A magic meal on the mountain

One of the things I love about geocaching is that it gets me to new and amazing places. Even though I think I know my home state well, there have been numerous occasions where the scent of a hidden plastic box has revealed some gem of a location that I didn’t know existed. The fact of the matter is that there are vast tracts of Tassie that I simply haven’t explored.

One such region is the Great Western Tiers, a high plateau south of the Deloraine area, a 240km drive from Hobart. “CarrollEyre”, a caching family that live up in that general direction (in a hand-wavy sort of way), had organised a geocaching event at a place called Lady Lake, a 2 hour 600m climb from the road. Let’s just say it was the steepest, hardest 18-pebble hill I’ve done in a long while (maybe ever!).

However, it was well worth it, in so many ways.

It was a day of good food, good company, and fantastic views. All the cachers who came had brought food to share (I made four cheesecakes at the hut, ably assisted by the young daughter of “nutwood”, and the cheesecakes managed to set despite the hot day and standard absence of a fridge), and one of the CarrollEyres and another cacher had, in the weeks beforehand, lugged up benches, buckets, crockery, cutlery and extra bits and pieces, to help make the event a success. The weather was hot in the rest of the state, but cooler up on the plateau, though warm enough for the kids to swim in the nearby lake.

I love Tasmanian alpine terrain, with its low shrubs and scattered tarns, the boggy sphagnum and dolerite boulders. Having visited this area I can’t wait to come back again, because there is so much more to explore. There are some photos of the day’s explorations here.