Cascade Gardens & Beyond 2014

It's o.k. Bob, I take full blame. It was all my fault. There, I've said it.

What am I taking the blame for? Well, seems I went to the wrong car park with half our walkers. Good thing the other one was just a short walk away.

Today promised to be wet, but turned out not to be the case. Just a few drops at one point. Temperature was mild and Addie was leading the walk. This is a between terms walk - we never stop.

I parked near the Cascade Brewery at the top end of the Gardens, we then walked down to find the others waiting for us. From there, we walked towards town, cutting up and over a hill to create a small loop.

Cascade Brewery

This linear park follows the Hobart Rivulet along an area that used to be lined by industries such as tanneries, that dumped their waste into the rivulet. That is all gone. Now it's landscaped as a popular walk and with just a few walls left to remind you of the past. We met several people walking their dogs, obviously a popular pastime in the mornings.

The other past we come to is the Female Factory, and no, it's not what you think.
During the period of convict transportation from Great Britain to Van Diemen's Land (former name of Tasmania), the Female Factory -a workhouse for women convicts- operated between 1828-1856. It was built away from the temptations of Hobart Town, but in a damp, sunless environment, with poor food, sanitation and overcrowding that caused much sickness and misery.

Transportation ceased in 1853, the factory today is a World Heritage site that is a museum and popular tourist destination. Walks are run with costumed guides who take on the persona of some of the former inmates to tell their stories

Female Factory

Back to our walk. It's a fairly flat walk that continues down to Mole St. in Hobart, there we turn around and go back where we started. After Morning Tea, we continue towards Mt. Wellington, past the brewery to pick up the Cascade Track.

Continuing on

There were several of these fellows along the hill we climbed. Photo by Carol

Hobart Rivulet

Some of the old buildings have been recycled

Walking back towards the brewery

A bit of weather on Mt. Wellington, but we're not going that high.

The following were taken on the way back, identification is ongoing. I know you wait with baited breath.

Morning Tea

Addie, our esteemed leader on the left, and Gordon (also esteemed) on the right.

The start

Initial track on brewery land

This is a dual use track -walkers & mountain bikers- that goes up through the wet bush to the top of Old Farm Rd.

Not too far up the track we had a few drops of rain. Some of us decided to put on our wet weather gear, while stronger hearts ignored it. It was so humid we couldn't have been wetter if it had poured. Luckily it didn't and the gear came off again fairly quickly.

While we waited for people to change...

Bob started using the bridge rail as parallel bars. Unfortunately, someone pointed an interesting fungus, and I missed his vertical handstand.

We had to wait several times on the track for some people -who I won't name- to stop, admire and photograph various fungi. Never mind, the photos that Carol & I took provide some interesting colour to the blog. Whoops!

It's always good to see a pro at work.

At the top end we come to a cleared stretch with the main fire trail, which provides good walking on the wide areas of moss on either side. To extend our time we climbed this section to the first hill before looping around to walk back down again.

Up the main fire trail

Carol getting up close and personal with a fungi, probably Amanita pagetodes

Addie cunningly positioned to make it look like Carol is pointing out something.

I was directed to this as the Art Shot. Everyone's an expert!

Derwent River in distance.

Views looking back

Verbal abuse & rude hand signals telling me to not take the obvious shortcut, but walk on to the loop as everyone else did. Honestly, give some people a bit of power as walk leader, and this is what you get.

Near the top of the Cascade Track we had lunch on a comfortable, if wet, bank of the fire trail. After that we put it into gear and flew back down to the brewery, with much whining from the back markers. On the way, first a mountain biker then a runner passed us running up. A pox on them.

Lunch on the bank

Fawkes Rivulet

After that we continued back to our cars.

We had 8 walkers and covered 12.4km in 3:51 hours. I know, I know. Four of the walkers had the longer trek back to the other car park. Get over it, it wasn't that far!

Click here to download GPX file

FUNGUS ALERT: These photos are by Carol and too good not to include.

pseudoplectania tasmanica

Amanita pagetodes

Atomycesaustropiperatus

Hohenbuehelia

Oudemansiella gigaspora?