Walk #1 out of 100 - Pelverata Falls

Claire and Jane, two lovely women who walked 100km with me in the Sydney Coastrek event back in March, gave us a book of '100 Walks in Tasmania' before we left Sydney. What a perfect gift. This morning I did one of the walks listed in it. We have actually done two of the other walks listed in the book before, but one was around the town of Richmond just north of Hobart and could easily be completed by an elderly woman in high heels. So that doesn't count. The other was a a lovely trek around Wineglass Bay and Hazards Beach in Freycinet National Park.

The start of the track to Pelverata Falls is only about 25 minutes from our place. It's clearly a well used track but I was the only person there on this beautiful sunny winter morning. How brilliant to have such a place all to myself.

The first, very easy section of track runs behind some private farms, then you turn right into some fairly dry and open eucalyptus forest, mostly stringybark. I startled a LOT of wallabies who crashed and thumped their way through the bush, but I only got a good look at two of them.

After that comes a pocket of rainforest in a gully, then up a fairly steep slope again to an area marked on the map as 'rock scree'. The whole hillside seems to be a pile of rocks, which makes for interesting and more challenging walking. At the end is a viewing platform looking up at the falls themselves. There wasn't a lot of water falling over, and unless you visit after rains I believe that's normally the case, but the rock formations around the falls make for a fantastic view at any time.

It appears that this sign was nailed to the tree quite some time ago... and the tree has won.