Dead Island Circuit

Wednesday 25th February 2015

Dead Island

Dead Island Circuit is a walk I borrowed from Peter Franklin's site where he called it South Wellington Plateau. I basically followed Peter's route with a few minor deviations.
I parked in the large car park just up from Big Bend and walked up the road for about 500 metres to the corner and left the road here and walked past the old skating rink and walked in a SSE direction to reach the South Wellington track. This section consisted of boulder hopping and low heathy scrub and was generally okay. The day had started off a little cloudy up here but the clouds soon lifted and it became an almost perfect day.

Boulder Hopping

Thark Ridge

Low Scrub

Section of South Wellington

Once I reached the South Wellington track, I followed this and then branched off on to the Smith Monument track. I soon reached the monument, and even though I had been here a couple of times before, I still felt the need to take another photo.

Smiths Monument

From here it was a short walk through a little scrub to a large boulder field. I rock hopped uphill to the top of the ridge line where it became less rocky with some trees and scrub, but quite easy going. There were great views of the Derwent and Cathedral Rock and Montagu Thumbs etc. from the top of the boulder field.

Large Boulder Field

Cathedral Rock

The Derwent

Cathedral Rock and Montagu Thumbs

More Boulders

I then walked along the top of the ridge before descending to the lower flat land and Dead Island. I found the high point which was only marginally higher than the surrounding country, but it did manage to possess a small cairn.

Dead Island summit cairn

I then simply descended off the other side of Dead Island and made a bee line for the car. It was a little wet and the ground was uneven but it was not bad going and quite flat.
This was a great walk as long as you don't mind rock hopping. I don't mind at all as I prefer that to scrub bashing anyday.
Distance: 8.5 kms.
Time: 4'57"
Ascent: 270 metres
Click here to download GPX file.

South Wellington

Collins Bonnet

Descending to Dead Island