Tasmania Part One

I'll be putting up three posts about Tasmania. There are too many photos and there is too much to talk about in one post. The second will come soon, and the third will be nothing but extra photos with descriptions.

I like Melbourne. I like it more than any city so far. It's diverse, safe, unique, full of art, easy to get around in, and offers everything one could want. Before heading off for Tasmania, I had a small taste of Melbourne and had the privilege of meeting some of Bonnie's lovely friends. There is a huge market in the city center every Saturday, and Bonnie, Jeff, Marty, and I wandered around getting supplies for hiking, laughing at all the junk for sale, and drooling over the acres of fresh fruit, vegetables, cheeses, and meats. I bought some goat cheese and bread, Jeff bought some beers, and we sat at a street table in the sun enjoying our treats. Jeff kept me laughing the whole time we hung out with him. He does a great impression of the local kids who soup up their Asian cars. He says they like to take a Corolla and make it "fully sick, drop it on it's guts, then put two fifteens in the trunk to go DOOF DOOF." "They only listen to the music that goes DOOF DOOF," says Jeff. Jeff himself drives an older light blue Holden Commodore with an antenna bent into the shape of Australia. He would say "You need to get a Commodore!" at opportune times. Riding through the city in the back seat of the car that night made me happy. I was just plain happy to be with good people watching the glittering buildings, billboards, and art posters fly past the windows. I also knew that the next day, I would find myself bumping through the air over the Tasmanian mountains on my way to places far removed from cities.

Bonnie and I were very fortunate when we arrived at the airport In Launceston, Tasmania. Bonnie's friends John and Olivia happened to be in the area with a rented caravan, and they picked us up at the terminal building. We rode illegally in the back of the caravan, and John drove like a maniac through the winding Tassie roads, tossing us around like ragdolls all the way to Cradle Mountain. We arrived, shaken but happy, at a caravan park after closing hours and scored a free tent site from a french girl who had purchased two sites and only needed one. Here, we were introduced to the biggest scourge of campers in Tassie; ugly black possums. One tore into Bonnie's trailmix after pulling the raincover off her pack and opening the zippers with it's paws. I found another slowly perusing around my tent and had to kick it twice in the rump to get it to walk away. In the night, I awoke to some scratching noises on my tent mesh. Bonnie said "John, you've got a possum." I saw the dark shape, my fist emerged from the sleeping bag, and delivered a swift punch to the possum's face. "I got it" I said. The whole operation was swift and effective. The possum left me alone after that.

In the morning John, Olivia, Bonnie, and I went scrambling up to the top of Cradle Mountain. The "trail" that goes straight up the face ramps skyward into a scree of craggy boulders. Some of the boulders at the top are house-sized, and we had to crawl like crabs to make progress, avoiding crevices deep enough to cause a lot of pain. I love stuff like this. I love the challenge of moving my body across difficult rocks, finding places to brace my feet, releasing them, and swinging like a monkey over the crevices. It was supposed to be a warm up, but it made my legs quite sore to tackle Cradle Mountain. I knew that, embarking on the Overland track the next day would mean that soreness would be constant for the next eight days.

The Overland Track

I'm sure hardcore bushwalkers would frown on the Overland, considering it too easy, but even with my cycling legs, I found it quite physically challenging. The huts along the way break the track into six or seven days, and they all have fresh water and toilets. The huts have been built and positioned in places with spectacular views of the rocky cliffs, waterfalls, and mossy green valleys. Near each hut, wooden tent platforms have been built, and we used them most nights.

Day 1

Packs are heavy with a weeks worth of food, and legs are sore accordingly. Spectacular views along the face of Cradle Mountain, over a high plateau, and down into Waterfall Valley where the tent platforms form a terrace along side the gentle falls. The valley floors are covered in moss, peat, and buttongrass, and a plethora of marsupials emerge at sunset to nibble on the greens. Tiny spotted quolls scamper around the wooden tent decks, one putting his little paws on the edge of our deck, trying to do a pull-up, and not quite making it.

Day 2

Bonnie bit off more than she could chew and convinced me to hike past Windemere hut and on to Pelion hut. She assured me with the utmost conviction that the track between them was totally flat. It was however, not totally flat, and we only made it within four kilometers of Pelion. It worked out for the best though, as we spent the night in the green forest at a beautiful place called Frog Flat. It was a quiet place, and we slept undisturbed by animal pests. We also met a nice German fellow named Henning who hiked and chatted with us for some time. He went on to Pelion and left us to cook the best meal of the trip. Pasta with beef, shitake mushrooms, and little bits of fiery chili pepper. It was a good thing I had such a hearty meal to eat, as my legs were so sore I couldn't walk straight. Despite her pack being heavier than mine, Bonnie was not in the pain that I was. She proved that day that she is much stronger than I.

