February 28. I wanted to go back to Ironstone Hut by Lake Nameless on the Central Plateau in order to climb 40 Lakes Peak directly behind the hut, and for a different walking route I drove to Lake Mackenzie and hiked from there. That way my car did the climbing onto the plateau.
Initially I thought there was a trail that immediately left Mackenzie Lake and I wasted three kms trying to find it following some random red tape; instead I scored a close encounter with a white lipped green snake which I haven’t seen before. So I took the route along the lake edge to the Fisher River and Explorer River which I crossed on stepping stones. The ground was much damper than it has been due to the recent rain, and I saw a lovely cascading creek. Rain was already starting to fall. By chance I found I was on the Explorer trail, which surprised and pleased me, and I remained on it for several kms until I reached Explorer Lake. It was nice open country with cushion plants, mountain rocket and other low ground cover. This was a welcome change after all the forests I’ve been in. I met a couple coming from the hut who said the trail is well marked all the way.
But on the south side of Explorer Lake, after crossing the Explorer River for a second time (the cairns guided me to and over this crossing) I completely lost the cairns and never found them again. It was raining so it wasn’t possible to use my phone gps so I climbed to high points to get my bearings and used the lakes I could see to navigate. I had a lot of boulders to clamber over and tea tree to push through. As soon as I went off the trail I saw lots of wallabies jumping around all over the place. It was raining hard. All worked out well when I came to the Higgs track half way down Lake Nameless, which I knew led to the hut. I noticed a whole lot of clumps of pencil pine, and the contrasts in the shades of green seemed to be emphasised in the wet weather.
The day wasn’t brightening up and I wanted to achieve my main goal of climbing 40 Lakes Peak so I soon set off during a break between showers. To my great delight the route up was well cairned (through snow gum woodland and scrub) and I was able to race to the top in twenty minutes. The views were tremendous in all directions from the Walls of Jerusalem to the Western Tiers but quite a desolate landscape of rocks and scrub, broken up by lakes. I could see lakes and lakes and lakes - there seemed little point in counting as I knew the answer.
March 1. An extremely wet night and morning, a bit frustrating because the toilet is 300 metres from the hut across bog. The weather would appear to start clearing and then the cloud would come down again. At least I had used my only chance to go up the peak. I had a new breakfast: roll with Nutella and tomato while the wallabies had their usual.
I delayed leaving until the rain had stopped for a while, although the shores of Lake Nameless were in cloud, and worked out my strategy for walking on the north side of Explorer Lake which should be more straightforward than yesterday’s walk. I powered along the Higgs to the Snake River and crossed it, then turned to follow Snake Lake shore. This side of the lake was harder to walk than the other side requiring lots of scrub bashing; I was glad when I reached Explorer Lake.
It was raining properly and didn’t stop until I was back at the car. Initially the walking was easy along Explorer Lake apart from a lot of pools of water and saturated bog. Suddenly, out of the blue, I saw a cairn and then several more so I followed them and they helped me cross an area of dense scrub and large boulders. Then I lost them but I was back on the bog with easy going. One time I followed a wallaby since he seemed to have a good route. The mountain rocket was everywhere, a blaze of colour.
Again unexpectedly, I came back to the cairns and I could see I was already past the point where I had crossed to the other bank yesterday so I wouldn’t now get lost as the trail was obvious. I met two guys heading for the hut. I retraced my route back to Lake Mackenzie, once going thigh deep into a pool, and had a break when I got my first sighting of the scree around the lake. I waded knee deep across the Explorer/Fisher Rivers as being wet didn’t bother me so close to the car (not that I had a choice). I carefully crossed the lakeside scree and boulders and took an unintended detour along the dam wall. Just as I reached the car a torrential downpour started. 22 kms total
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