanians, though, the land is familiar and the hut a destination in which to lay out sleeping bag, cook a meal and get a good night's sleep.
Big landscape, small hut
IT IS SUMMER in the mountains. The days are warm without being sweaty, the nights cool but not cold. We are in the ring of mountains known as the Walls of Jerusalum, pitching our tents in an open forest of gnarly, indigenous pines beside Lake Thor. In the company of friends and with the prospect of a filling meal and the quiet conversation of the campfire, life could not be better.
There are hours to go before sundown, so we leave our kit in the tents, pack our daypacks and stride out across the bowl of open land that separates our lake from the scree slope that ascends the West Wall, the highest point of the Walls of Jerusalum. Climbing, we come to a narrow defile up which we scramble to the summit ridge. It is an easy stroll to the summit, a minor bump that sticks a little above the line of the ridge.
The Walls of Jerusalum... in the distance the West Wall stands above Herod's Gate with Lake Thor below. The prominent peak on the horizon, across the Central Plateau, is Barn Bluff in the Cradle Mt-Lake St Clair National Park. To its right is the ridge of Cradle Mountain. The peak that appears above the ridge to the left is Mt Pelion West.
Picture a circle of ridges and rocky hummocks standing above the rolling undulations of the Central Plateau and you have an image of the Walls. All the way to the east unfolds a rocky plateau dotted with thousands of lakes. You stand looking eastward and realise that over there, somewhere out of sight, is the gravel road that climbs the Western Tiers and cuts through to the highway near Derwent Bridge. Over there, too, are the trout fisher's shacks beside Great Lake. When you reconcile the geography in your head with what you see before you, you realise that this really is a small island.
Notice, too, the stark gray skeletons of snow gums, the victims of fires that have swept the plateau. Fire kills these slow-growing, stunted trees to leave the bare, weathered form of dead trunk and branch.
Morning. Flora emerges from her tent wearing a bright red T-shirt and green shorts and proceeds to brush her chestnut hair. Grant follows, still a little sleepy but eager to start the day. He skips the hair brushing.
"What are our plans?", he asks as we sit eating breakfast by the lake shore. Nobody appears to be in a great hurry to move - it is pleasant enough just to sit here and it would be easy to spend the rest of the day like this. "We have all of the morning before we have to walk back to the river".
"Well", says Flora, "...there's a little hut on the side of The Temple that I have never seen. That's close, so it should not take much time to find it."
It is an easy decision. We set off towards The Temple, a rounded protrusion that rises within the Walls. None of us have been to this hut before and it does not appear on the map, so finding it will call for a little guestimation.
Standing below The Temple and looking up there is no sign of a hut, just the orange-brown of dolerite boulders. "It's here somewhere. Let's check out the other side", suggests Flora. Again we stand and scour the boulders above us. Nothing. But then: "There it is". "Let's go", says Flora, pointing up the slope at what looks to be the roof of a building.
Flora emerges from the small hut on The Temple, Walls of Jerusalum
We find the hut and bend down to crawl in. It is less than two metres high at the apex. An iron roof slopes steeply to walls a mere metre or so high. Inside, there is space to sleep two and enough room to prepare a simple meal and store equipment. Built of rocks that blend it into the surrounding boulders, this is the smallest hut I have seen. It dates, so I am told, from the early 1970s.
"It was supposedly built by walkers who came up here regularly", says Grant. "It's just basic overnight accommodation".
"This would have taken time to build", says Flora. "The roofing iron would have had to be packed in... that would have been done over several trips... think of all the effort".
Flora is right. Building it would have called for persistence and effort and it must have been a labor of love,. That makes it different to many of the huts that dot the mountains of this island. The older of them were built to offer only the most minimal of comfort to the possum trappers and herdsmen who came into the mountains to earn a hard living. Those men have gone and now their huts serve the walkers who traverse the mountains. Newer huts have been built by those with a recreational interest in the high country - the bushwalkers and trout fishermen.
We walked out that afternoon, leaving unanswered the mystery of who went to all that trouble to build a little, crawl-in hut high on the steep sides of a minor peak.
Hut in the pines
WALKING from the cold drizzle and sodden track into the fug of Pine Valley hut is like jumping between climates. Outside, the freshness of forest and rain; inside, a fire and a warmth visible as a light mist in the air.
There is an odour to this fugginess, a familiar but slightly over-ripe odour. You trace it to the wet woolens hanging in front of the fire - sweaters, wool shirts, sodden socks that have been worn a little too long.
Muddy boots are left by the door. Some of the hut's occupants put on fresh, dry socks from their packs; the hardier simply leave on their wet socks hoping that a combination of the warmth of the hut and body heat will dry them so they can be worn to sleep in and on the track tomorrow.
The party is large for this modest timber hut at the far reach of Pine Valley, but there is room for all on the sleeping bench. It won't be like that overnight at the Lake Tahune hut on Frenchman's Cap when the place was so packed that one man slept on the floor under the lower bunk.
