Mt Cripps.

On this trip we have the whole adventuring team back together to try to find some caves around Mt Cripps area.

Day 1.

After a busy week at work and at home working on the Suzuki getting that up to scratch we where pretty keen to get out camping and adventuring for the weekend but it wasn’t until late Thursday night that I realised that the camping trailer was behind the Suzuki and the Suzuki’s swivel hub was in 100 pieces as I have been repairing them.  So after a few choice words and a relatively sleepless night swearing and cursing at myself I was lucky enough to finish work a couple of hours early on Friday to put it all back together and move it so I could get the trailer out. After getting that all sorted we where off at a pretty good time but the stress levels didn’t stop yet as we had the painful drive along the Bass highway to Burnie getting stuck behind knobheads doing 80kmph and then speeding up to 110 in the overtaking lanes but after Burnie it was smooth sailing and we where happy again.

We eventually arrived at Lake Mackintosh  trying to find a camp site and we got pulled over by a bloke asking for some help as he was bogged so we went down and had a look and in the process found a camp spot as well so we where happy.     After having a bit of a laugh and getting a few happy snaps we unhooked the trailer and pulled him out and in the process got a pretty excited spectator as you can hear in the video.

After pulling him out old mate gave us a few beers and a big thankyou and was on his way so we set up camp and enjoyed the beers plus a few more and settled in for the night.

Day 2.

The next day we woke up gingerly made our way into Tullah, caught up with Dirk and Michelle and of course had a much-needed coffee before starting our adventure.  After launching the boats and getting a photo of the spectacular hanging rock we where off. The views that you get (just like anywhere in this part of Tassie) are spectacular.

After about a 10 to 12km boat ride we got to near our location docked the boats and started walking. 

I thought I was going to be in for a great photo here but unfortunately Jacinta didn’t fall in haha.  After crossing the river we weren’t at all sure where we were going so we headed in a general direction and struck it very lucky as within 5 min we found a cave. (CP48) At this point everyone was stoked as our expectations of finding any caves was slim.  Although not the most spectacular cave around it was still pretty good and reasonable long going in about 30m before going into a really tight hole that know one was to keen on crawling through.

From here we wondered further up the river in interest of a black dot that was on my map (generally meaning structure or hut).Found some interesting fungi on our way through the snake infested grasses.  We then ended up at the Junction of the Vale and Fury River. At this point we got distracted by some waterfalls showing on my map that are located up a creek on the Fury river.  So we decided to keep on trekking up the river but been ill-prepared for a big walk we pulled out a km or so short and decided to head back to the boats for a late lunch.   After restocking the energy levels Bradley and I where looking up in the hills and noticed that there was an unusual flat spot half way up a hill and the urge to investigate was too strong so we decided to go up and have a look.  We battled our way up through some of the thickest Braken fern we have ever seen and once up were rewarded with some pretty good views one way and then the other way was nearly a straight drop into a massive sinkhole so we climbed down to investigate and did indeed find another cave but the problem was the hole to get into it was to small and covered in stinging nettle

but because it was so hot and muggy at the time this hole was a welcome relief as it was like air conditioning in the bush with the very cool air pulsing out of the hole.  After cooling down a bit we decided it was well past beer o-clock and time to head back to camp but we went a slightly different way back down the hill and ended up getting slaughtered by stinging nettle.  It must have been a new species or something to because it was the worst we have ever been stung by and seemed to give a good 12 hours of stinging sensation in the legs.

Day 3.

After sleeping like a log from our big adventure the day before it was a pretty slow start to the morning but after we got the bodies moving again we packed up camp went and got another coffee and went to check out the Top Adit at Mt Farrell Mine that we found a couple of weeks earlier on our Tullah Camping Trip.   Unfortunately it wasn’t as good as we thought it might have been as most of the adits where either short of caved in.It was still pretty interesting though. More info on Mt Farrell mine can be found here.

From here we decided to go down to the ground adit and check it out again to fill in a bit of time before we departed and headed home.Hope you enjoyed.

Cheers

Tassietravelsblog.