Mt. Morriston and Long Marsh Dam - 11th February 2017

Another Boots N' All "first" allows us to explore the area south of Lake Leake, largely forested with with some areas of farmland. Mt. Morriston is better know for its world-famous namesake, a sheep grazing property a little to the west of the actual peak area, renowned for its superfine wool. We may perhaps return to the midlands via that area.
From the Lake Leake road (just short of the Lake Leake turnoff), we turn south and follow dirt roads to the SE end of a line of three peaks, Mts Mismanagement, Connection and Morriston. We skirt around the first, head north between the first and second, and then west between the 2nd and 3rd, finishing up with only a short walk, less than 500 metres on an old track, to reach the summit of Mt. Morriston.
Next, we drive back to Mt. Mismanagement and head south, then east, to reach the start of the walk to the Long Marsh Dam historic site. See http://bushwalks.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/long-marsh-dam.html (paragraph further down, Midlands Council report on the site, for some historical background. The walk is roughly 2 km each way, again easy walking. The walk would certainly rate as easier, with no steep climbs, and suitable for families with younger children.
 

Thinking of bringing along a children's or youth group?
 Click for Information for Leaders working
with Children and Youth

Meeting Times and Places:
If you are interested in going on this walk, please phone your walk leader, Basil Tkaczuk  Ph.  0438 664402 [instead of my usual landline, please - text messages will be fine, or reply to this email by early Friday evening]  to book in. The departure time is 8:30 am on Saturday from the Door of Hope Church car park, Launceston. The alternative meeting place is the park with public toilets at Campbell Town by 9:20 am.Other meeting places by arrangement with leader.
f 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.
Even if meeting us en-route, 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, proceed south for 68 km along the Midland Highway to Campbell Town. Towards the southern end of Campbell Town, turn east on to the Lake Leake Rd. and continue 30 km. Long Marsh Rd. turns south approximately 300 metres west of the turnoff to Lake Leake. The next turn is about 9 km south, after which there is a further 9 km or so west, north and west again as described above, but hard to describe in detail, to get to Mt. Morriston. Please use the map files from this website if you need accurate details. We strongly recommend that you meet with the group for the parts of the drive from Lake Leake Rd, including the further drive from Mt. Morriston to the start of the Long Marsh Dam walk at Honeysuckle Rd.
After visiting the Long Marsh Dam site, we may follow Honeysuckle Rd. west to meet Tooms Lake Rd at the Mt. Morriston grazing property, before heading north to Ross, a distance of about 45 km.
Note that progress on these dirt roads can be quite slow at times. We hope to be back in Launceston 4-5 pm at latest.

Warnings:
Water!  It is unlikely that there will be any drinkable water on this walk, so please be sure to carry at least 1 litre in a sturdy bottle, and perhaps have some spare water to drink at the car when we get back.
Be aware of possible hazards such as insect bites and snakes. Prepare for a variety of weather conditions from warm and sunny (hat, sunscreen etc) to cold, wet and windy. Sturdy shoes should be fine, and gaiters offer protection against snakes, insects and scratchy plants. If you are unsure of equipment requirements, Visit the Boots N' All section of the sutas.org.au website per link below and read the guidelines for clothing and equipment.
Click this link for a more detailed discussion of Preparation, Food and Safety guidelines for Boots N' All walks.

Map details and references:

Mt. Morriston (alt. 804m): 1:100000 map is Little Swanport (Tasmap 8414) and 1:25000 map is Leake (Tasmap 5634)
Map references:
Short ref. 602418
Zone      Easting        Northing    Latitude    Longitude
55G      5 60 200      53 41 980 -42.07194 147.72772

1:25000 map for Long Marsh Dam area is Colonels (Tasmap 5633)

Mt. Morriston is worth 1 Peakbagger point. 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.