Bastion Cascades Sat. 6th August 2016
(the advertised Lees Paddocks walk not accessible due to damaged roads)

Yet another of the walks for 2016 has a change of plans, this time because the Mersey Forest Road is still closed after a landslip at the time of the major floods a couple of months ago.
Your leader will instead take you to Bastion Cascades, which should be in good flow.  This walk in the upper Meander Valley area starts at an old quarry at 580 metres altitude, and rises west and then south-west, coutouring around into the valley of Bastion Creek at about 700m altitude, to reach the cascades after about 3 km walk from the start. Doubling back a couple of hundred metres, the track then rises steeply and sidles around to the top of the cascades, and climbs further north to about 900m. Some amazing rock formations are passed, offering shelter for a rest break. The track then contours north for a further kilometre, past more interesting formations, to the most interesting of all, the "stone hut" with its associated residents. From there, the track descends eastwards for a further 1.5 km to return to the start.  The walk is rated "medium" due to the steep grades and some track sections that require clambering, and is suitable for reasonably fit and suitably equipped walkers familiar with wilderness forest walking. Energetic older (accompanied) children should cope with this walk which is approximately 7.5 km in total.

Meeting Times and Places:
If you are interested in going on this walk, please call Terry Heier on  6393 6671 to book in. The departure time is 8:00 am from Door of Hope car park. Alternative meeting place: Deloraine 8:30 am. Check with leader for meeting spot. If you wish to meet with the group at any other place, please arrange with the leader.  Please be at any meeting place 5 minutes ahead of departure time. However, you still need to contact the walk leader, if intending to walk. The leader should be notified of any other people you intend to bring along. Please be at any meeting place 5 minutes ahead of departure time.

To access this area from northern Tasmania: From Launceston, head towards Deloraine on the Bass Highway (50 km) and take the first (eastern) turn from the highway into Deloraine. Continue into the town and turn left immediately before the bridge (meeting place - see above).
From Deloraine, head south along the "Lake Highway" - now Highland Lakes Rd. (but the first bit may be called Meander Rd!). Make sure you stay on Meander Rd and go straight ahead (DON'T turn left) at 7 km from Deloraine, where there is a signposted junction for Highland Lakes Rd. Continue a further 9 km to Meander and continue through the town. After about 6 km, the road swings right. About 2.5 km further, the road turns south and crosses the first of the new bridges (Smoko Creek). Just across this bridge, turn off to the right and follow the fairly steep road for about 1 km to reach the old quarry from which the walk starts.

Warnings:
  The following codes [from our 2016 walks calendar] apply:
     S    Steep incline for at least part of the way
     M    Marshy or muddy sections - be prepared to walk with wet feet.
    E     Exposed alpine conditions; can be dangerous in poor weather if not adequately equipped; see www.sutas.org.au/bush-walking/bush-walking for some guidelines.

Unsure of equipment requirements? Visit the Boots N' All section of the sutas.org.au website per link above and read "Clothing suggestions for exposed conditions"

Map details:

Meander Falls area: 1:100000 map is Meander (Tasmap 8214) and 1:25000 map is Quamby Bluff (Tasmap 4638)
Map references:
Short ref. n/a

Meander Falls:
Zone      Easting        Northing   
55G      4 61 212      53 81 689  

No peakbagger points will be visited on this walk. For listing of peakbagger points, see the Hobart Walking Club Peakbagger's Guide (2000 revision) which can be downloaded (Excel) from http://tastracks.webs.com/peakbaggers.htm  The same web page contains several other listings of Tasmanian peaks.

GPX version of the track: Click here to download. Google Earth version of the track: Click here to download.
Right-click on the file and save target as to a location of your choice. (Suggest you click the Last modified at top to sort by date to get the most recent at top to find the file for the next walk).