Greetings aussie/kiwi alpinists.

Following hhsilleck's excellent lead and aware of the fact that aussie and kiwi mountains are definitely under represented on SP, I've been putting a few on recently. Mt Roland http://www.summitpost.org/mountain/rock ... oland.html and Barn Bluff http://www.summitpost.org/mountain/rock ... Bluff.html in Tassie and Mt Arthur http://www.summitpost.org/mountain/rock ... rthur.html in Kahurangi NP on the SI of NZ. (Apologies for my illiteracy with html here). I'll put more on when I find the time but thought I'd point these out to any antipodean afficionados who might be interested.

Could dadndave note that the coordinates for Ossa are slightly wrong. Not as bad as neocrash's for Cradle, however, which have the mountain on the shores of Lake Mackintosh 20km to the west!

Thanks, vancouverislander. I will rectify the lat/long for Ossa.

dadndave wrote:Thanks, vancouverislander. I will rectify the lat/long for Ossa.

Still not quite right - try -41.867S and 146.034E. I find GoogleEarth really useful for this kind of thing.

I flew my balloon to 41.66S, 146.02499E and sat it down slightly to the west of the mountain to avoid obscuring the mountain. Are you cool with that?

Perfect. Now if we could only persuade neocrash to extract Cradle Mt from Lake Mackenzie...

Thanks for putting up a Mt. Arthur page - I really wanted to try that during our last visit, but ran out of time! Next time!
Thanks again,
Howie

Just been noticing the absence of much Aussie stuff. The NT page is a travesty (http://www.summitpost.org/northern-terr ... lia/527052) though it's more canyons than mountains there. Probably a lot of technical climbing around though. Anyone got anything in the works or old dusty plans? Spent some time in the Blue Mountains and McDonnell Ranges, plus Katherine Gorge and Kakadu NP so would be able to chip in. Cheers.

Baarb wrote:Anyone got anything in the works or old dusty plans?

It would be great to see more pages for Australia, as well as for New Zealand for that matter! There is still a whole lot to describe, and, frankly, some of the existing NZ pages could use a bit of TLC.

By the end of 2006, I spent eight weeks down under, then eight more in New Zealand. Mostly hiking. Early on, I went to the Blue Mountains, a beautiful area that really deserves a page on SP. But, without a doubt, the hike I enjoyed the most in Australia, was the Overland Track on Tasmania. I took my time, and did lots of side trips too.

When I get around to it, I'll sort through my Aussie photos and post some. However, I don't know any area well enough to write a page about it, so my old dusty plans don't go beyond creating a few albums. When I do a Blue Mountains album, I'll include a short description and some links. Same for Overland Track. In fact, the Overland Track site is pretty comprehensive, so I don't see a need for a route page on SP.

Might be good to have some kind of hub page/s indicating what Australia / New Zealand objects exist and acting as a point where new things can be attached, especially if they're isolated albums. One can do a search yes but I don't think that fosters organised contributions quite so well. See you've done a Routeburn Track album for NZ, if you'd consider opening it up or making it a Route page I could add some useful pics.

When I posted my Routeburn Track album, I had a look at the official DOC description and figured that I wouldn't be able to add something significant, so I decided against creating a route page for it. I just referred to the DOC description in my album. As per your request, I've opened it up, so feel free to add.

All my NZ albums are attached to something, mostly to the Southern Alps area page, or one of its children. It's a rather thin page, but at least it serves an important purpose as parent to many NZ pages.

Looks like there area already some Routeburn Track pictures on here but not attached by daw37 (see http://www.summitpost.org/object_list.p ... &is_open=1) Might be good to do those and then I'll see if there's anything not covered. Some if not all are in this unattached trip report (http://www.summitpost.org/new-zealand-2 ... and/489657) which also covers some other places. Perhaps this can be attached to the Southern Alps page though might take a while considering login rates for the respective users. daw37 Also has another unattached trip report covering the North Island.

This is an isolated album from a departed user: http://www.summitpost.org/a-month-tramp ... and/366013. Not sure if one can search Albums by location to find others.

Have a Blue Mountains Trip Report in mind with photos. Written in 2002 but perhaps worth typing up as there doesn't seem to be anything bar one photo on here to date.

Edit: Blue Mountains trip report now here: http://www.summitpost.org/blue-mountain ... lia/779345

Great jobs guys. Btw I was in NZ last weekend and popped up Mt Earnslaw. How ridiculously gorgeous is the hike up that hill? Wow.

Looks like you're on the scree above Kea basin there Radson.
Did you summit?
How was the Birley? It was in really bad shape in December, we couldn't cross it but I see there's a whole lot less snow around now.

Baarb wrote:Just been noticing the absence of much Aussie stuff. The NT page is a travesty (http://www.summitpost.org/northern-terr ... lia/527052) though it's more canyons than mountains there. Probably a lot of technical climbing around though. Anyone got anything in the works or old dusty plans? Spent some time in the Blue Mountains and McDonnell Ranges, plus Katherine Gorge and Kakadu NP so would be able to chip in. Cheers.

Yep, i've been pretty slack on this front (having lived there for 19 years and climbed/hiked practically the lot). NT is full of great hikes and climbs, including the country's highest mountain west of the Great Divide (a tad over 1500m). Baarb you mention up north, but there is a shed loads of things to do down south too.

I'll rustle up something when I get the chance.

Oh and yes Radson, agreed about Earnslaw being a nice mountains. If anyone gets a chance, camp up at Esquilant Bivvy. Its a sweet spot to camp, with the Rees valley below the Richardson Mountains and Mt Aspiring in the distance to your east, and Pluto Peak towering above the Dart Valley with the Barrier Mountains in the distance to the west. If you are summiting early morning, stunning sunrise views of Aspiring.

Hey Dadndave. No we didnt summit. I was with someone who hadnt climbed much before.

...and Mountain Bandit..yeah Esquilant Hut truly was a great place to stay.