Gone now, that little hut
We stood below looking for it. We — Flora, Grant and myself — knew it was up there somewhere, somewhere high on the peak not all that far from the summit. It was difficult to spot because it was made from the same rock as the mountain and blended in. Then, there it was.
We started up, picking our way. There was no trail up the mountain. Reaching the tiny hut we crouched to get in. No way could we stand inside. For the three of us, it would be accommodation that night.
A good summer
It was the summer of a year in the late 1970s and we were on The Temple, one of the peaks that make up the region known as the Walls of Jerusalum. The Walls, as they are known, stand at the north-western edge of Tasmania’s Central Plateau. From here, the land to the east is a rocky rolling ground studded with lakes large and small, the scourings of glaciers and an ice cap gone these past 20,000 years. To the west the land falls to deep, forested river valleys and ridges.
That was a good summer. My partner of the time and I roamed far and wide across Tasmania’s wild mountainous interior. With others, we explored places we couldn’t previously imagine existed. We came here in search of mountains and adventure, and we found it.
The hut on The Temple was not well known. Only dedicated mountain walkers visited it. Fewer overnighted in it. The campsites in the valley were far more spacious and comfortable, and there was an old cattleman’s hut not all that far away, Dixon’s Kingdom.
Time passes, as do mountain huts
I don’t know who built the hut or when it fell into disrepair and abandonment. Its roof was always something of a ramshackle affair, yet I was surprised when last year I came across a photo of its roofless remains. All that was left were the stone walls. It looked like some ancient ruin, however it was not so ancient, but now it sure was a ruin.
There is a sadness in finding shacks and other buildings you once stayed in are no more. So it was with this tiny, low hut high on the eastern side of The Temple. Abandoned. Ruined. So passes a minor structure in the history of Tasmania’s high country.
