Eldon Range Traverse
Lake Spicer to the Lyell Highway via the Eldons, Western Tasmania.
December 2022 – January 2023
It’s 35 degrees in the shade walking the four wheel drive track from Anthony Road. The humpies above Plimsoll are bread ovens. The cliffs of the Tyndalls glimpsed close to the west I hit Lake Spicer maybe 15 clicks in and set my tent end on into nor’easterlies kicking up colourless dust.
Morning means no more track. By 10am the wind bears horizontal sleet across Unconformity Ridge and I’m soaked through pursuing an emergency pitch in a steep leeside depression. I recover warmth and steal glances from my shelter—facing east, cliffs down, cliffs up, Eldon Peak an unexposed bulk in fog.
Four hours later it’s quiet enough to keep moving and the going feels ok. Looks sheer and thick down to Beatrice. The eastern side of the ridge provides fair passage to Marble Bluff. Making camp bonetrembling cold I’m feeling beyond history already.
Red sky warning at Lake Spicer…
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On Marble Bluff in the dim cloud it’s maybe nought degrees, yesterday’s swelter forgotten.
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The clear dawn promising. A peaceful spur broken by a long impassible cliff line. Scrubby lips hide bodypuddling drops. I detour to the north and negotiate a set of foamy brown creeks, gullies choked with an immense tangled vine, then descend easily to the aromatic Eldon River in the early afternoon.
A wide band of open rainforest borders the Eldon—tall timber, tree fungus, ferns. I follow the bank to its confluence with the South Eldon, then head east to sleep on soft ground. Playful fish, a legion of mosquito, the last of the sun drying my socks and runners.
A clear dawn washes across the Eldons, revealing the long traverse ahead.
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Marble Bluff feels wholesome in the morning.
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Part way up the steep lower slopes of Eldon Peak I step with surprise onto a cut track bedded with moss. It fades away as I ascend through distinct floral bands: cutting grass ⇾ pandani ⇾ tall open teatree ⇾ dense obstructive scrub ⇾ prickly shrubs denying access to a large boulder field.
I cast about and rediscover the curious track tunneling under an enclosed canopy a few precious minutes long.
The sky dims unfriendly as I hop the massive rocks up. Eight and a half hours from the river I reach the summit, having gained for the day 1250 metres elevation, four limbsworth of grazes and bruises, one close encounter with a large tiger snake concealed thigh height on buttongrass.
New Year’s Eve arrives in fine mist, stiff wind, enveloping clag. Bright and still come noon. I determine to linger.
A gracious alpine terrace declines from the summit. Pineapple grass, undulating cushion plant, weeping shrubs, flowers packed in thick and bright, sculptural dolerite piles surrounding kempt tarns suggesting ornamental ponds.
In the afternoon I return to the pinnacle and unwind the day baking barefoot on warm flat rocks. I luxuriate. Pandani fronds reflect silver in the slanted evening light.
Watching the sun glow up the horizon from the southern cliffs, a crescentshaped moat cratered deep in the mountainside below.
6am trends vicious hot as the range traverse proper begins. No water along the way and a dry camp. Filling my sleeping mat’s inflation bag from the tarns I depart with six litres.
The range is a narrow haphazard spine of massive dolerite boulders, bottomless gaps to swallow your body whole, squeezy niches to dig your thigh from with a spoon. It’s a glorious day scrambling angles, figuring rocky puzzles, committing to the uncertainty of the ridgeline out of sight beyond the next random jumble.
I avoid sidling and pick my way slowly over the top. As the ridge straightens to the east the boulders give way to fields of flowering heath and a steep mazey descent to Low Col.
In the mild dry night I pull my mat from the tent and receive the blackness. I count three shooting stars then I’m falling upwards through incalculable galaxy.
Dawn colours on Eldon Peak.
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Staring down the traverse, a boulderous gibber awaits.
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Thunderstorms forecast across the state. I smash up through scrub turning northish with the range, over a pair of prominent bumps to a high grassy saddle marked with a lone pencil pine and draining to a gully facing the southern cliffs of the bluff. I set my tent expecting a tempest but the sky holds blue, clouds arch and fluffy.
