AUSTRALIA 2010
Thursday, April 23, 2015 at 01:35PM Other hikers are always ready with recommendations, and something called the “Cradle Mountain Overland Track” in Tasmania popped up. We needed some add-ons to justify going halfway around the world, and found the two perfect ones: the Australian Open Tennis Tournament in Melbourne, and the Great Ocean Walk along the south coast. As soon as we had accumulated sufficient frequent flyer miles for the upgrades we were bound for Australia.
Elie and Suzy
A few days later we had arrived in Melbourne. (You automatically lose one whole day crossing the International Date Line, and you will probably lose at least one more to sheer exhaustion after more than 24 hours in the air.) But for the next two days we had planned nothing more strenuous than watching the Australian Open on one of them, and sightseeing in Melbourne on the other. The Rod Laver Arena was a short walk from our hotel, and although we could have purchased expensive seats in the stadium, they came with prominent IN THE SUN warnings. Instead we got Ground Passes and wandered at will among the practice courts, watching Big Name Players from only feet away. They are even more intimidating seen close up.
We were to assemble for the Great Ocean Walk at a hotel in the center of Melbourne, and from there we set out, by van, for Apollo Bay. We had hit upon the idea of walking the Great Ocean Walk because it seemed more heroic than driving the world famous Great Ocean Road. The Road is the world's largest war memorial. It traverses 151 miles of the southern coast of Australia and was built by soldiers returning from World War I, in tribute to those killed during that war.
The Great Ocean Walk covers just a small part of it, 64 miles, from Apollo Bay to the Twelve Apostles, but offers more time to take in the sights. We rewarded ourselves for having chosen the tougher option by booking a higher-end guided walk than we usually do. At the end of each day we would be met by a van and driven to a serene, eco-friendly lodge in a forest some way inland from the coast.
At Apollo Bay we were met by the man who was cook and general dog's body for the lodge. It turned out that he was very, very good in both roles, because after distributing gaiters, backpacks and other gear, he handed out our packed lunches: couscous salad with filet of beef, and chickpeas with cilantro and cumin. Clearly, culinary standards were going to be high! We set out along the Great Southern Ocean Seashore, across rocks and through forests of mountain ash, the second tallest trees in the world. Koalas could be seen perched in the branches of eucalyptus trees, engaged in their favorite activity – idleness.
Later that day we were met by the van, urged to stretch our tired muscles, and driven to the lodge we would be staying in each night. It was an oasis of eco-conscious tranquility – cool, breezy and minimalist. Foot spas awaited us at the end of each day's hike, and massages if we wanted them. The lodge was entirely surrounded by trees, and occasionally a curious wallaby (affectionately known as a “wobbler”) could be seen eyeing us. As well as, probably, snakes, but we were told not to worry about them as they could not negotiate the platforms on which the rooms stood.) Actually it was hard to worry about anything in such a serene place. Hot and cold drinks and a full English tea kept us alive until dinner time, which was another gustatory delight of Chinese dumplings, lamb chops, filet of beef with asparagus and corn dumplings, and chocolate mousse and ice cream.
Typical dinner
The next day's walk began on a beach where there were large paw prints in the sand – probably kangaroos making their way to the water in the early morning.
We had long views of a turquoise sea, and saw koalas and wallabies, a small tiger snake, and a white cockatoo, but not a single other human being all day. The tide was out, and we were able to walk along the shore for some of the way, but it was a relief when we eventually turned back into the forest and shade.
The temperature can change, depending on the direction of the wind, but the change occurs in a very narrow range, between extremely hot and unbearably hot. We had lunch on a stunning, high outcropping, and were eventually met and returned to the lodge for restoration in the foot spa.
At the risk of coming across as foodies, for us the high point of that day was once again dinner. Rumor had it that several journalists were in the area, and might or might not stop to eat at the lodge. Our chef turned himself inside out in hopes that he might impress them and get a good write-up in their publication, and his already high standards shot up a notch with Moroccan soup, salmon, and passion fruit ice cream, all elegantly presented. Alas, the journalists never materialized, but he certainly impressed us, and we did all we could to show (by eating) and express (in words) our appreciation. We hoped it helped in some small way.
