Climbing a Mountain!

On Thursday, Kaitlyn and I decided to do more hiking - this time a little closer to the city of Hobart. We took a bus up to a little place called Ferntree, which was 430m above sea level. It was quite surprising that the city has a public bus service that went up this particular road as it was rather steep and had a bunch of S-turns. Once we arrived, we started up the trail to the Springs (a common starting point for most hikers but we were a bit ambitious that morning and so we started lower). The trail was not easy at all; quite steep but we managed to make it all the way up to the Springs in the time it listed for the trail: 40 minutes. From here, we got a great view of the peak of the mountain, also known as the Pinnacle, rising a total of 1270m above sea level.

The Pinnacle - doesn't look that high, does it?

We also got our first look at some snow on the mountain, which I was quite excited about since snow in Australia must be rare, right??

Way too excited to find snow in Australia.

Kaitlyn and I decided (well mostly me) that we should totally try and hike all the way to the Pinnacle as the trail maps listed that the trail should only take 3 hours to return. Well we decided later that this silly decision was made because I had too much energy and Kaitlyn doesn't say no. So we started to hike up the trail, little to our knowledge that it would take three full hours to get to the top, much less come back down. Up, up, up we went, but it didn't take long before what was just a bit of frost turned into several inches (maybe even more than a foot) of snow. Shortly after, there was also ice covering the trail. Never fear, we're CANADIAN! We're used to this! Continue on!

Proud to be Canadian!

After climbing over lots of rocks, making our way slowly over the snow and ice and avoiding falling down some rather hazardous drop-offs, Kaitlyn and I did manage to make it to the Pinnacle to be rewarded with some amazing views of the city of Hobart in the valley below, albeit being constantly buffeted by some very strong winds at the summit (they were strong enough to move us and make it difficult to walk into them so we figure they were gusting around or over 60km/h). We ate some snacks in a shelter at the top, before beginning the long journey back down the mountain.

View from the trail.

View from the Pinnacle (in the shelter).

We chose to walk back down the mountain along the road that those fortunate to have cars drove up, with the idea that if we really wanted to, we could hitch-hike our way back down to the Springs. However, we ended up just enjoying the walk down. Kaitlyn and I stopped for a picnic lunch at the Springs, which we noticed was also several degrees warmer than the summit, before continuing down to Ferntree to catch the bus back to our hostel.

I don't think a sandwich has ever tasted so good!

All in all it was a good, VERY exhausting day of hiking, but we were also very proud of ourselves for what we achieved. We trekked up 840 meters (12.5 kilometers one way) of snowing hiking trails to reach the top of Mount Wellington! Cheers.

Find me next in rainy Launceston!