Nine Things I wish I had known before doing The Eldons
The thing about bushwalking in Tasmania is that no two walks are ever the same. Indeed, two people can be on the exact same trip and have totally different experiences. All the research in the world won’t replace lived experience out on the trail. These are the nine things I wish I knew before embarking on one of Tasmania’s toughest off-track walks, The Eldons.
On the edge of The Eldon Range looking in. Photo: Ben Wells
Before I get into the nitty gritty of what I would and would not have changed on our trip, a bit of background information. The Eldon Range lies within the western central region of the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park and runs east-west for about 9 km. The entire area is described in The Abels as
A very remote wilderness region with no tracks”.
It goes on to say
“Only very fit, experienced parties should consider walking here due to the rugged terrain and thick scrub, in a location where unpredictable and extreme weather events occur.”
And, crucially,
“three days should be allowed to simply reach the eastern end of the range”.
After recently returning from the range I can emphatically say that there is NO exaggeration in this description! I would add that the further into The Eldons you wander, the harder and more physically and mentally demanding the challenges become.
A year ago or so we had experienced a small taste of what The Eldons has to offer when we visited the minor (or "Little”) Eldons - namely Camp Hill, Pyramid Mountain and Rocky Hill - which is a parallel range to the south. With the benefit of hindsight, I now know it wasn’t so much of a taste as a warning! The Eldon Range is spectacularly beautiful but she is also a tough mistress. She will give you a breath-taking sunrise one morning and make you cry with frustration at sometimes almost impenetrable scrub by the afternoon. What she gives you is earnt.
I cannot say I enjoyed every minute of our 10-day trip, but I can say there was a near-constant mixture of frustration, beauty, tears, laughter, wins and losses. As our good friend Simon says - it’s ‘character building stuff’.
Who knows what your foray into The Eldons will bring (or has brought). Perhaps you will have things to add to or subtract from my list.
A typical day walk in The Eldons, scrub your constant companion. Photo: Ben Wells
A typical day walk in The Eldons, scrub your constant companion. Photo: Tracey Orr
Number 1 - It will be harder than you think. Much harder. Don’t cram - it’s not an exam.
Everyone in our group agreed that we had underestimated The Eldons. Of course, we all knew it was going to be hard. The Eldons sees relatively few walking parties each year for good reason. Actually we all knew it was going to be really hard! Difficult, challenging and character building were words regularly mentioned in our chats and planning. We had revised our itinerary numerous times - each time making each day’s itinerary a tad bit easier.
Our final itinerary (below) was based on how many days we had off work, and what mountains we wanted to attempt to climb whilst out there. Bender did so much work with the itinerary, looking to be as efficient as possible with the time we had available, and he planned it perfectly. But in reality, it was still harder than any of us would have preferred, and it didn’t take long before the fatigue started to set in. Lesson 1 - allow at least one rest day mid-trip to recover. Had we allowed for it, we would have all been better for it!
Averaging a kilometre an hour is not unusual due to the steep terrain, dense scrub and lack of tracks or even track markers. Photo: Ben Wells
Day 1 - Car to Pine Camp. Approximately 11km, 900m elevation gain, 8 hours. (Hot day!)
Day 2 - Pine Camp to Five Duck Tarn. 10km, 500m elevation gain, 9 hours. (Started out drizzly and cool, eventually fined into a warm, clear day).
Day 3 - Five Duck Tarn to Lake Ewart. 10km, 370m elevation gain, 11 hours. (Another warm day, hard work in the scrub!)
The pictures above show my legs bruised, scratched and bitten and its only day 3! That is despite wearing long trousers, outer pants and gaiters!
Day 4 - Day walk from Lake Ewart to Eldon Bluff and Eldon Crag return. 14km, 1050m elevation gain, 15 hours. (A very, very warm day, overcast conditions by the evening.)
Day 5 - Day walk to Dome Hill. 13km, 470m elevation gain, 7.5 hours. (Cold, wet and windy!).
Day 6 - Lake Ewart to Tarn Camp and Castle Mountain day walk. 7km, 400m elevation gain, 7 hours. (Morning was cold and drizzly but eventually fined up, though cloud misted up the peaks as we summited Castle Mountain, which was unfortunate.)
Day 7 - Tarn Camp to Five Duck Tarn, via High Dome. 11.5km, 660m elevation gain, 11 hours. (Clear and warm in the morning, became overcast by the afternoon which actually made for very comfortable walking conditions.)
