February 2025 - Mt Roland, Stoodley Forest and Mole Creek Caves

Eight of us ventured into the northwest of Tassie to take on Mt Roland at the end of February. This beautiful icon of the Sheffield area had been beckoning to us for ages, and we were excited to finally make the trip.

Geologist Ken McQueen: "Mount Roland is an imposing monolith with a majestic presence at the north-western edge of Tasmania’s central plateau. It has an elevation of 1,234 m above sea level and stands 10 km southeast of the small town of Sheffield in northern Tasmania. The mountain is composed largely of conglomerate, a sedimentary rock formed in large rivers or alluvial fans. On the very top and behind the frontal peak there are also some overlying sandstones. The conglomerate is siliceous (quartz-rich), very hard and resistant to erosion and chemical weathering".

The intrepid walkers were Lyn (our excellent organiser), Bob, Janet, Di, David, Maryanne, Kat and Philip. We drove up in three vehicles on a sunny Tuesday, taking separate routes. Some of us met at Mountain Mumma cafe in Sheffield for lunch (lambs fry, anyone?), then the whole group convened at the carpark for the introductory event of our trip, the Stoodley Forest Walk.

This was a little adventure in itself, as the signage both to get there and for the forest walk was pretty poor. Google Maps will get you there. We discovered that this area is now on the edge of the Wild Mersey Mountain Bike network of trails. Luckily we had a good RideWithGPS map to help us find a walking trail, and we trundled down the valley through old plantings of exotic trees mixed with natives.

Our trail wound down to the creek at the bottom, then looped back up the other side of the valley.

On this trail we didn't find any of the historic railway infrastructure mentioned on the website, perhaps that was located on a level trail around the top: "An easy walk through an arboretum established by the early forestry industry and partly follows the Railton-Roland train line which closed in 1957 and had a station at Stoodley. It is also the site of one of the region’s first sawmills – built in 1854 on nearby Red Water Creek. The original wooden water trough, from the early 1900s, was a regular stopping place for horses and riders and for traction engines to top up their boilers".

They could have offered us an actual map showing the locations (now there's an idea). Anyhow, our loop walk felt like an easy warm up for tomorrow's assault on Mt Roland.

With a quick stop at the Sheffield Hotel's bottle shop for some refreshing ales, we drove to the Gowrie Park Wilderness Village, where we checked into our three cabins. These were nicely placed in a fairly private circle, so we could chat to each other from our balconies, nice!

We had a barbecue for our first dinner, at a large table near the camp office. Lyn had carefully organised us to bring the usual surplus of salads and cakes! Yummo.

Mt Roland: "Its dolerite cliffs appear impregnable"... On Wednesday morning we set out early, at 8am, thinking we should allow plenty of time, even though walk descriptions assured us that the walk from ONeills Rd was "moderate" difficulty and would take only 4-6 hours. The weather was perfect, dry and not too hot. Seven of us drove to the carpark and registered.

Soon we were down to six in number, and the walk was very pleasant along a vehicle-wide trail for several kilometres through quiet bush and past little creeks and damp rainforest-y areas.

We declined to take the turnoff to Mt Van Dyke.

The trail rose slowly, until a strong bridge over ONeills Creek signalled the start of the serious climbing.

A long staircase rose on the other side of the bridge and it was a steady climb for several kilometres after that. This was through damp rainforest, with some tall old trees, ferns and massive boulders to admire.

We appreciated some nice new-looking sections of timber steps. There was another turnoff to Mt Van Dyke at the top of this climb, with a timber platform for a rest stop, and we turned left here towards Mt Roland.

Here we enjoyed some decent stretches of duckboard, which made for easy walking over what was now a slow and steady continuous climb.

We reached a nice timber platform with a picnic table, with a great view over towards Mole Creek.

Here we stopped for a snack and a drink and then continued on. Unfortunately from here on the trail was difficult walking, with large boulders that needed to be carefully navigated. We were basically rock hopping for a couple of kilometres and it was still uphill.

Three of us called it quits not far from the turnoff for the final scramble to the top. Three continued on, and turned left at the final turnoff.

They found the rock scramble quite difficult. The rocks were large and there was not much of a marked trail at that point. Maryanne did a great job with her new knee. Two made it right to the top - well done Lyn and Kat!!!

We retraced our steps back to the picnic table lookout, and finished off our lunches. Then there was the return walk, which felt endless. We were all very tired when we finally made it back to the starting point - the 17.4km walk (with uphills of 876m) had taken us a little over eight hours! Rehydration was badly required, beer and cider helped a great deal, also treatment with ibuprofen and panadol was very beneficial, haha.

A great treat that evening was an excellent chicken curry, rice and salads, followed by apple cake with homemade icecream, which was all kindly delivered to our door by fab local caterer Charlotte. Bob captured Mt Roland Tassie's Uluru!) in the sunset:

On the Thursday we visited the Mole Creek caves, starting with the King Solomons Cave tour at 10.30am. Tour guide Shannon was great, and the stalactites, stalagmites, curtains and pillars were beautiful.

We had a quick lunch in Mole Creek and a look around the village.

Then we were off to Marakoopa Cave, where we helped the staff work out our ticketting (confusion reigned), and we were guided around this beautiful cave by Angela. The Marakoopa cave is less claustrophobic than King Solomon's and features underground rivers and glow worms, excellent. Our final dinner was at Sheffield Hotel, where the food was fine and the service was friendly but not very professional (a couple of complaints were made, ahem).

On the Friday we decamped early for "second breakfast" (or coffee) at Mountain Mumma, after which we all headed home on our separate ways. Thanks to everyone for another laughter-filled getaway.