 “We get all kinds of nutcases down here,” chuckles the bus driver. He has no front teeth and a belly that hinders his attempts at turning the steering wheel. “There was one guy who spent 48 days in the wilderness last year – he wanted to climb every peak in the South West National Park.” Considering this is Tasmania’s largest protected wilderness area—at over 600,000 hectares—this was ambitious to say the least.
After nearly starving to death, this would-be peak conqueror crawled out of the bush and collapsed into Cockle Creek, the most southerly point in Australia accessible by car. “He looked like a skeleton,” recalls the bus driver. And it was no wonder because this crazed adventurer, who planned to sell his story to National Geographic, was relying on the generosity of fellow hikers for food having not organised enough food drops.
Part of this ‘nutcase’s’ adventure encompassed the South Coast Track, an 83km-route along rugged and deserted coastline. It is a journey back to prehistoric times: of crashing waves, undulating hills and pebble beaches. Originally etched into the landscape as a means for shipwrecked sailors to get back to civilisation, it could be easily mistaken for a pathway to Narnia or some other magical realm. The scenery is so enchanting it’s enough to turn some people mad.
There was one man who visited from the Northern Territory. He completed the usual six-to-eight day hike in just three days. Born and raised in the Outback, this man was used to wide open spaces and the tangled Tasmanian forests made him claustrophobic. Fuelled with panic, he covered almost 28km a day in his bid to escape.
As you fly into Melaleuca—where most people start the walk—it feels like you’ve fled from the world. The airstrip was single-handedly built by Deny King, a reclusive bushranger who spent two years battling the elements and an abdominal hernia to finish it so that planes could deposit medical supplies for his wife.
I was walking the track with my friend Matt, a financial planner, and his friend Alex, a Greek Bon Jovi fan. This was the first time any of us had done a walk of such magnitude and our inexperience showed. “Most people carry 15 kilos,” our pilot said. Matt’s bag was nearly twice as heavy, weighing in at a back-breaking 29 kilos – nearly half his body weight. It looked like he was equipped with rocket boosters: a three-man tent strapped to one side, and on the other an inflatable mattress the size of a bolster. I was four kilos ‘lighter’, with Alex -- the person who weighed the most -- carrying the least.
We’d been walking for 20 minutes before Alex’s backpack was off and he was resting. This was the pattern of the first morning: Alex huffed, puffed, and sat down to shovel trail mix into his mouth. Progress was unbearably slow.
We detoured southwest to New Harbour. Rather than enjoying the tranquillity of the hills, Alex whinged about the uneven ground, but even he couldn’t complain about our first night, spent under the glittery stars of a deserted bay.
By the time we reached Cox Bight on the second night, Alex’s negativity was becoming annoying. After two days and as many blisters, he was contemplating turning back. Considering his only other camping experience had been at Lorne Caravan Park, this should not have come as a surprise. We advised him to sleep on it, although if he was not enjoying himself then there was no point in continuing. His miserable mood was dragging us down, but it wasn’t going to affect Matt and me.
“I’m not taking a step back,” was Matt’s response when I asked him if he would accompany Alex back to Melaleuca airstrip. Although our hips were bruised and Matt’s shoulders were red with chafe marks, we were intent on seeing out the challenge ahead. After all, pain was part of the experience.
On reaching the shaded camping area at Cox Bight, our campaign to get Alex to stay ran aground. An American hiker gleefully informed us that sections of the track ahead were waist-deep in mud. Alex’s demeanour sagged still further, the corners of his mouth heavier than the cloud shrouding the bay.
The next day he turned back, defeated by his pinhead-sized blisters. Matt and I stood and watched him hobble away like a war veteran. We set off in the other direction, skirting a deserted beach before heading inland over a boggy buttongrass plain and up a steep hill. At the top we glimpsed the Ironbound Range, which at 800m is the highest and most gruelling section of the track. Cloud enveloped its pinnacle and the path ahead chinked like a white snake for several kilometres across Louisa Plains.
After crossing two rivers with the aid of ropes, we collapsed into camp at dusk. It had taken eight hours to cover just 18km. Cro-Magnon Matt’s gait was hunched and I felt like I’d had two hip replacements. It was a good thing that Alex had turned back, with all his rest stops we would have been walking well into the night.
After a rest day with the mosquitoes in Louisa River, Matt and I ascended up the western side of the Ironbound Range. Low-lying cloud smothered the path and when we got to the top we were engulfed in a swirling white nothingness. Although the vistas of Louisa Plains and the Southern Ocean had vanished, being immersed in cloud was just as enchanting. It was like we were walking along the edge of the world.
The track descended steeply into dense rainforest and moss laden trees glistened with raindrops. Tree roots made slippery snake-like fingers and the going dangerous. After ten hours of mud-surfing, ducking under logs, clinging desperately onto branches and wondering how I’d managed to keep my balance, my zombie-like body trudged into Deadman’s Bay. I certainly felt half-dead, and Matt mirrored my dishevelled appearance when he finally traipsed into camp an hour later. He’d jarred his knee and we hoped it would be all right for the following day.
After Deadman’s Bay is the most picturesque part of the track: New River Lagoon. We felt like explorers chartering unknown territory as we hacked our way through overgrown scrub while avoiding black sunbaking snakes.
This part of the coast is stunning. Prion Beach is a 4km picture postcard; a stretch of brilliant white sand that leads to a tannin lagoon. This part of the walk involves a boat crossing. The campsite is on the opposite shore and there are two boats, one on each side. Three journeys across are required in order to keep one boat on each shore.
One of the sure things about the South Coast Track is the constantly changing terrain. The only thing missing are the dinosaurs, although a seal carcass heralded our arrival at Granite Beach the following evening. Rigor-mortis had set in and it looked like a ride-on attraction in a children’s playground. It was covered in claw marks and its eyes were bulging out of their sockets. Blood dripped from its mouth, indicating the corpse was reasonably fresh, although its smell was anything but.
A campsite is located at the far end of Granite Beach, near rock formations shaped like flutes. To get there involves a boulder hop and a rope climb. Up to this point, Matt and I had barely seen anybody. But this campsite was crawling and there were barely any spaces to set up camp.
The next part of the track traverses the South Cape Rivulet, a series of three forest-laden hills leading out to South Cape Beach. “It’s like stomping through a bog,” a Canadian hiker told us, smiling broadly as she spoke. I thought she was joking, but after four hours of sliding around on the rivulet, this seemed like a gross understatement.
Around each corner lurked a muddy conundrum and it was a constant battle to avoid sinking into the mire. Again gravity somehow favoured me and although muddy up to my knees, I was relatively clean (as clean as you can be after eight days in the wilderness). After another eight hours of intense concentration my mind was spaced and we had reached camp.
Our last day was easygoing and we ambled along a couple of beaches before camping at Lion Rock. This part of the coast has some amazingly jagged and accessible formations, and it’s easy to lose a couple of hours just watching waves crash in.
I had mixed emotions about the end of our trip. On one hand I couldn’t wait to get back to civilisation and gorge on steak and cake. Although my hunger would be appeased in Hobart, the solitude and magic of the south coast is lost in the city.
A blistering sunset brought the curtain down on the day and our expedition: a fitting end to an inspiring walk.
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