Day 3

The previous day's agony allowed us to have an easy jaunt up to Pelion hut. There, we dropped off the packs and headed for the summit of Mt. Oakley. It was a sticky journey through the swamps to the base of the mountain, more mud through the layer of forest, then up steeply through a layer of subalpine pandani plants. It is a strange plant that looks like a cross between a tree fern and a yucca. It has the appearance that it has been around for millions of years. The best thing about them is when a light breeze blows through the drooping leaves, the plant produces a sound exactly like rain on a window pane. Onward, through dense scrub scratching knees and tearing sleeves, onto the rolling plateau toward the summit, and through more peat bogs. Walking up a slow incline past bigger and bigger rocks, we knew it was coming, but it was difficult to tell when. It appeared rather suddenly, a sheer precipice with hexagonal spires of rock towering a couple thousand feet above the valley. It was a place that needed to be contemplated, so we remained there for quite a while. I basked in the sun atop one of the columns of rock. Gentle updrafts brought with them a plethora of colorful insects up the cliffs to land around me. I spent some time lazily photographing them. One little red-orange beetle spent some time on my thumb, twirling around like a tin toy and rubbing his feet together. It was a sad affair to get up and leave such a beautiful place.

Day 4

Up, up, up to Mt. Ossa, the highest mountain in Tassie at 1600 meters. About half way up, the trail passes some scree and through a ten-foot-wide notch in the lower ridge of the mountain. The wind here is funneled and accelerated through the notch. The actual trail zig-zags to an easier passage, but I didn't see this, and went straight for the narrow sliver of light with the wind flapping my cheeks. After about fifteen feet of vertical climbing, I stumbled through the notch. The wind on the other side was surprisingly much calmer, and I resumed my progress toward the summit. Through a boulder-strewn bowl and up to another sloping plateau, the entrance to which is marked by huge cushion plants. The summit is a pile of enormous columnar rocks lying on top of each other like wrecked locomotives. Some shelter small cushion plants between their walls, and between others are black crevices where no light penetrates. Nearly the whole of Tasmania is visible from this vantage point, including the distant ocean, and to the southwest, I could see the craggy peaks of the Western Arthurs where I would be in a week. I was filled with that child-like excitement again, and I leapt around exploring the boulders and avoiding inky crevice death as if high on some sort of drug. On the way down the mountain, we passed a fellow who we had befriended a couple days before. Andrew is a guide for one of the private tour companies, and he was easily the nicest of all the people we met on the track. He's full of smiles, and still had wonder in his eyes. On this day, he jovially said "You guys want some fresh bread?" and he pulled out half a loaf and handed it to us. Turns out, part of his job is to slave away over a hot stove making home-cooked food for his patrons. So there we were devouring the delicious wheaty gift on the mountainside before heading to camp at Kia Ora hut. There, we found Andrew again at the nearby waterfalls. He leapt into the icy falls with a big grin and tried to get us to do the same. Leaping into bitterly cold mountain rivers is not my cup of tea, so I resorted to photographing the miniature plants around the misty base of the falls.

Day 5

The descent into the damp, green valley south of Kia Ora took us to three more waterfalls, the most impressive of the trip. Set in deeply cut gorges, huge volumes of water rumbled down rectangular boulders sending clouds of mist skyward. At the biggest one, I sat and contemplated it for a while, feeling little cold droplets of mist land on my face and imagining different past paths each droplet might have followed in it's watery doings and undoings. Who knows how many times those molecules had lifted from the sea, been whipped around in high clouds, condensed on flowers as morning dew, nourished the roots of plants, and tumbled down rivers into oceans to drift for years through the abyss again. Then, deep in thought, I let out a long, reverberating, and satisfying belch. Mouth open and uvula flapping, not a sound was audible over the roar of the water, even to me. Back at a trail junction, we found Andrew again and he handed us more fresh bread. This time, the bread had little pieces of apple and cashew baked in. We loved Andrew. What a great guy. We reached Windy Ridge hut and basked in the glow of more evening sun while dinner boiled. I left the rainfly off of my tent for the last moments of daylight. I was on my back, watching the orange clouds drift overhead.

