This is now our third attempt to get to the summit of Mt. Roland in 3 years, and only comes up this year because the designated Mt. Pillinger walk cannot go ahead due to the ongoing closure of the Mersey Forest Road. This beautiful and well known landmark offers panoramic views over north-west and into the World Heritage area.
The walk begins from ONeill's Rd. in Gowrie Park (alt. 300m), and after a gentle first kilometre, climbs steadily over 3 km to reach the saddle between Mt. Van Dyke and the Mt. Roland Plateau (alt. 900m). The track continues north to the summit of Mt. Roland (1233m), a further 3 km walking from the saddle, with somewhat gentler grades. After taking in the expansive views, backtrack south 3km to the junction of O'Neill's track at the saddle, following down to the west and reaching the car park after a further 6.5 km. The walk is rated "medium-hard" due to the distances (close to 18km in total) and steepness. Fitness, appropriate equipment and experience of alpine walking conditions are factors you should consider. Mt. Roland, a beautiful, much loved landmark and its smaller partner, Van Dyke, offer great views over the north-west and into World Heritage area. The extended distances suggest this is not a suitable walk for younger children, although resilient and experienced older children might cope well.
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Meeting Times and Places:
If you are interested in going on this walk, please phone your walk
leader, Vivienne Bartle, ph. 0409 347 151 to book in. The
departure time is 7:30am from the Door of Hope Church
car park, Launceston. Suggested meeting place if coming from elsewhere
could be Sheffield at Claude Rd. turnoff at 8:20 am.
If you would like to arrange to meet the group at these places or elsewhere, please arrange with the leader, and please be at any meeting place 5 minutes ahead of the listed time. The leader should always be notified of any other people you intend to bring along, and you should always contact the walk leader if intending to participate in a particular Boots N' All walk.
To access this area from northern Tasmania:
From Launceston, follow the
Bass Highway past Deloraine and turn left into Railton Rd. just short of
Elizabeth Town. Continue for just under 11 km to the Mersey River
bridge at Kimberley and turn left just after the bridge into Bridle
Track Road, which will take you through to Sheffield after approx. 14km.
The meeting place is on the left if approaching from Launceston, and
close to the centre of Sheffield. Gowrie Park is approx. 15 km along
Claude Road. O'Neill's Rd. is on left, about 150m short of the main
Gowrie Park junction. The walk begins about 1 km up O'Neill's Rd.
[King's Rd. is in Claude Rd. township, and about 6.5km short of Gowrie
Park]
Warnings:
The highest point of Mt Roland is almost 1300
metres above sea level, reached by crossing exposed alpine ridge and
plateau.
E Exposed alpine conditions – can be dangerous in poor weather if not
fully equipped (You must be equipped for poor conditions even if the
weather forecast is promising).
M Marshy or muddy sections – be prepared to walk with wet feet.
L Long day's walking
If you are unsure of equipment
requirements, Visit the Boots N' All section of the sutas.org.au website
per link below and read "Clothing suggestions for exposed conditions"
Map details and references:
For Mt. Roland, 1:100000 map is Forth (Tasmap 8115) and 1:25000 map for
upper area is Cethana (TasMap 4240).
Mt. Roland:
Short ref. 386095
Zone Easting Northing
Latitude Longitude
55G 4 38 690 54 09 750 -41.46150 146.26586
Mt. Roland is worth 2 peakbagger points. For listing of peakbagger
points, see the Hobart Walking Club Peakbagger's
Guide (2000 revision) which can be found and downloaded (as an Excel
spreadsheet) 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).
When you have downloaded the track file, double-clicking on the Google Earth (kml) track should open Google Earth and zoom in to the location if you have Google Earth installed on your computer. The .gpx version of the track should import into mapping software or devices that support gpx tracks and waypoints.