Day 8 - Tramontane day walk from Five Duck Tarn, return. 12.5km, 740m elevation gain, 11 hours. (Clear then quite foggy in the morning, eventually lifted with decent cloud cover for comfortable walking.)
Day 9 - Five Duck Tarn to Pine Camp. 8.6km, 530m elevation gain, 7 hours. (Partly cloudy though definitely warm until the evening, when we got a thunderstorm and overnight rain.)
Day 10 - Pine camp to hot chips! 11km, 320m elevation gain, 6.5 hours. (Clear, generally cool conditions and lots of low mist in the valley for magical walking back down the ridge. The forecast rain didn’t come until three hours after we got back to the cars - winning!)
The toughest day (by far) was Day 4. This was as we expected and was mostly dictated by weather: the rain forecasted on Day 5 would be OK for summiting Dome Hill but less desirable for the higher elevation and boulder climbing on Eldon Crag and Eldon Bluff.
We got very fine weather for Day 4, almost too warm, which combined with the limited water available, the long difficult walking from and to Lake Ewart and the fatigue of three big days of walking with heavy packs prior, meant we were all pretty well toast by the time we made it back to camp after climbing both Eldon Bluff and Eldon Crag in the one day.
Resting up on Day 5 - and riding out the worst of the weather - would have given us a chance to recover and recharge, as well as ride out the worst of the rain. Instead we did Dome Hill, which was an ‘easier’ walk, but hardly ‘easy’.
Many small tarns and creeks were completely dried out. Water (finding it and carrying it) was a constant pressure. Photo: Simon Kendrick.
Searching yabby holes for any sign of water on Eldon Crag. Photo: Simon Kendrick
Painstakingly collecting water from a yabby hole to fill our dwindling supplies on Eldon Crag. Photo: Simon Kendrick.
Number 2 - Be prepared to carry a lot of water.
Whilst the maps may show various tarns and creeks, they simply cannot be relied upon during the warmer months. Almost each and every day of our trip, water was foremost in our thoughts. Where could we find it? How much would we need to carry? Would the creeks be flowing? We knew that after a long and hot summer - and below average rainfall on the west coast - that water would not be easy to find in between camps. With this in mind, we had all packed extra bladders/water carrying containers (not just our usual drink bottles) and boy, was I glad we did! In addition to extra carrying capacity, a small collapsible cup, LifeStraw, water filter and/or buff are very important additions to ones pack in case, like us, you have to resort to sucking water out of yabby holes! Near constant “worry” about water added to an already tough trip. Lesson number two - take the capacity to carry extra water!
Number 3 - Batteries, power, navigation.
The Abels is not wrong when it states the area is “untracked”. Occasionally, VERY short lived sections of overgrown “cut” track may reveal itself, but it cannot and should not be relied upon. No sooner do you notice an ancient cut on a piece of scrub then it disappears! A pad may appear well trodden but lead in the wrong direction or just end abruptly! Most of the time you’re just relying on brute force to get though dense scrub or picking and weaving your body through whatever small gaps you can find. Forced by scrub to have no rhyme or reason, just heading in the direction you need to go.
We were all well prepared with maps, compasses and various electronic GPS devices and a collection of GPX routes and waypoints. That said, as we were in scrub a lot of the time, with no line of sight around us, we relied more heavily on our electronic aids than our maps. This meant that we were chewing through the batteries on our devices quicker than anticipated. Lesson number three - take more battery banks than you think you will need! (Adding insult to injury, a faulty charge cable actually caused Ben’s phone to chew through three day’s worth of battery in one hit! Ben was ever so grateful to Becca and Tim - who joined us later in the trip - and bought in extra battery power for him.)
Our food drops hanging in the scrub at Five Duck Tarn. Jess’ on the ground. Photo: Simon Kendrick
Number 4 - Food drop if you can.
This was a game changer for me. With an ‘in-and-out’ trip confirmed, our group decided to leave a food drop at Five Duck Tarn to lessen some weight and bulk from our packs for most of trip. We each purchased a lightweight, screw-top container that we could squeeze three days of food into. The screw top was to prevent animals getting into it and feasting, which we further secured with gaffa tape. We reached Five Duck Tarn on Day 2 and happily strung up our food drops in dry bags in the shade of a small tree - Jess the brave soul just wedged hers in its trunk! We would return here on Day 7. It may not sound like much taking ~1.5kgs out of your pack but given the length and difficulty of the trip, any saving was worth it!
