Paddling in Walls of Jerusalem National Park

The water here is alpine and glacial — lakes, tarns, and trickling streams scattered across a high dolerite plateau in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. There are no roads into the park.

Every piece of gear you bring, including any packraft or inflatable, arrives on your back after a steep walk-in from the carpark. That walk-in is the defining condition of paddling here. The approach via Trappers Hut to Wild Dog Creek campsite is roughly 6.

1 kilometres and takes three to four hours — and that's before you reach the plateau proper. From Wild Dog Creek, the terrain opens into gently undulating highland, with dolerite peaks ringing an alpine garden of pencil pines and scoparia.

The lakes and tarns scattered across this interior are the paddling. Lake Ball is one documented destination, reached by leaving the formed track and navigating cross-country with map in hand.

The routine that works here is inflate, paddle, deflate, repack, walk — repeated across a series of lakes as you move through the landscape.

Moses Creek, which drains Grail Falls, is another named water within the park, though the streams here are generally described as trickling rather than runnable in any conventional sense.

A valid parks pass is required for entry to Tasmania's national parks; check with Parks Tasmania for current pass options before you go. The weather on this plateau shifts fast and without warning.

Self-sufficiency isn't a suggestion — there are no day-trip facilities, no road rescue, and no margin for underestimating conditions. A packraft carried in on a multi-day trip is the craft that fits this place.

The paddling is incidental to the navigation, and that's exactly the point.