Approaching the hut at the end of the slog up from Lake St Clair, there is a feeling of closeness brought on by the surrounding forest and the proximity of the walls up which the track takes the walker to the Labyrinth, a spectacular area of alpine lake and stunted pine. The truncated, twin spires of Mt Geryon are nearby, but they are not for walkers to climb - ropes, carabiners and rockclimbing skills are necessary for their ascent.
Inside, the party spreads its sleeping bags and wet clothing is exchanged for dry. Soon, the hum of bushwalker's stoves adds the steam of boiling water to the fug. It's getting warm.
Junction Creek
EARLY SUMMER,1975. We are overnighting at Junction Creek after walking in from the road, now a couple hours distant. The fading light of dusk is a good time to walk in the Tasmanian bush... it is a time of day when latitude and daylight-saving combine to offer precious hours of light well into the evening, sufficient time to cover a few kilometres so you can get a head start the next day.
Basic is probably the only way to describe the three-sided shelter at Junction Creek. Despite that, the structure is more than welcome when the rain is coming down.
This really is a junction, of sorts. Not far from the shelter the two main walking trails that traverse the South West wilderness diverge. The junction itself is marked by a signpost indicating the route east across the Cracroft Plains, following the trend of the Eastern Arthur Range, and the track southward to Port Davey. Attached to the signpost is an old letterbox made from a large metal can. In times past, before the road to the hydroelectric station was put in, it could take days to reach Cracroft. It was the custom that walkers leaving the wilderness would collect mail left in the box by those coming in and post it once they returned to town. Cracroft, now, is just a few hours from the road and the mailbox has fallen into disuse.
The route east - it consumes a day to traverse the full width of the plains - is taken by those planning to climb into the Eastern Arthurs, to attempt, perhaps, the ascent of Federation Peak, that pale slab of a spire that stands in rugged isolation above the zig-zag of the ridge. Those taking the southward option skirt the Western Arthurs and face perhaps two days of slogging over the plains to reach Bathurst Harbour, that magnificient, protected waterway on the far south wilderness coast. Tomorrow, it is the eastern route that we will follow, a long day with heavy packs over the undulations of the Cracroft Plains to make an unsuccessful run towards Federation Peak. Time and distance, not weather, will beat us.
Simple and basic... that's how you would describe Junction Creek shelter. It has an iron roof but only three walls. The shelter is an overnight stopover, a respite from the cold, wet weather that sweeps these plains. Many have been lulled to sleep here by the pounding of heavy rain on the roof and, huddled in warm sleeping bags, they have thought themselves fortunate not to have to fumble about in the dark, hands numbed by the cold, erecting tents on some forlorn creek bank while the rain pelts down.
In our packs is food for ten days and even though we have come only a short distance they are heavy on our shoulders. We were glad to drop them at last to begin the familiar routine of setting up camp... out with ground sheet and sleeping bag, find the wool shirt to put on against the chill of the evening, unpack the food and remove whatever dehydrated delight is on the evening's menu, light a fire... initially a small one for cooking on but which, afterwards, can be built up to warm us as we sit and talk.
There are seven on this walk and their ages are as wide ranging as is their experience of Tasmania's plains and mountains. Gloria and Steven are in their late forties. Steven - tall, weathered, muscular and Viking-like with his swept-back blond hair and square features - is an instructor with the National Fitness Council who leads their adventure activities programme. Gloria, his wife, blonde and petite, might be of opposite build but her diminutive frame hides a strong constitution and a sharp mind. Alan, a young man in his early twenties with a mop of black, curly hair, is quickly developing a taste for wilderness travel... he will soon start a job with an adventure equipment shop but quickly lose it for helping himself to the stock. Ian, a man in his early thirties employed in the same industry, has walked the state's highands and coasts since a teenager. Charmaine, a public servant recently arrived from the mainland is just at the start of what will be years of wilderness walking. The oldest of the team is Arthur, a quiet, bearded, softly spoken man of wiry build employed by the state's infamous Hydro Electric Commission. And there is the author - another recent arrival from the mainland searching for a new life in the island state.
Cooking finished, we close the circle around a fire and bank it up. Building up a fire is something no longer done in these days of minimal-impact bushwalking but, then, turning a cooking fire into a small inferno was an unquestioned practice inherited from an earlier generation of bushwalkers.
Walk into the bush to attend a call of nature and our camp appears as a point of light in the expansive darkness of the wilderness... just a group of people huddled around the fire. You realise that it is probably the only point of light in quite a large area. For people used to the lights of the city, the darkness of the wilderness is something you notice. From a high campsight you can look out and see the vaguaries of terrain driven into monochromatic relief by the light of the moon... pools of darkness where there are valleys, the silhouette of ridgelines against a dark sky, the glint of bare rock, but nowhere is there the artificial light of civilisation.
Our meal finished, we sit sipping hot tea and making small talk. Someone says that, maybe, we could have kept walking, the night being so clear. Arthur sits, hands around mug, and lifts his head at the remark.