Most nights being social around camp was hard due to the persistent march flies and mosquitos! Photo: Simon Kendrick
Number 5 - The insects are insane!
One thing I did not expect was how bad the march flies, ants and mosquitos were. They’re usually a bit of a nuisance over the warmer months, but for whatever reason The Eldons bugs were just insane! No sooner would we stop and make camp, or even just stop for lunch and we would be inundated! I am talking zillions of them! Ben was the only one who wisely packed bug spray and we all pilfered it off him! That said it barely seemed to have any effect.
Being social at dinner time was tricky, after a while we’d all be hankering to get into our tents, followed by a solid half-hour of hand claps and smacks as any intruders were dealt with. At night there were so many mosquitos that you would hear the drone of their high pitched buzzing outside the tent. I would definitely take the strongest bug spray I can get my hands on next time. A lightweight head net or even a ‘net-tent’ would be worth the added weight too.
Camping at Five Duck Tarn - about as close as you could get to the tarn without getting muddy! Photo: Jess McDonald
Number 6 - Be prepared to be grotty… Take spare knickers!
Don’t rely on being able to wash yourself or your clothing! We love camping at alpine tarns. After collecting water for dinner and drinking, if they’re big enough, we will often stand on the rocks surrounding alpine tarns or lakes, gather water and wash the day away. If it is a multiday trip we would also carry some water away from the source and wash out some clothes, hanging them on a shrub to dry. We thought this would be the case on The Eldons. Alas, it really wasn’t - well not at any of the campsites we used anyway.
For one, most days you arrive into camp so late that there is barely time to collect water and cook before retiring. Travelling a mere one kilometre an hour was standard for most days within The Eldons. And secondly, we were a little disappointed by the camping at Five Duck Tarn and Lake Ewart. Due to surrounding soft muddy edges, scrub and submerged weeds etc. you really aren’t camping with idyllic views, and reaching the tarns to swim or wash is quite difficult.
Thirdly, the mozzies, march flies and ants would eat you alive if you stood undressed for too long anyway! Most of the time we’d instead have a baby wipe wash each evening and carry the wipes out with us. Without getting too up close and personal, I was so glad I took five pairs of underwear! Ben managed to wash and dry one of his two pairs of socks whilst we were at Lake Ewart, but that was the only opportunity.
Benders gaiters in a sorry state! Photo: Jess McDonald
Number 7 - Get your sew on!
The Eldons are tough on your gear. By the end of our trip, each one of us had experienced some kind of gear mishap, fail or minor issue. The constant scrub bashing plays havoc on tops, trousers, gaiters and outer layers. Make sure you take a small sewing kit and some gaffa or Tenacious tape for on-the-go repairs. Simon and Bender did multiple repairs, with Simon using sewing thread and Bender getting creative with dental floss! I used all the tenacious tape I took in for multiple gaiter repairs - and eventually all of Bender’s gaffa too - and was lucky enough that Becca bought in some extra tape for the final few days.
We had all checked our gear was in good working order before leaving for the trip. The Eldons scrub is just more abrasive and constant then any other we have ever experienced. I went through two pairs of scrub gloves on the trip. Bender’s gaiters were shredded by Day 8, and his new-for-the-trip pants look about three years old and needed several holes and ripped seams repaired.
Number 8 - Give yourself a treat or two. Bump those calories.
As with any multiday trip we were conscious of our pack weights. There is a fine line between being ruthless with not taking luxuries to keep your pack weight down, and being miserable on track because you’re uncomfortable or craving that yummy treat after a hard day’s walking!
I was pretty happy overall with my pack. My 10-day pack weighed in at 15.2kgs which included 2 litres of water and 6kg food. I had included a nice little treat (a few Oreos, some chocolate or a few lollies) for each evening. At the end of a long and hard day sometimes these little luxuries become a necessity to maintain a good mood and brace yourself for tomorrow’s challenges. Bender commented towards the end that he wished he had taken a few more treats (yes I was sharing mine with him) instead of focussing on healthier main meals.
One thing that worked for me was that I decreased the size of my main meal for each night but added in a small soup or some two minute noodles as entrée. This worked really well for me as it was quick to prepare, gave me variety and I felt like I was having a 2-3 course dinner each night. Other than boiling water once none of my food required “cooking” which meant I could take less gas.
