Our third walk in Tasmania was to the Walls of Jerusalem. On the trip was Wendy and myself. We had farewelled Steph – she was heading up the Arm River Track to climb Mt Ossa.
We headed up to the carpark, and camped the first night there. The place looked quite busy – the carpark was quite full. And it would become even more full – with it being a long weekend in Tasmania.
Wendy at Trappers Hut
It was a pleasant climb, heading up the track to Trackers Hut and then along a plateau past Solomons Jewels – a set of beautiful tarns. The weather was overcast with low cloud on the peaks, but we had good visibility at our level. It was Wendy’s first visit to the Walls of Jerusalem. I have visited the Walls many times, but on most of the visits I have walked to the area from Higgs Track and then cross country – magnificent off track walking. I have been up the route via Trappers Hut twice, but on those trips we had poor weather and I had not been able to appreciate the scenery.
We passed the campsite at Wild Dog Creek, and continued on to the Central Valley. This is exquisitely beautiful. We passed Lake Salome and then the Pool of Bethesda to camp in small thicket of pencil pines at the top of the valley. It was still overcast and a bit windy – but dry so far.
After setting up our tents, we had lunch. I then wandered down the valley a bit to look at The Pool of Bethesda (I didn’t spot the platypus), and some of the Cushion Plants lower down.
Later, I climbed up to the Temple. It was still too cloudy for it to be worth climbing for sunset. Next morning was cloudy too. Not worth climbing anything for dawn. After breakfast, we set off for the climb up Mt Jerusalem.
It was a cool day, but pleasant for walking. It was nice talking through the Pencil Pine forest to Dixons Kingdom and then we continued up to the saddle above and onto the climb up the peak. Lots of other walkers were out and about.
It was cold and windy on top, so we didn’t stay too long. We walked back to our camp for lunch. We then wandered down the valley and climbed up the far side to reach The Pool of Siloam. This is another incredibly beautiful lake.
We walked back to camp via Lake Salome. We noticed along the track that some of the abutting Cushion Plants had been impaled by careless placement of walker’s trekking poles. A shame.
Later in the afternoon, we climbed up Halls Buttress to Solomons Throne.
Next morning, I did get up early and climbed up the Temple for sunrise. It was cold on top but quite pleasant watching the warm rays of the Sun hit the peaks.
Back down at the campsite, we had breakfast. Our plan was to walk to Dixons Kingdom and then to Lake Ball and around it, and then down to Lake Adelaide. The day looks like being fine so we wanted to make the most of it before forecast bad weather arrived that evening. But before packing up, we made a quick trip to King Davids Peak. Signs in the valley indicate the “Central Gully” is closed to walkers, but it is a bit hard to tell which of the gullies is the central one. We ascended by a large scree gully close to the peak. This is steep but easy going.
On top, it was a bit misty, but very nice.
Back down, we packed up out gear and headed off towards Lake Ball. It was an easy walk to reach the lake.
A short way along is a patch of Fagus – the endemic deciduous Beech. Here is a photo showing how much larger are its crinkle shaped leaves when compared to the much more usual evergreen Beech.
At the Boy Myles Hut, we met another party that included Rob MacDonald and other walkers that I had known from the early 1980’s in Sydney. They were going in the opposite direction to us.
We had lunch at a sunny spot above the lake. Further along are some interesting formations of Pineapple Grass. More photos…
At the end of the lake, it is a short walk down to Lake Adelaide. We had wanted to reach at least that lake before camping, but it was still early afternoon, so we continued along the track back towards Trappers Hut. We passed some nice campsites that I had noted on earlier trips, and many amazing Cushion Plants.
We ended up camping a little before Lake Loane.
We had a nice sheltered spot. Bad weather – rain and snow was forecast for the next day.
But we new, that even if the weather was bad, we had made good progress and only had a short walk back to the carpark. The weather did turn bad, but the bad weather was mostly while we asleep. We woke up to snow on the peaks nearby. We waited for the rain to stop before packing up, and then quickly walked back to rejoin the main track near Trappers Hut, and then were soon back down to the carpark. It had been a great walk.
More photos are online on my website here.