Snow bound
Jul. 22nd, 2007 07:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xenithAfter a discussion yesterday about snow, or the lack thereof in our lives in recent years, we decided today to head up to Mt Barrow.
Launceston claims three mountains for itself (which is much better than the mere one they have down in Hobart, if you don't count Mt Nelson, Mt Direction etc. because they're just big hills & you ignore that the three mountains can't actually be seen from most of the city, and where they are, they're sort of blue blobs on the horizon), being Mt Arthur, Mt Barrow & Ben Lomond. Mt Arthur is up north somewhere, you see it sometimes if you're up that way. Ben Lomond is to the south, it's a long, flat thing with a ski resort & snowfields that are sometimes open in winter. Mt Barrow is out east. The turn-off is just 26 km from the city & it's a good location for biology excursions, for both secondary & uni students, there being alpine fauna, wet sclerophyll & mixed forest. (Dry sclerophyll is your standard eucalypt forest; wet sclerophyll has less eucalypts and more rain forest species.)
So we loaded up the station wagon with three adults, two kids, three dogs and enough coats & scarves that if we got stranded somewhere we could support ourselves indefinitely by opening a coat & scarf shop. And off we went.
Is there snow up there? We could see bits of white, and there is cloud over the peak.
It's 26 km from the city to the turn-off. From the turn-off, it's another 14 km along a dirt road. Considering the different travelling speeds, even though you think you're almost there once you reach the turn-off, you've still got the longest part of the trip still to go.
The road winds up through the trees. It's narrow enough that cars pull over when they see another car coming the other way.
Finally, we reached the start of the State Reserve (and the "No Dogs" sign).
A bit further on, there's a rest stop & car park, and a sign saying no access beyond this point except for 4-wheel drive vehicles.
So we park the car and decide what to do. Some people who've been up further assure us there is snow up there, so we decide to drive along the road a bit more. Except the engine won't start.
A couple with a truck jump start the wagon, but, as there's obviously a problem with a battery, we turned around and came home.
We did stop in at the picnic ground at St Leonards and gave the dogs a 5 minute walk. (That view of the hill is the same one we used to have when we lived up the road a bit.)
Troy, Nicquel & Dora (Belgian Malinois), King the black Samoyed pup is there, but he's hiding.
When we got back to their place, we let Jaz out to run around in the backyard. Well, lope.
She was quite happy, especially when she found some old bones.
Launceston claims three mountains for itself (which is much better than the mere one they have down in Hobart, if you don't count Mt Nelson, Mt Direction etc. because they're just big hills & you ignore that the three mountains can't actually be seen from most of the city, and where they are, they're sort of blue blobs on the horizon), being Mt Arthur, Mt Barrow & Ben Lomond. Mt Arthur is up north somewhere, you see it sometimes if you're up that way. Ben Lomond is to the south, it's a long, flat thing with a ski resort & snowfields that are sometimes open in winter. Mt Barrow is out east. The turn-off is just 26 km from the city & it's a good location for biology excursions, for both secondary & uni students, there being alpine fauna, wet sclerophyll & mixed forest. (Dry sclerophyll is your standard eucalypt forest; wet sclerophyll has less eucalypts and more rain forest species.)
So we loaded up the station wagon with three adults, two kids, three dogs and enough coats & scarves that if we got stranded somewhere we could support ourselves indefinitely by opening a coat & scarf shop. And off we went.
Is there snow up there? We could see bits of white, and there is cloud over the peak.
It's 26 km from the city to the turn-off. From the turn-off, it's another 14 km along a dirt road. Considering the different travelling speeds, even though you think you're almost there once you reach the turn-off, you've still got the longest part of the trip still to go.
The road winds up through the trees. It's narrow enough that cars pull over when they see another car coming the other way.
Finally, we reached the start of the State Reserve (and the "No Dogs" sign).
A bit further on, there's a rest stop & car park, and a sign saying no access beyond this point except for 4-wheel drive vehicles.
So we park the car and decide what to do. Some people who've been up further assure us there is snow up there, so we decide to drive along the road a bit more. Except the engine won't start.
A couple with a truck jump start the wagon, but, as there's obviously a problem with a battery, we turned around and came home.
We did stop in at the picnic ground at St Leonards and gave the dogs a 5 minute walk. (That view of the hill is the same one we used to have when we lived up the road a bit.)
Troy, Nicquel & Dora (Belgian Malinois), King the black Samoyed pup is there, but he's hiding.
When we got back to their place, we let Jaz out to run around in the backyard. Well, lope.
She was quite happy, especially when she found some old bones.
