Mt Ironstone – Tues. 27th December 2016

(At time of writing, due to a partial road closure in the area, your leader is wondering whether to change this to something easier, and more suited for families, being our customary "more relaxing" post-Christmas walk. Watch this post!)

Mt. Ironstone is the highest point on the Central Plateau, and the northern prominence of a vast area of alpine wilderness. Weather permitting, expect magnificent views!
The walk begins at Westrope Road, currently closed beyond the Western Creek track turnoff, and follows the road a further 1.5 km east before climbing firstly old logging tracks, and then Syds Track to reach the alpine escarpment, gaining 450 metres altitude. Heading south for about 2 km, we then start to climb to the high plateau of Mt. Ironstone, gaining a further 250 metres altitude, before heading southwest and west to reach the summit after a further 2 km. Total walk distance is about 8.5 km each way. The rougher and steeper parts of the walk follow tracks, with open alpine walking for the top section. The distance, gain in altitude and walk conditions suggest this is not a walk for novices, but otherwise is rated "medium" and is suitable for walkers, including older children, who have had some experience with steep and rocky tracks as well as off-track alpine walking, and able to keep going for sustained distances. Because of the exposed alpine conditions, walkers must be fully prepared for poor weather, even at this time of year. Please see the warnings below.

Meeting Times and Places:
If you are interested in going on this walk, please phone your walk leader, Basil Tkaczuk, ph. 6331 1155 (if replying by email, please do so by Thursday 9 pm) to book in. The departure time is 7:30am from the Door of Hope Church car park, Launceston. Suggested meeting places if coming from elsewhere are at the Deloraine train park at 8 am or Western Creek track 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, proceed along the Bass Highway to Deloraine (about 51 km). Follow the off-ramp into Deloraine and when crossing the bridge, turn right at roundabout to enter the “train park” car park. (If you were not meeting the group there, you would not turn off at the eastern exit into Deloraine. Instead, continue across Meander R. and uphill to the western exit, and to the roundabout at start of Mole Creek Rd.) After leaving the train park, follow the main street uphill through Deloraine to reach the large roundabout. Turn left into Mole Creek Rd. and go about 8 km before turning left into Dairy Plains Rd. Go all the way through Dairy Plains Rd. (several right hand turns and 2 junctions where you need to follow the signs). When you arrive at the T junction with Western Creek Rd, turn right and 800m further on, turn left up Westrope Rd. Go more or less straight for 4 km south and continue past the junction of Dale Brook Rd. for a further kilometre, which should bring you to the end of driveable road near the start of Western Creek Track (which we will NOT be using).  Westrope Rd. is all gravel, and somewhat degraded in parts, but should be accessible for 2WD vehicles with reasonable clearance.

Warnings:
  The following codes [from our 2016 walks calendar] apply:
    D    Drive distance requires early departure
    M   Marshy or muddy sections – be prepared to walk with wet feet.
    S    Steep incline for at least part of the way
    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.
  
If you are 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:
Western Creek/Higgs Track area: 1:100000 map is Mersey (Tasmap 8114) and 1:25000 map for upper area is Lake Mackenzie (TasMap 3338).
Map reference:
Short ref. n/a
Zone      Easting        Northing    Latitude      Longitude
n/a

There are no peakbagger points for the area covered by this walk. 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.