2 November 2013 - Rosebery Cabin & Tourist Park, Rosebery, Tasmania

I was glad that we had chosen to stay a couple of nights here and that our plans for the day were modest. Sometimes all the travel and the effort to see everything can become quite exhausting. And so it was that it was almost 10 am before we headed through Rosebery township and back along the Murchison Highway toward Zeehan, to the turnoff to the Montezuma Falls, alternatively described in the tourist literature as “Tasmania’s highest waterfall” and “one of Tasmania’s highest waterfalls”. I can vouch that they are high, falling a spectacular 104 metres, and it is water that falls, apart from that we will leave the matter for those wiser, or more skilled at sorting records and statistics than us.

Montezuma Falls

I had checked with the woman in the Information Centre at Strahan that the access to the falls, or the start of the walk to the falls, was suitable for caravan rigs. She assured us it was, however as it has turned out, this advice was superfluous. But I would say to anyone choosing to call here as they pass through to destinations further afield, the six kilometres in as far as the abandoned mining town of Williamsford, is sealed but has a dreadful surface, and it is there that one should park and walk the further kilometre or so on over a very rough track to the official car park. Without this information, we would have arrived at the end of the seal, and having no idea how far it still was to the start of the walk, turned and headed off out, doing ourselves a disservice. But of course, as I said, this is all academic and the entire access was easy for us today, untethered from the caravan.

Along the old tramway

The 9.6 kilometre walk to the falls follows an historic light tramway, the North East Dundas Tramway, constructed during the 1890s linking smelters at Zeehan to mining operations here in the hills. From Williamsford its fifteen kilometres to Zeehan, however in order to maintain a suitable grade, the tramway’s route is three times this distance, making for a lot of bends, about sixty in every two kilometres. As well as ore, the tramway carried passengers and firewood. At its peak, 700 tons of firewood was freighted to Zeehan smelters each week. Much of the finished product from the smelters was shipped to Germany for use in machinery and weapons. (Now that is a scary thought and a nasty twist of fate) The smelters were closed in 1914 with the outbreak of war and the track used infrequently until its closure in 1932.

Given that so much of the rainforest was cleared off the surrounding hills, it is quite remarkable to see how it has regenerated since, however much of that can be put down to the annual rainfall of nearly three metres per annum. The forest is now dominated by Myrtle Beech, Sassafras, Leatherwood Blackwood and tree ferns.

The track is graded as easy, although today ranged from wet to very wet underfoot and muddy to very muddy. Bridges have been constructed in more recent times to cross the many tributaries of the Ring River the Montezuma Falls flow on into. Some of the original bridges still exist, moss covered and forming strange garden boxes for the trees and plants that have grown up in the leaf litter and mosses. One day the bridge skeletons will collapse and down will come trees, shrubs and all. When the tramway was operational, the creek immediately below the falls was spanned by a 48 metre long trestle bridge, an impressive engineering feat for its time, especially given the remote location. Today remnants of this construction lie far below the narrow foot-swingbridge

Chris and I discussed the possible origins of the name, Montezuma, erroneously considering the Italian word for mountain and also remarking that there was something vaguely familiar to the name. We were way off mark; the Montezuma was the last Aztec emperor of Mexico and this was the name given to a silver mining company working in the area.

We took two and a half hours to walk the track return, and an extra twenty minutes or so enjoying our lunch in the peace of the forest across the swingbridge and beyond the exuberant noise to youth. A family of three children had set off at about the same time as us, and two of the boys, aged about ten or so, whooped and yelled all along the track, even after Chris asked them to be quiet for the birdlife. They did heed his request for all of ten minutes, but their excitement for Saturday walking in the wild was just too much to remain silent. Apart from this happy group, we met several other groups walking in as we returned to the landcruiser. Toward the end of our walk, it started to drizzle; we had timed our walk well.

Mt Murchison obscured by cloud

Back in Rosebery we called in at the IGA to stock up for an unknown number of days between here and the north coast towns. The shop advertises city prices and country service; the former is a lie but to be expected, the latter only true if it is normal for stores to broadcast the local radio station at full volume; it was so loud I could barely think. For all that, we emerged having sourced everything on our list and came on back to relax for the rest of the day.

As I look out the window, the high peaks toward Mt Murchison are covered in cloud. Perhaps they will be snow covered tomorrow when we prepare to leave; they rise to  1275 metres, 575 metres above the forecasted snowfall.