The Irenabyss Gallery

Day 1 : Moonlight Ridge and Moores Bridge en route to La Perouse

A brief stop at Pigsty Ponds with views to The Cockscomb on Mt La Perouse.

Day 2 : Sunrise over the Picton River watershed; Mt Wylly and Mt Victoria Cross dominate the skyline.

A still mroning at Ooze Lake, Southern Ranges. The beautiful start to day 2 preceded a hot day.

The ascent ridge to Pindars Peak. The Southern Ranges. Climbing all these summits with kayaks in packs was tough.

The two lakes below knife peak are in the middle ground while the flat top of La Perouse dominates the skyline.

The remainder of day 2 was spent toiling throught the heat as we ascended first Mt Wylly and then finally summit camping Mt Victoria Cross (middle right)

The inviting Prion Beach below the Southern Ranges

John summits Pindars Peak - the cobber gives a good smile when he finally gets there.

La Perouse and the Southern Ranges from Pindars Summit

This ridge becomes the South Cape Range - a route to the south coast once followed this ridge.

My pack 'The Carcass' fell apart on Wylly Plateau under the heavy loads. We were able to enact a pretty reasonable repair.

Taken on Wylly Plateau with Precipitous Bluff and New River Lagoon behind

Wylly and Bisdee were Australian recipients of the Victoria Cross.

The convoluted cliff lines lead to the dolerite summit. Mt Bisdee can be seen over the right shoulder.

Finally as we ascend Victoria Cross at the end of a long hot day second day, we get a view of the upper Salisbury. The lines of the two major tributaries can be seen as well as the dark vague area where the river turns toward Bobs Knobs.

Our efforts in climbing VC with 4L of water each on top of our boat loads is rewarded with a special sunset.

La Perouse and Pindars Peak are accentuated by the slanting light.

This is a rare image of the Johnster being outside of his tent after 7pm - this is is book reading time.

Left are the Provis Hills in front of Mt Rugby. Middle is the Norolds, Right is the Arthurs and Federation Peak

From the summit of Victoria Cross

The narrow shattered top of Victoria Cross is evident.

The broken knife blade ridge from VC cannot be followed far before steep cliffs bar progress

To be 'ensconced' is the technical description of John in his sleeping bag between the hours of 6pm and 8am.

The Mountain Rocket was in full flower in February

Due to the heat and limited water we abandoned getting John to summit Bisdee and headed straight for the river after seeing this landslip opportunity.

Although the descent was straight-forward we soon foung ourselves crawling under logs knee deep in the creek - too log-jammed to be paddled.

The mudstone was full of fossils - we thought we were sorted when the river opened out to this pool and we inflated the boats.

End of day 3 on the banks of the Salisbury

Upper Salisbury River

This long deep stretch with thick scrubby banks led us to gear up and paddle - but only round the corner the river vanished into a swamp with dense horizontal and tea tree slowing progress to about 4km for the day - an afternoon of rain only topped it off.

This beauty was seen just after the river reformed from the Salisbury Swamp

A very cold wet ensconster looking forward to his sleeping bag.

After setting up camp the rain ceased - the river below camp was bedrock slabs and I couldn't resist a late evening visit to our goal

A slip here and its 100m to watch your life flash past. The two large pools at the bottom are the openings of the underground Salisbury - the river bed is dry at low water for many kilometers from here.

Note the overhang of the cliffs - it pays to be well around the rim of the cauldren before descending.

Descent is made around the western escarpment leading to the broken base.

The shattered base of the falls - this place must be awesome at high water.

The Salisbury river begins its mysterious percolation through the limestone bedrock

An image similar to this was published on the cover of the LWC Skyline magazine.

Salisbury River. Tasmania

Salisbury River. Tasmania

All our 'kayaking' injuries have been when portaging river beds. My sun-hat offered no protecting for this hard knock.

... deciding how far we have to go before he can get his book out.

This is still technically packrafting as the boat is inflated and can be dropped / paddled / floated across large pools.

Towards the end of day 5 we finally start getting long stretches of paddling.

We sighted many kingfishers on the lower Salisbury.

With leatherwood petals

This is the second time we've paddled New River Lagoon - always special

These craft were considerable lighter than those utilised on our Provis Hills trip.

Having made good time down the Lagoon we psyched ourselves up to walk out the same day.

Doing well on our attempt to get from PB base camp to Cockle Creek in a day.

We reached Cockle Creek around 9pm on day 7 and rapidly got in our tent to avoid the mosquitoes.

Made it out in time to get a lift back to our car at Mystery Creek.