Excursion to Herringback 
6th. August 2017 
H erringback is a 748 metre mountain above 
Sandfly. It is privately owned, but a four-wheel 
drive road to the top services telecommunications 
towers, and the landowner is happy to allow 
respectful walkers to use the road. On the day of our 
visit there were quite a few other walkers doing so. 
Finding the start of the walk was a little tricky for 
some, especially as the turnoff on Vinces Saddle 
is initially Krauses Road, before turning into the 
advertised Vinces Saddle Road. However we had an 
excellent rollup of 19 Field Nats for the day. 
Setting out for the Herringback climb 
Photo: Amanda Thomson 
The walk is just over two kilometres each way 
but climbs about 300 metres, and some sections 
near the top are steep. Apart from that the walk 
is rather easy. It starts in drier forest (Eucalyptus 
obliqua, E. globulus and E. pulchella ), goes through 
a small abandoned olive grove (which would have 
surprised me greatly had I not read up on the walk 
beforehand!) and then heads up through much 
wetter eucalypt forest on dolerite. It doesn’t really 
get into mixed forest, but I did see a single small 
sassafras near the top. 
In the abandoned olive grove 
Photo: Amanda Thomson 
Like nearby Snug Tiers, Herringback is notable for its 
eucalypt diversity. A total of ten species were seen. 
There is an altitudinal transition from E. obliqua to E. 
delegatensis and then to E. coccifera near the summit. 
E. urnigera and some E. subcrenulata were also seen 
around the top. One patch on the lower transition 
includes 5 species: E. cordata, E.delegatensis, E. 
obliqua , E.globulus and E. pulchella. There were large 
groves of tall E. cordata (at least one of which was 
flowering) in a paddock area just before the olive 
plantation, with E. rubida at edge of a frost hollow. 
E. ovata was not seen, but likely to be present 
somewhere. 
Tall E. cordata in paddock 
Photo: Kevin Boonham 
(Thanks to Mick Brown for the info on eucalypts.) 
Mammal sightings included pademelon, Bennetts 
wallaby, and an extremely dead Antechinus while 
probable devil scats were seen as well as echidna 
diggings. Birds were vocal but not especially diverse. 
A grey shrike thrush near the carpark seemed intent 
on dismantling a large fence post, and later on we 
saw a grey fantail and an eastern spinebill flying 
around together. 
I had high hopes for land snails on Herringback based 
on its closeness to Pelverata Falls (which has its own 
apparently endemic snail genus) and Neika (where I 
recently found another new one in rock scree). As it 
turned out the snail list was reasonably diverse but 
nothing too surprising or unusual. 
Thanks to Anna for introducing us to this new outing 
destination. 
Kevin Bonham 
Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club 
2 
Quarterly Bulletin No. 368 