Early afternoon I’m on Eldon Bluff, a vast flat mesa. There’s a faintly cairned route to the top that is way more fun to avoid. Again the views are unbounded. Barn Bluff clockwise all the way round past Geryion to High Dome and Frenchmans and back to yesterday’s commencement crowned in drifting mantle. Lake Dorothy shines transparent turquoise and chrome-glazed sapphire along its shallow striated ledges.
Back at the saddle the tail of the promised storm arrives, bearing 15 hours of solid rain.
Eldon Bluff presents as an immense viewing platform. The surrounding world lightly curved.
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I break camp in blank white and make for Eldon Crag to complete the named summits of the range. With visibility a vague few metres I choose an obtuse route over rocks. Standing in my circle of cloud I am nowhere. A pair of currawongs call out to show me a kinder return journey through a dewstrewn valley lain with daisy cushion.
Onwards in the wet sidling Eldon Bluff, is disgusting. Where pretty emerges pretty is cursed and discarded. On my arse too many times. I can’t trust a single step—sticking below the cliffs becomes a slippery cascade of poor decisions. My rain pants rip crotch to knee. Three hours later I reach an open spur directly below the bluff. Drenched to marrow, plastered with leaf litter, I call the day.
It’s a majestic place to camp.
The clouds fuck off a little in the night to return by morning low and thick, hiding the bluff and squiggly Lake Ewart lower down. I spread my sodden clothes over dirt to capture slicing streaks of sun. It’s not even placebo effective so I pack up wet and follow the spur a while.
Wandering over buttongrass to find the eastern slope steep and thickly scrubbed. To the north the gradient relaxes and teatree cedes to delightful myrtle and the swampy lakeside.
Animal pads lead me around the complex ponds and marshes of the northern shore. An impassive black swan ignores me then lifting its brick red beak, its lazy call is answered in prattling froggish stereo. Robert Creek drains over richly coloured rocks. I watch the cloud wipe north, revealing the bluff behind as the day begins its belated roast.
Leaving the lake and its singular vista I weave amongst pandani and climb to a large flat grassland. A distant plane paints a contrail across an almost full moon. In the dusk I gaze over the north and try to decipher which deep blue shape is Ossa.
A fine sunrise, a kind of arduous journey toward Five Duck Tarn. It’s 3pm as I hit the saddle beneath High Dome. It’s late, I’m tired, I leave its triplepeaked silhouette unclimbed.
I beat down to the tarn and cradle myself in a soft little void on the southern edge of the water. An eager honeyeater chick bounces fatly over spindles and twigs towards me. A parent bird scolds furiously.
The morning’s grubby bash transitions into damp slither. Equally dense terrain defined by contrast:
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Scrub. Frustration and aggression—forcing, snapping; suffering through—doing head miles on my everyday and unrelated life.
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Rainforest. Wonder and enchantment—touching, brushing; dwelling—the me outside unregistered.
Emerging in the best mood I find the bright boggy headwaters of the South Eldon. To my left a pandani forest of tremendous scale and height. Dry fronds scribbling calligraphy. I walk onto a dappled mossy track heading down a slope.
The track feels old and it feels like it belongs. I encounter a clearing and realise I’ve returned oblivious to the headwaters, having wandered a full loop in quiet reverie.
Happy lost.
From the southern boundary of the bog I pick a fresh heading and follow a distinct lead along the next spur. A pioneering blaze struck straight through a tree marks history. Strolling over a flat plateau my confident travel dissembles to wombat turd rubble. I continue up the hill directly into hurt.
Flogging upwards through waves of teatree packed in foul under horrendous sun I enter the apocalyptic dream of a drowned world. My brain regresses to reptile mode.
At the broad dry crest of Junction Hill two angry hours later I enter a circle of humanplaced stones absent human council. Over the top the track returns and it is well met and well necessary. I plod fatigued, unfeeling, over an unnamed hill flocked with a hundred lime green butterflies.
I throw myself off Rocky Hill. Scoparia punctures skin I don’t care. My reward is a gentle silver field threaded through an ancient pencil pine sanctuary. Pines with a dozen broad trunks falling outwards. The privilege of being present overwhelming.
I douse my soul in the miniature streams.
This day is out day. Out day is a trudge, an indistinct tusche of regret and relief. Out day means remembering the days of the week.
Low open hills, more buttongrass, inevitable scrub. Approaching Pigeon House Hill a track emerges—across the Collingwood, tarmac, vehicles.