August 2015 - Chauncy Vale

There were 6 of us:  Kat, Philip, Tony, Lyn, George and Bob.  Chauncy Vale is about a 40 minute drive north of Hobart so we pooled into two cars and set off on the walk about 10:30am.

There had been some recent rain and the weather prediction was for light showers so we all prepared for a possible wet walk, but fortunately the weather held and while it was mostly cloudy, we had some sunny breaks.  The main path to Flat Rock crosses a creek three times and because of the recent rain we decided to the detour to The Caves first as we could access that without crossing the creek.

The Caves were fascinating and it was easy to see how they inspired Nan Chauncy’s books.  It was uphill to The Caves for about 30 minutes, then along a ridge where the caves were.

 

The Caves

The Caves

The Caves

The Caves

The Caves

 

The Caves

 Then back down to the creek where we caught up with the track to Flat Rock.  The track was well defined and the detour took about 90 minutes with stops for pictures.

 

We needed to cross the creek when we rejoined the Flat Rock track but the creek was low so the crossing was easy.  We decided that on the way back we would take the shorter path to the carpark.

The track to the Flat Rock was wide, mostly dry and at a constant but easy upward grade.  The bushland was interesting and not what I expected, it seemed to me to be more like the Victorian Highlands than Tassie bush.  We reached the T junction for walks to the eastern and western lookouts at about 1:00 which means we had been walking for about 2½ hours.  We decided to see the eastern lookout first which took about another 30 minutes and we had lunch there.  The view was over the mountain tops which is always pleasant, but it wasn’t what I would call magnificent.

View from Eastern Lookout

Lunch at Eastern Lookout

On the way back down we took the 5 minute walk to the western lookout which had a unique view of the snow clad Mt Wellington.

Snow clad Mt Wellington in the distance

The walk back down took about 2 hours.  We probably could have been quicker but the constant downhill was a strain of my knees and I fear I held the others back.

Walking back alongside the creek to the carpark we saw Eve’s Bath – a bath shaped rock formation in the creek - which features in one of Nan Chauncy’s books.

Eve's Bath

 Tks to Bob for organising this walk and for telling the tale.