27 February, 2008

Gentle Annie Track

Mt Holdsworth

page 2

We head on up the track.

On the profile, it looks much more demanding than it ever seems on the ground.

Always the attention to ensuring the track doesn't fall away and need repairing. Much of the sidling is on quite steep hillsides, though the track itself generally seems gentle enough.

Which is not to say that we have it all level and flat.

Possums are still around, as the poison signs indicate. A little more speciofic are these bands of metal wich prevent possums from climbing some of the more vulnerable trees.

In many parts of the country these are standard on power poles to prevent cooked possum from shorting out our electricity supply.

As we carry on upwards the bush looks a little tougher, a little more weather-limited.

Sometimes, as we get further up we're in tunnel and sometimes out in the open

with excellent views out across and down the valley, and over to Powell Hut.

and round the corner is the turnoff to the Rocky Lookout - about 50 m from the main track.

We head up for a look. In November, this is as far as we got.

In November, the hills are still very misty. By February, there's just a haze. There's a kind of gold-olive-khaki in the scrub foliage up here which I rather enjoy.

After a packs-off break for ten minutes or so, we head on towards Mountain House shelter. I reckon we're just a little past half-way.

Blechnum procerum lines the bank along here, the small brother, as it were, of the kiokio or palmleaf fern, B. novae-zelandiae

For a while we are more or less out in the open, the scrub not much higher than our head. Following Rocky Lookout, the slope eases off some, thouigh it has never been what you would describe as arduous.

The sun is at my back, and I am increasingly having to get out of my own way to take a picture.

It's styeady and pleasant going. I'm warmed up and my legs haven't yet started to protest in any way. It's still pleasantly cool.

Here's a local version of what we have always called the Dr Seuss tree, a Dracophyllum.