"I was here by myself once", he says in a soft, subdued voice as if making a confession or revealing something long-kept confidential. "I was on my way out to the road and hadn't seen anyone all day."
A shower of sparks ascends into the night as Steven pushes a branch into the fire. Our attention returns to Arthur.
"It had been a long day. I was tired and realised I might not be able to make it out by nightfall, so I thought of spending the evening here at Junction Creek. It was getting dark when I reached the shelter and, tired though I was, I was tempted to walk into the night to get to the road. I stopped for a break and tussled with the idea of walking out or staying put. It was one of those circular discussions you have with yourself when you don't know what you want to do."
Gloria reaches out to lift the billy in which the tea is now well and truly stewed. She pours it into her cup and offers the remnants to the group. Heads shake to decline the offer, everyone has had their fill.
"It can be strange walking at night. I've done it before but seldom by myself... I don't really like it. I've done plenty of solo walks, of course, but haven't had to walk much at night. Out here, you know that you are probably the only person for many miles and that makes for an odd sort of feeling, being by yourself alone in that isolation. Solitude can produce funny feelings, especially when you have been alone in the bush for days... your imagination takes over and you have these conversations with yourself or you go, in your mind, to other places and other events."
Arthur speaks quietly, his story punctuated by short gaps as though recovering memories long unvisited. He takes a sip of tea, returns his gaze to the fire and continues.
"Darkness had come but I decided to walk out, so I dug my torch out then hoisted my pack onto my back and set off hesitantly... I would have liked to have called it a day at the sheltert but the nearness of the road was too tempting. I didn't need to use the torch out in the open - the moon gave enough light to walk by.
"I walked on. You could see the track sufficiently to avoid the roots and puddles... though I took more care and used the torch where the track enters the bands of scrub because it was dark in there... you know how this track takes you from the open plain and into the scrub and then out again. The night was still and quiet and the weather was fine, as it had been for the last day or two. Sometimes, when I walked from the scrub onto a high point out in the open I could see quite a way over the plains. That was good, seeing the land in the moonlight, sort of like... in monochrome... blacks and whites... I stopped to look."
There is a snapping sound as Ian breaks a block of chocolate into pieces and passes it around, putting aside enough for the next day. Faces illuminated by the flicker of flame focus on Arthur.
"You come to know the sound of the bush at night, the shriek of the Tasmanian devil, the hiss of wind in the foliage, the sound of quarreling possums, that groaning noise when the wind moves a branch against a tree trunk, but that night there was none of those sounds, it was still and quiet.
"I kept going, lost in my thoughts but keeping an eye on the track... you know that there's greater chance of accident at night... it's easy to trip over a root or slip in the mud... so you're a bit extra-cautious. I must have been going for about an hour and a half when something snapped me out of my reverie. A sound... something that didn't quite belong.
"A voice? I wasn't sure... it had been indistinct and distant and hadn't been repeated... you know how sound can be deceptive at night in the bush... sometimes you're not sure if it is near or far, human or natural. I was still some distance from the road so I stopped and listened. I couldn't hear anything so started walking again. I followed the track into a belt of scrub and then, when I came out into clear country I heard it again... yes, voices, some distance off but coming my way.
"There's nothing extraordinary in this, you often run into other parties in the bush, especially on popular tracks, but not at night and for some reason... I know it's irrational... I felt as though I should avoid this group. I could hear them now and they were getting closer. I walked on and, again, the voices... much closer this time. I hesitated, and for some reason I can't explain I stepped off the track and into the scrub... it was this troubling feeling of unease... getting off the track was more an instinctive reaction than a rational one. It was dark in there among the tea tree.
"I waited, standing still in the scrub. It was quiet... no voices, no sound of people. Maybe I imagined it? No. They were definitely voices. Should I move on? No. Wait. There were definitely voices, I was sure.
"I was shaken out of my indecision by the unmistakable sound of footsteps moving along the track, quite close now and moving rapidly. Suddenly, a party of walkers went past, three, maybe four of them and all oblivious to my presence in the shadows despite the fact I was quite close to them. I thought that were they to shine a torch in my direction they would have got a fright to see a figure standing there watching them. They were moving by torchlight and were heading south, towards the shelter. I waited until they had gone, the sound of their footfall receding. Then I returned to the track and walked out to the road.
"To this day I can't explain why I got out of their way, why I avoided them and why I experienced that distinct sense of unease at their approach. I know that at night and by yourself in the bush you can get spooked, but I don't think I'm the type of person who gets spooked all that easily. It must have been some feeling brought on by being by myself on the track that night."
The fire has reduced to glowing coals. We sit in silence. Beyond the feeble ring of light cast by our now-depleted fire, the stars shine bright in a black sky. It is as if Arthur's story has somehow affected us, somehow quieted the conviviality we shared earlier in the evening. The bush around us, familiar by night and day to some in the party, now seems different.
We sit in near silence for some minutes, then Gloria empties the remnants of her tea on the ground. "Well, I'm not going anywhere tonight except those few metres into the shelter. So I'll say goodnight".
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