Veronika Wild

I climbed Legge’s Tor yesterday – another bit of unfinished business from last year. My excuse is that I was already in the area and couldn’t resist. This time I took my poor old van - very, very slowly, all the way up Jacob’s Ladder and started from the Link Track in the Ben Lomond Alpine Village. Ski Village at the top of Jacob's Ladder The Welcoming Committee  -at least six large greys hopped out of my way as I approached the track  It was a beautiful day for it. While the lowlands sweltered at 30 + Degrees C, it was a balmy 19oC up there.   Most of the showier flowering plants we’d seen last time had gone into frantic seed production mode leaving a patchwork of different greens – bright green, blue green, grey green, moss green, spiced up occasionally with a dash of red from the seed pods of the mountain rocket.   A few small flowers put on a brave show especially some yellow daisies and the delightful mountain anemones. Yell...

Ben Lomond in our sights It’s a pity that Ben Lomond National Park is a bit off the beaten track, especially coming from Hobart – about 224.2 Km. Couldn't help thinking while wending my way over backroads from Evandale  that, given the traditional rivalry between Launceston and Hobart,   this was some kind of Launcestonian plot to keep those pesky southerners out.     Even after you manage to find your way to Upper Blessington, there are still 12 kilometres of unmade road to negotiate before you reach the park entrance. That done, you will find yourself in one of the most stunning and geologically fascinating landscapes in Tasmania, with its escarpments rising abruptly from the surrounding farmlands like the ramparts of  a vast mediaeval castle. Colonel Legge , who surveyed it in 1906 -09  regarded "(The)  Ben Lomond Plateau as the most remarkable physiographical feature in the State..." Small Waratahs line the lower reaches of the tr...