Matt Down Under

Route: Lake Judd — Lake Pedder (lower car park)

I felt really bad in the morning, everything just hurt from the previous days. It was cold and my clothes hadn’t dried during the rain at night. The prospect of jumping into cold, wet clothes wasn’t great. And the Lake Judd campsite was hidden in cold, wet forest, I wasn’t keen to have to cross the giant mud holes again.

But then, it was only two or three hours from the campsite to the car park. Never before had I been so looking forward to coming home — Mt Anne Circuit really beat me. I just wanted to have warm clothes and something great to eat.

Read more

Route: Judds Charm — Mt Sarah Jane — Lake Judd

Nick got up early and climbed Lots Wife — there is a track that leaves near the Judds Charm campsite where we stayed. I didn’t even notice him leaving in the morning, after the tiring previous day I preferred to sleep longer and have a slow start into the day.

I wasn’t even finished with breakfast yet when he arrived back. We packed up our gear and left Judds Charm. The weather looked unpredictable, but fine for the moment.

Read more

Route: High Camp — Mt Eliza — Mt Anne — Mt Lot — Judds Charm

It was a sleepless night. It was very cold, I always need a few nights to get used to sleeping on my camping mattress, and hearing the mice walking around the hut during the night also kept me awake. I heard a mouse (or rat?) walking next to my mattress and from that moment on, I couldn’t get any sleep. I didn’t want to have to replace any more gear due to destruction caused by mice, so I stayed up to defend it. I would strongly recommend sleeping in a tent at High Camp, there’s certainly no shortage of warnings of mice inside the hut.

Read more

Route: Car park — High Camp

Last weekend I walked Mt Anne Circuit in Southwest Tasmania, one of the hardest, most difficult walks in Tasmania — but also a very spectacular one.

I wasn’t actually planning to do this walk, it happened on short notice after I saw a post in the Bushwalk Tasmania forum, where someone announced to walk Mt Anne Circuit and offered to others to come along. It turned out we had actually met before, he (Nick) had bought my old Vango Helium tent a few weeks back.

Since I had the time and some hiking food left from my walk in Walls of Jerusalem, I decided to join Nick. I didn’t really know much about Mt Anne Circuit and didn’t do much preparation — in the end it turned out to be a lot harder than I expected.

Read more