The Western Arthurs
by guest blogger Roger Wong
One of the iconic images of Tassie is Peter Dombrovski’s photo of Lake
Oberon in the mist. It’s a raw mythical landscape consisting of a lake cupped
by a sharp ring of mountains with pristine pandani plants posed in the
foreground. I first saw this in the 90’s growing up in Hobart, and always
wanted to see this for myself one day. That day was on the first weekend of
February this year with a massive high pressure system parked over the island
and the promise of stable weather in the south west.
Lake Oberon is in the Western Arthur range, which is a long series of
quartzite peaks with elevated lakes on either side of the ridge line. The
approach is from Scotts Peak Dam road just below Lake Pedder, a two hour drive
from Hobart. It was here myself and two friends left our car and began our trip.
We spent the first few hours picking our way through button grass swamp to the
Junction Creek campsite which was a good place to stop and conserve energy in
anticipation for the next day’s climb.
The next day started off sunny with fleeting clouds, but gradually
became more overcast.
This is one of the earlier photos crossing the Arthur
Plain towards the mountains:
From the base of the Arthur Range the path went up Alpha Moraine, a
continuously steep incline which brings you around onto the ridge line. We
stopped plenty of times, ostensibly to admire the view:
The ridge was a crazy jumble of quartzite peaks moulded by unimaginable
forces as evidenced by the twisted rock striations. The vegetation was wind
pruned and low to the ground, presumably from the brisk southerly wind we’d
been protected from on the other side of the ridge:
After a few more kilometres of up and down, we descended into the sheltered
Lake Cygnus for the night. This was a very welcome sight!
We also caught a brief sunset on the rim surrounding the lake:
The next day was very misty with poor visibility and chilly. Here’s the
campsite with some experimental matting which I haven’t seen anywhere else:
The first big climb between Lake Cygnus and Lake Oberon was Mt Hayes.
Here’s us contemplating the mountain:
We met some Victorians going down the other side who were doing the
Eastern Arthurs as well:
Luckily the weather started to clear up and we had great views of the
U-shaped glacial valleys either side of the ridge:
The second steep section was going up Mt Sirius from the top of which
the classic Lake Oberon vista opened up. We spent a good hour here soaking up
the view and congratulating ourselves on our good luck that the sun broke
through at the right moment! It looked exactly like the photo and how I
imagined it would in my mind. Wow.
To cap off a perfect day the campsite was on the white sand at the edge
of Lake Oberon:
We then retraced our steps over the next few days. The weather remained
clear and we had some magnificent views of Mt Solitary in Lake Pedder on the
way back:
We were very lucky with the weather for this trip and in mist or rain we
would not have seen or experienced this amazing landscape. Living in Hobart
makes this much easier because we have a bit more luxury picking which weekend
to go or where the weather is the best, rather than the interstate visitors who
take their chances whilst they are here. So I’m very grateful I got to see Lake
Oberon as I’ve always wanted to, and also been to one of the iconic parts of
our island.
A very good walking guide is John Chapman’s “South West Tasmania” (5th
Edition) which you can get at the Tasmanian Map Centre in Hobart. John is a very
experienced bush walker and we took a couple of hours longer than his suggested
times.
For us a comfortable way to break the trip up was three days in (camping
at Junction Creek, Lake Cygnus and Lake Oberon), and two days out (overnight at
Lake Cygnus). The track down into Lake Oberon follows a steep chute. We didn’t need
rope, but you need to be comfortable with heights and scrambling with a full
pack, and I wouldn’t attempt this walk if you haven’t hiked in Tassie before.
About guest blogger Roger Wong
Roger is a fellow member of the Eating Out in Tasmania (EOIT) Facebook
page where he likes to post food porn. His real passion however is bushwalking
and exploring Tasmania, a hobby which lends itself naturally to landscape
photography.
If you like this post you might also like our posts on short walks around Hobart:
