Geilston Bay to Pilchers Hill 2015

Today we're walking from Geilston Bay to Pilchers Hill on the eastern shore of the Derwent. This may be a surprise to some people as we were supposed to do Mt. Direction but a change was made because of possible impending weather conditions.

There may be a few shocked walkers next week who find they are not doing the comfy walk we did today, but are heading for rock hopping and bush bashing up a new route to Mt. Direction!

As it turned out, the weather on the eastern shore stood up to its reputation and was warm and sunny.

We park off Geilston Creek Rd. and walk into the park along a made path.

We've been up here several times before and it involves a little street walking before entering the park.

Soon we turn off onto a bike track leading gently up hill. About ten minutes into the walk, we have a stop to strip off excess clothing! It was quite warm and humid in this little valley along Faggs Gully Creek.

The bush is quite colourful at the moment

Looking back at the turnoff for the bike track

We can see the quarry in Flagstaff Gully

Open, dry bush

Strip stop

We come to a fire trail we've walked up before and Bob does something completely unexpected...

He goes downhill, missing out on a good, steep climb. Peter and I are quite concerned and wonder what we're in for.

However, downhill is downhill and we continue on negotiating a steep slope with enough loose rocks to keep your interest. There were a couple of other interesting items on the way.

This beautifully made birds nest was lying on the edge of the track. My boot gives scale

It is a fairly steep slope

This was lying at the base of a gum. Bob said it contained oxygen for anyone in need when we make the climb back up.

There were a couple of nervous titters among the group, afraid he might be serious!

Colourful fungus near the 'oxygen tank'

Reaching the bottom, we set off cross country in a disorganized fashion, coming to a steep man made embankment that looked like it might be a dam.

Going feral

Up the embankment to see what's on top

Not a dam, just a large flat area

Unimpressed, we begin to look for the Morning Tea spot. This turns up just a short walk away along another track.

Lots of downed trees provide seating

Looking towards the Wellington Range on the western shore of the Derwent

It may be sunny and warm where we are, but Mt. Wellington looks uninviting!

Wildlife photo. You can just see the hawk near the top middle

Our break finished, we move off along a track through the bush.

More colour

We'll shortly come to a paved road that leads to the quarry

We walk along the road past the quarry gate, offices and machinery to a turnoff to the right. We then walk on and pick up a gravel road leading up hill.

That hill is slowly being removed and converted to blue metal and other crushed material

This road is a good climb up to the top of Pilchers Hill. Adie seems to be enjoying it!

At the top is a large graded area and a water reservoir.

It's a large area that is virtually bare of vegetation. It's only when you look over the edge you come across some colourfull flowers.

The hill that the quarry is eating away

 Going past the reservoir, we descend to a large flat area of bush behind some houses at the top of Lindisfarne.

As we walked along I saw the sign post below some distance off to the left. I took a telephoto of it to see if I could read what it said. Little did I know I would see it two more times from different directions!

Sign post we get to know well

We walk around on several of the tracks in the bush before coming back to the post above and then come back again!

Almost all young to very young growth, however Peter and I saw some evidence that there were very large gums covering this hill in the distant past

The builder of this bush shelter needs to learn about waterproofing!

It's that sign again!

We retrace some of our track towards the reservoir, but turn off onto a bike track.

This is where we turn off

Lots of yellow in the bush

We're now looking for a lunch spot, which we find along the track. Comfortable logs, rocks and slope to sit on.

Bob calls me over to show me an orchid he's found and once you've seen one, you suddenly see them all around.

I put the coin down for scale

This shows some of the detail of the tiny flower

Lunch finished, Bob points out other flowers around us. Someone called him 'Botanical Bob', but it wasn't me.

It must be spring! We continue down the track coming to a neat stone bridge.

Going down

I'm not sure what's so interesting down there

I suggested I needed someone to crawl through the opening from the other side and provide some interest. I was ignored

Shortly after this we came to the end of the track which brought us back to the way into the park. We walked down past houses back to the cars.

We had 10 walkers and covered around 8.19km in 3:06hrs.

I hope the military have more accurate GPS readings then we do. I had the following readings from various sources as to the distance covered.

My phone app: 9km
Peggy's Fitbit : over 9km
Someone elses GPS: 9.425km.
Google Earth: 7.57km.
My mapping software: 8.19km. as above

You see the problem? We should just go for the longest!

Never mind, it was a good walk in good weather.

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