Devil's Gulch

Continuing on last weekend's theme of walking to places with pleasant-sounding names, today I went on a walk with the Hobart Walking Club to Devil's Gulch. This was my first walk (of many I am sure) in Wellington Park, a large area of bushland on Hobart's doorstep. While spectacular Mt Wellington (1271 metres) is the focal point, there are many other places to visit and things to see in the park. The people I walked with told me there are hundreds of paths that are not shown on the 'official' map of the park.

Starting at The Springs car park about halfway up the mountain, we climbed up the Ice House Track. The ruins of several 'ice houses' can be seen along the track. These constructions with thick stone walls were used to make ice from compacted snow and store it. They were built in the 1850s and the ice was brought down to Hobart by pack horse. One of our party suggested the idea came from men who wanted ice for their whisky... but whatever the first purpose, it continued as a commercial operation for many years.

From there we climbed up to South Wellington and spent some time just climbing on and around some of the most improbable looking boulders perched on top of the mountain. As you will see in the photos below, the area is filled with amazing dolerite columns, piles of rock scree and boulders perched precariously. Only tiny patches of snow remained, but there were several large pools of the melted stuff. At the top there was a strong cold wind and I was glad of the extra layers. The return journey was along the pinnacle track to, well, The Pinnacle, then down the Zig-Zag Track back to the car park. The entire route affords amazing views of Hobart, and out to Kingston and Bruny Island.