Ramblings: Mt. Direction 2020

Monday, 20 July 2020

Mt. Direction 2020

Today Bob is leading the group up Mt. Direction, outside of Hobart. I had every intention of being on this walk as I left Woodbridge. I should say as I tried to leave Woodbridge. I was running a bit late and immediately ran into roadworks on the Channel Highway that blocked the road. When it finally became our turn to go I was even further behind. I swear some of the cars ahead were waiting for a bloke with a red flag to lead them to Kingston. To cut a long story short, I didn't know where the walk was leaving from so I decided to cut my losses and run some errands I've been putting off.

After errands and lunch I took a walk around the hills and tracks of Kettering.

Jack

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Peter has supplied the following description and great photos of the walk, and Chris has also supplied more comments and photos which is also great. Ron kindly supplied the GPS track so I could generate the maps and report.

A wonderful effort by all.

Make sure you read Chris's contribution, he's posed a quiz for readers to take. I'm not sure what the prize is, but it's bound to be expensive.

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Mt Direction Walk 14 Jul 2020 by Peter

The day was very overcast and quite cool. While waiting for everyone to arrive it was noticed that the sun was actually shining on Cathedral Rock and there were quite a lot of murmurings about heading that way rather that to the Eastern shore.

However our leader Bob confirmed that we were heading across the river so off we went.

After parking the car on Kandos Drive we set off to the start of the track. This was a new way in this area, which had been necessitated by closure of Risdon Brook for maintenance.

It was at this point that we were given the choice of heading for Madman’s Hill or Mr Direction. Bob was pleasantly surprised that there was a consensus decision to make for Mt Direction although at some points during the initial climb there were mumbled noises about the steepness of the climb even though Bod did emphasize that it was steep but only a “wee hill”.

After about an hour of climbing we stopped for a well-earned rest and morning tea before pushing on for another short while until we reached an open plateau at about the 350 metre mark.

This was quite a pleasant surprise and allowed the group to walk across1. View of Cathederal Rock before leaving to the other side and look at Madman’s Hill with Gunners Quoin in the distance and Risdon Brook below us.

After our viewing we returned across the plateau and continued up a fire trail to the cairn on Mt Direction at about 430 metres. A significant climb by the group who were very pleased to have achieved the climb.

After lunch at the cairn we descended through the open forest and across the plateau before heading across the face of the climb in an attempt to make the descent a bit more knee friendly. This took us to meet up with the track that would take us back to the cars.

There were 13 walkers and we walked/climbed about 8 kms in just on 4hours. In the end it was a hard walk that everyone was pleased to have completed but will not need to do it again in the near future. -Peter

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Note: Ron's GPS track said you covered 6.97km, which means I walked farther than you at 8.05km. Now, applying a rule I read about some years ago that the Hobart Walking Club use, you can add one kilometre for every 100 metres climbed which means that Bob's walk was the equivalent of 8.8km while mine was 11.35km so I still beat you! - Jack

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