From Pottery Road 2018

Today Bob is taking us on a walk at the end of Pottery Road, a place we've not been to for about four years.

Weather forecast is for possible showers in the morning, clearing and than cool.

We arrive near the end of the road, parking where there is room for several cars, as there is very little parking space at the end.

We leave the cars and walk up the short distance to the gate. Here we head left through another gate and almost immediately take a track on the right.

Heading off on the first track of the day

This is a hilly area, and we turn off the track heading up through the dry bush.

Going up

A few clouds over Wellington

We reach a fire trail at the top

There are tracks and fire trails everywhere in this area.

Open, dry bush

The track we came up on to the left

Lots of flowers in the bush now

Easy walking

We climb a hill and find a spot for Morning Tea. It gets warm when you keep moving and various articles of clothing have been discarded by now.

Morning Tea

Looking downhill

Tea finished, we move on until we take another track at a junction and start downhill. A walking stick has been left behind by one of the walkers at our Morning Tea spot, so being last, I head back to find it. We find it beside the track and return to find a couple of walkers coming up with a message from Bob. "Wait for the rest of the group where we last were." That caused some more discussion as to the meaning of "where we last were". There is another track leading downhill from where we were standing, and operating on the principal that Bob never walks back along a track if he can make a circle instead, I walk down and soon hear voices from the rest of the group.

We regroup and walk back to our break spot before going off into the bush again. The map at the end will reflect my walking back for the stick, so I will not publish a GPS track of the walk, but the distance should be fairly accurate.

We make our way both on and off track

Glimpse of the River Derwent north of Hobart

Another junction of about five tracks

A flat, grassy area

It's about here that Bob warns us of the steep grade we're going to go down, asking us to be careful as we descend. We're lucky it hasn't been raining as it would be really tricky if wet.

Steep, rough descent

Looking up doesn't really show how steep it was

No one fell, and we walk a short distance before coming upon the old sign shown below.

We head left at the sign, not entering the disposal area

Now we start climbing again on a track that looks popular with mountain bikes.

We reach the top of the track which stops at a closed gate and it's here that we break for lunch.

Lunch in the sun

On the other side of the gate is a sign for the Mt. Stuart Circuit on Knocklofty.

Mt. Wellington behind

Being Spring, lots of little flowers appear, but you have to look carefully as many are very small.

Organ Pipes without cable car

Lunch finished, we set off along another track. Bob has promised us no more hills to climb. We'll see.

We pass through an unlocked gate with a 'Please Close' sign, which we obey.

Through this unlocked gate

Bob has promised no more climbs, but I can see the ground rise just ahead

Another hill

But there is another track leading off to our right and going down, as do we.

As we walk I hear some shouting from up front and make my way up to see an echidna in the field next to the track. Unfortunately, I wasn't quick enough and got my camera focused just as it disappeared into the bracken.

Echidna, what Echidna?

We follow the track between rubbish, beehives and a fenced off vegetable garden and we eventually end up just a few metres from our cars.

We had 15 walkers and covered 7.12km in 3:10hrs. Quite a nice walk, I don't mind walking through dry bush plus it's easy to go off track and there are plenty of tracks and trails to have more walks here.

No GPS track because of differences between my walk and the others, but you can CLICK HERE to view an animated version.