Early in the morning I woke up by the sound of that strange bird I noticed when I had dinner last night. I was looking forward to that day because it was Christmas Eve and one of the sidetrip today was Mount Ossa, the highest mountain in Tasmania. Of course I wanted to climb up there, it is simply great to tell people afterwards that you stood on top of Mount Ossa when they ask you what you did on Christmas.
But it didn’t look very promising, it was very cloudy that morning and the mountains were covered in mist. I left around 9am and the first two hours I had to face a constant climb up to Pelion Gap, from where it would be a constant descent down to Kia Ora Hut. A pretty short walk, but the sidetrips make it interesting.
The walk to Pelion Gap was very nice, you walk through forests that remind you of Lord of the Rings or similar fantasy movies, the trees and the ground are completely covered by moss, it feels like in a fairy tale.
Around 11am I arrived at Pelion Gap from where you can start your sidetrips to Mount Ossa or Mount Pelion East. Of course I wanted to go to Mount Ossa, but the top was still covered in mist and clouds. I knew that you shouldn’t climb up there on conditions like that, it can be very cold and windy up there and the weather can change anytime.
But I simply wanted to check it out and decided to climb up at least to Mount Doris, the smaller one right before Mount Ossa. I noticed that several people left before me to climb up Mount Ossa, therefore I tried to walk fast so I could maybe catch up with a group and don’t need to climb up alone. The weather didn’t really improve but at least it didn’t rain, and sometimes it was even sunny, only the very top of the mountain was covered in clouds.
I decided to climb up Mount Ossa and soon I noticed a group a few minutes further up the mountain. I climbed really quick and managed to catch up with them halfways to the top. Another group was climbing behind me so I wasn’t really alone. There was only one part that turned out to be a bit difficult to climb because it was very windy and cold there, but once I passed that section the rest of the climb to the top was a piece of cake. Actually I was a bit surprised how easy it was to climb up there, I think it’s far more difficult and dangerous to climb up Cradle Mountain, as there’s more jumping and climbing from rock to rock.
So around noon I reached the top and was now standing on the rooftop of Tasmania at 1617m. Cool feeling, but I was surrounded by clouds and there wasn’t really much to see, unfortunately. There were a few patches of snow, and sometimes the clouds opened up a little bit, so you got a fantastic view down from the mountain. After all it was absolutely exciting to climb up Mount Ossa, I guess with perfect blue sky it would be even more fantastic. You can probably see half of Tasmania from up there.
After an hour or so I joined a group that started to climb down. It was quite well on top because there was almost no wind at all, but yeah, not much to do up there. Climbing down was fairly easy and soon after I was at Pelion Gap again. The weather got a bit worse and it started to rain, so moved on quickly.
From now on it was basically all down-hill to Kia Ora. Very soon it got sunny again, the weather can literally change every ten minutes in Tasmania. Easy walking from now on, around 4pm I arrived at Kia Ora Hut and pitched my tent on one of the platforms. Afterwards I went swimming at the nearby Kia Ora Falls (2 minutes walk), but the water was quite cold. Most people didn’t even dare to put their feet in the water, but I thought it was still ok. For some people this was my outing as a European, they said I’m probably more used to cold conditions than Aussie people. Actually I’m one of the most sensitive persons when it goes to temperature, even in Tasmania it’s always too cold for me, and temperature is one of the reasons why I left Germany. But when I spend days outdoors and when I do hard physical activity then I simply get used to outdoor conditions very quickly, so I don’t mind swimming in lakes and so on.
So yes, my Christmas Eve 2008: walking through fairy tale forest, climbing up Tasmanias highest mountain, swimming at Kia Ora Falls and then eating spaghetti bolognese for dinner and the rest of my christmas cookies afterwards.
