Part II of last months epic hike around Mt Anne in Tasmania’s magnificent South West National Park…

It was a very cold overnight camp on the Pandani Shelf and we woke to a frosted tent and vegetation as well as a fair bit of morning mist, perfect conditions basically 🙂

Pre dawn light and morning mist, South West Tasmania

As the sun came up, the hint of a rainbow led me away from camp. I followed it, hoping for a pot of gold, and in fact stumbled across the following scenes:

Early morning light on the mist shrouded Pandani Shelf – exactly what we had come for!

These two pandani – as well as the giant cushion plant – really caught my eye, I spent most of the morning right here 🙂

Lots Wife and part of the Mt Anne Circuit track, as seen from the Pandani Shelf

Mt Anne mostly stayed hidden in the mist, but it popped out for this special moment

Originally we had planned to go up and back on the same trail but sometime during the walk we came up with the idea of skipping around the side of Mt Anne and joining the main trail to take us back down to the road. It only seemed like a couple of extra kms of walking (apart from the road bit, that is – but we were hopeful of perhaps thumbing a ride back to our own car). Doing it this way seemed like it would be a really nice achievement – plus the weather was exceptionally good, so we decided to go for it.

After we packed up camp we explored the Pandani Shelf further. The morning light was still very nice 🙂

Tiny little bits of snow remained here and there

Overview of the Pandani Shelf and Mt Anne

Mt Anne and Lake Pedder. There was still plenty of hiking to go for this particular day!

Traversing the side of Mt Anne. Big thanks to Luke Eberbach for the pic!

Long story short, the hike was amazing but it took a hell of a lot longer than anticipated, so much so that we ended up spending an additional night at the High Hut after coming off the Eliza Plateau in crazy winds and pretty much complete darkness. Quite the adventure! And a good little reminder to not take things for granted out in the wilds. Had the weather really turned, or the clouds come down while we were on the Plateau it would have been a fairly unpleasant way to finish!