TASMANIA – 29 April 2024
We had two choices for the afternoon, two small caves or a walk to Minnow Falls. I thought Minnow Falls would be easier so suggested to Rod and Jim that we do that. It would take about 4 hours and we’d missed doing it on our COVID Road Trip, so seemed like a good idea. I didn’t do any research, Jim had looked it up on the ‘net, but I didn’t bother to ask too many questions, how hard could it be?
Minnow Falls (now that I’ve researched it), is a multi-tiered falls twisting down the face of Mt Roland. We’d passed Mt Roland on some of our drives so knew where it was. Apparently, Minnow Falls may be close to the tallest waterfall in Tasmania with a cumulative drop in excess of 200 metres. The falls consist of 3 main tiers, with a 30 metre lower drop, 80 metre middle drop and 50 metre upper tier as well as a number of smaller cascades in between. We only went as far as the middle drop. Apparently the track one way is about 2.5k.
We parked the car and set off at 12.40pm.
The track started out as very benign, wide enough to drive down we thought.
A mere 50m later and we’re directed to cross the river on a very dodgy log, with chicken wire over it, star pickets attached to it and a wire trace to hold onto.
What were the odds of a tree wide enough to go across the creek in just this spot?
Once across the creek/river, we were on a track, with lots of roots and rocks to trip you up. The vegetation was nice though.
And then, we started up the spur, it was all up hill, lots of rocks to climb up and unrelenting. I recon we climbed about 300m in elevation from the creek level, and all the time we’re wondering where we are as we couldn’t hear any waterfall. All I wanted was to hear a waterfall so that I had hope for the future (that I could stop climbing and be up the top LOL).
Eventually we got to a section where we at least weren’t climbing and the track seemed to go in the right direction.
And we finally got to the first part of the waterfall. A good 60m or so to where the water is meandering over the edge. I thought that we were “there”, but no, apparently we were going up to the next level (the mid-level). I briefly considered not going any further, but then thought I might have FOMO so caught up to the guys.
The waterfall again – it was nice, would love to see it after heavy rain.
So, we’re going up to the next level, and now it’s becoming blog worthy, a rope to hang onto to get you up this rock which would be slippery in rain, and slippery going down (this was one of 3 fixed ropes that we came across) – “nice that they’re good rope and not Telstra rope” says Jim.
But wait, it’s even more of an adventure now! a ladder! And a dodgy one at that.
Me at the top of the ladder. I had my helmet on when I went down on the return trip!
This just kept getting better and better. A cave! Good thing I brought my helmet and light.
A slightly awkward climb.
I managed to make the climb look even more awkward.
And we’re up at the mid level, and there’s an 80m drop, apparently if you want to abseil this, there’s a bolt half way down that you can use so you don’t have to carry 80m of rope.
You can just see a spray of water coming over the edge, again, this would be fabulous after rain.
Another view of it.
Me coming down the ladder, Rod & Jim joked that it was the best view of me, actually it probably is, certainly doesn’t look like the butt of a 73yr old does it. That ladder really was dodgy.
Once we’d had enough of the view, we turned around for the return trip. We virtually did the decent non stop, and it was actually more difficult going down the spur because we had to contend with lots of scree, you kept trying to keep balanced and brace yourself to try to stop yourself from falling, quite tedious.
We got back to the car at 4.15pm, we probably could have gotten back earlier but we spent a lot of time at the top admiring the view.
I have to say this was one of the highlights of our trip, a real challenge and a good adventure. About 4 years ago, Shiva, Alex and Marty abseiled this waterfall, it must have been an awesome trip!
Thanks Jim for researching the walk, and thanks to Jim and Rod for doing it with me. It’s quite possible that if I’d researched it myself I wouldn’t have done it, it was quite challenging!