Tarn Shelf Circuit, Mount Field, Tasmania
The next day in Mount Field, the 16 km dirt road to Lake Dobson ends at the beginning of the hike through the alpine land. The tarn shelf has a collection of alpine lakes – tarns – and the hike skirts them on boardwalks or scrambling rocks. By each large tarn is a hut in an environment that in bad weather may be quite uninviting.
Tarn Shelf Circuit, Mount Field, Tasmania
There are lots of tarns, many small and several large and you can walk and return the same way or simply do a loop following the contour of some larger lakes. The vegetation on the way, both the alpine and down the valley is impressive. The bushes are so diverse and unique with smelly leaves and flowers.
Tarn Shelf Circuit, Mount Field, Tasmania
Many of the plants and trees are vestiges tracing back to the Cretacic, something that only Tasmania can offer that I was lucky to learn by meeting two biologists on the way. Even if the dry Pine Pencil Trees were once related to the American sequoia this happened about 125 million years ago…
Tarn Shelf Circuit, Mount Field, Tasmania
The loop is long – 10 miles - and poorly marked but hard to miss, descending steeply through a brook's channel in an environment that may offer some encounters with snakes.
Tarn Shelf Circuit, Mount Field, Tasmania
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