Day 6

It was an easy cruise from here on out to civilization, and as we strolled along down to the shores of Lake St. Claire, I stopped at clusters of red flowers to dip my finger in the sweet, gleaming droplets of nectar they produce. When we reached the north end of the lake, all of the people we had hiked with opted to take the ferry to the south end, so we bid them and Andrew a fine farewell before heading about six more kilometers to a lakeside beach campsite. It is called Echo Point, and we had the whole beach in a protected cove all to ourselves. Low, puffy clouds moved quickly across the evening sky, and as the tops were lit by the falling sun, the bottoms glowed orange from within. I stood on the sand and watched the last light as fish breached the water surface and bats darted over the waves. As darkness fell, I heard a distant scream of a Tasmanian devil. It is an unearthly sound, and despite the harmless nature of the creatures, the scream gave me a chill. Moments later, I heard one of them growl just outside my tent. I unzipped the door ever so slowly, but the devil had stealthily vanished before I could get a glimpse.

Day 7 (Christmas)

Rodrigo and Don met us at the visitor center to give us a much appreciated ride down to Hobart. I like Rodrigo and Don, and I felt comfortable around them immediately. Rodrigo is an animated, joyful fellow from Bolivia. I like his accent and the way he expresses himself. Don is a jolly fellow from the Philippines with a contagious laugh and a heart of gold. I like his accent too and the way his eyes smile when he laughs. Rodrigo has a little Land Rover named George, and we left the Overland Track behind, bounding over the Tasmanian country roads toward Hobart. Arriving in Hobart, we found our hostel to be completely booked. There was some mix-up, and the Pickled Frog had no beds for us. The girl at the counter felt genuinely sorry for us and handed us free beers for our trouble. Fortunately, we found a couple of beds at Don and Rodrigo's hostel. The guys had bought a small ham, cheese, bread, wine, and Ferrero Rochet chocolates for us. We ate our Christmas dinner halfway up the road to the summit of Mt. Wellington in a roadside stone hut. It was a unique Christmas dinner sitting there in the cold, dark hut, eating hot quinoa soup and the other delicious items. The wine warmed us up, Rodrigo told hilarious stories of his childhood in Bolivia, and we laughed with clouds of steam coming from our mouths.

The day after Christmas, we went bouncing down to the southeast to a place called Cape Raoul. A five hour walk takes you out to the towering cliffs of the cape. At least a thousand feet above the ocean, you stand atop the hexagonal columns with nothing below you but crashing waves. The waves were not as big as I had hoped, but the evidence of thier potential size is visible. At points where the rock juts out to a point in the ocean, the rock forms a sloping ramp. So where there was once a cliff, the waves have collapsed the columns and smoothed the rock. These ramps are about a hundred feet high in some places, so the waves must be frighteningly huge at times. What a treat it would be to see them hit the cliffs during thier full fury.

Hobart is a metropolitan city, but still delightfully small, quaint and welcoming. Every Saturday, a street down by the wharf is closed, and there is an outdoor market. We went there to get some goodies for the trip to the Arthurs, and to take in the sights and smells. Everything is available. Booths sizzled with ethnic foods, candy, local farm produce, cheese, art, and an array of other crap. One guy was selling a few sad things he had stitched from bits of leather, and next to him were expensive marble and bronze bird baths. Polished silverware sculpted into windchimes tinkled in the breeze, and the smell of wood and spiced soap wafted around. I stopped at a booth of plexi-glass cases filled with long ropes of flavored licorice and bought a grab-bag of assorted deliciousness. I also bought a bar of locally made, apple-flavored chocolate for the road.

One more stop at the supermarket before cramming all of our stuff into George for the drive to the Western Arthurs. By this time, Raphael had joined us, so five people, all our luggage, and 14 days worth of camp food was crammed into the poor little car for a three-hour drive. It took us to Scott's Peak Dam where we set up camp and ate a feast from the market goodies. As the sun was setting, we drove to a lookout where the entire expanse of the Western Arthurs was visible. The mountains looked dark and ominous, like something out of a magical adventure movie, a long jagged range topped by clouds shaped by violent winds. That night the wind howled over the tops of the trees around camp like a warning. In the morning, the peaks still looked ominous, and after saying goodbye to Don and Rodrigo, we started walking toward them.