I also added a small amount of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) to my dinners and lunch time dips to keep a higher calorie count up for energy. Even with this, I lost a few kilos after 10 days out bush - as did every member of our group. Don’t skimp on electrolyte either. When it’s hot out there and you are working hard you will need it. Also consider taking a protein shake to have as soon as you reach camp. It’s a super quick way to repair muscle and hydrate your body whilst setting up the tent or preparing your main meal for the night.
Sample Days Menu for Xing (vegan)
Breakfast - Oats with brown sugar, cinnamon, almond meal and salt.
Morning Tea - Scroggin made with various nuts, seeds, jelly beans, dried fruit and a Carmens muesli bar.
Lunch - First two days were peanut butter sandwiches. Remaining eight days were Vitawheat crackers with hummus or other dip (EVOO added) and dried fruit. Half a Cliff Bar.
Afternoon Tea - Ginger Nuts biscuits, mini Oreos, scroggin, other half of cliff bar.
Dinner - Soup or two minute noodles, small main meal with EVOO added (Macaroni cheese, Shepherds Pie, Spaghetti, Split Pea and Cauliflower Dahl or Butter ChickPea Curry with Cumin Rice) and a chocolate protein shake. Small amount of chocolate for desert.
Drinks - Water, Hydralyte, Fruit tea bags in cold water, coffee, protein shakes.
Sample Days Menu for Bender (definitely not vegan)
Breakfast - Instant Oats (honey flavour) with a small handful of dried fruit and nuts/seed mix.
Morning Tea - Dried fruit/nuts/seeds mix, museli or oat bar.
Lunch - VitaWeets with either salami and cheese (earlier in trip) or hummus/corn dip (later in trip).
Afternoon Tea - Museli/oat bar, jelly beans if needing an extra sugar kick. And usually the uneaten half of Xing’s Cliff Bar ;-)
Dinner - Protein shake (most nights), soup (most nights) and a half-portion of Alps and Amici Freeze Dried Meal (mostly their excellent Butter Chicken, but there were a couple of Chicken Spinach Curry meals in for good measure too) combined with either flavoured cous-cous (mostly Ainsley Harriot Moroccan Medley) or a serve of Deb instant potato mash with some bacon bits mixed in.
Drinks - Water, Coda tablets, instant Strong Latte powder, protein shakes.
The dream team - minus Bender who is taking the photo! Photo: Ben Wells
One tough day - sitting on Eldon Bluff. The company will make or break a trip like this! Photo: Tracey Orr
Number 9 - Company and trust will make or break your trip.
Simon, Jess, Becca and Tim have bushwalked with Bender and I several times before. We have enjoyed each others company on challenging walks like Federation Peak, the Western Arthurs and Pokana Peak. We all walk at roughly similar paces, can navigate safely, aren’t afraid to get neck-deep in scoparia and know how to dig deep when the going gets tough. Importantly, we’re all motivated by the same things when out bush - namely having a good time and climbing peaks! As such, we know we work together well.
Knowing and trusting your walk buddies is crucial for tough trips like The Eldons. To be blunt, this is not the place you want to be dealing with people and personalities you have not walked with before. Our Eldons trip worked because we all had faith in what each and every one of us was bringing to the party. We are all very capable individuals that become even stronger as a group.
Such is the exhausting nature of the days that rotating the person out front is essential. As someone tired and needed a break, another would step forward, find the line - or plow the road - and keep the group moving. Even when we were all tired and enthusiasm to be the trail blazer through yet another patch of dense scrub was low, someone stepped up. Constantly navigating out front is exhausting work. Throw in scrub, heat, cold and million other constant challenges and you have a recipe for disaster if you are not confident in your fellow walkers. Our success on this trip was directly attributable to our team work. I feel pretty damn lucky to have been part of this fabulous six!
Jess and I exhausted and desperately trying to cool ourselves using the cold timber of the trees. That is desperation right there. And this was only day 3 of the 10 day trip! Photo: Ben Wells.
In finishing - I hope these things help you when planning your next adventure. Over the coming weeks I will post up full trip reports for Eldon Crag, Eldon Bluff, Castle Mountain, Dome Hill, High Dome and Tramontane. In the meantime I would also love to hear any of your do’s and don’ts for The Eldons!