On the final day we got to the Twelve Apostles – eventually. We walked along the beach, and it was hot. We stopped for lunch (everything left in the kitchen artfully turned into gastronomy), and it was hot. We got back on the trail, and it was even hotter than it had been, with persistent flies as an added attraction. The one-and-a-half hours seemed like an eternity, and just when keeling over and dying on the spot seemed like a good alternative, there was our driver with the van, ice-cold towels, chilled champagne, and congratulations for having made it to a sign that read “End of the Great Ocean Walk.” A short drive further brought us to the Twelve Apostles parking lot, where throngs of Chinese and Japanese had come to take in the fabled view. Helicopters circled overhead for those wanting the bird's eye version.
Then it was back to Melbourne by way of a freeway through small farming communities. And early the next morning we were on a flight to Launceston, Tasmania, from where we would embark on the Cradle Mountain Overland Track (CMOT). The six-day walk, through the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, is considered one of the great wilderness walks of the world. Our only misgiving about it had to do with snakes, or as they are known locally, snikes. Months before deciding on the trip we had discussed this with a young Tasmanian, who had put all our fears to rest thus:
Us: Is it true that there are lots of snakes in Tasmania?
She: Oh, yeah. Tons of snikes!
We: But, are any of them poisonous?
She: Oh, yeah. Highly venomous. But you should be alright if you don't bother them,
Well, we don't wake up in the morning intent on finding some snake to annoy. Any provocation we might cause them would be purely accidental. But would they know that? We wrestled with the problem for a day or so, but in the end summoned up the courage to sign on. (And during the entire trip we saw only the hastily retreating tail end of one small snake that was probably more terrified than annoyed.)
We mustered the next morning for an orientation. Our guides, both very tall, bearded “Tazzies,” handed out an inordinate amount of stuff that had to be packed into small, but very heavy backpacks. The gear included waterproof jackets (which we put to good use almost immediately), and it all had to go into the backpacks in a certain correct order. Only when the guides were satisfied with our packing were we allowed to proceed to breakfast. Then it was into a bus for the 2½ hour drive to the trailhead.
The driver predicted that we were in for “weather,” and how right he was! It was pelting down by the time we got to the Cradle Valley entrance, and only let up occasionally during the day to turn into hail instead. These were some of the attractions the brochure promised for Day One:
˖ the dramatic glacially-carved Crater Lake
˖ famous and spectacular views of Cradle Mountain
˖ peaceful Plateau Creek
˖ towering Barn Bluff
˖ great views on a clear day but in rough weather the wind howls over the land making for exciting and often challenging walking conditions.
We found only the last 17 words to be true. We saw nothing all day, and were cold and wet. Our lunch was not by the peaceful Plateau Creek, as promised, but crammed into a shelter consisting of one very small room. The wind was blowing so ferociously that we had trouble opening the door to get in, and once in we found it already full of equally sodden hikers, packed like sardines. We noticed that there was a second floor to the hut, with a vertical ladder up to it and a sign saying “No more than 5 people.” The risk of building collapse was the least of our worries at that moment, so we climbed the ladder and joined the far-in-excess-of-five people already up there. They were spaced around the perimeter of the room, staring at the current attraction in the center: a sizable leech that another trekker had just pulled off herself. Unhappy with having had its meal interrupted, the leech appeared to be sizing up the surrounding menu options before deciding where to go next. Nor did the fact that we were completely encased in waterproof clothes give us any comfort; we'd already been told that leeches can make their way past virtually any obstruction to reach their next meal. We made short work of our soggy packed lunches, and couldn't wait to leave and get back out into the rain, hail, wind and cold.
We still had many hours of walking ahead of us. Most of it was on wooden walkways that have been installed over much of the CMOT in order to protect the fragile plant life underfoot. The planks are covered with a kind of chicken wire to prevent slipping, but are sufficiently narrow that one needs to keep an eye on where feet are being planted. And walking sticks, of course, are useless, which is unsettling to those of us who have come to rely on them for balance.
When we finally staggered into our lodge – Barn Bluff – we peeled off our soaking clothes and hung them around the fire in the warming room. Barn Bluff Hut was in many ways identical to the other huts we would be staying in. One of the objectives of the architects/designers must have been to leave as small a footprint as possible because although Cradle Mountain-Lake St. Clair National Park covers a vast area of wilderness, the bedrooms in the huts were scarcely big enough to swing a cat.
Bunk beds
Occasionally we were fortunate enough to get a room that had sufficient floor space for backpacks, but even that required major rearrangements before whoever got the upper bunk could actually get up to it. The bedrooms had no heat, and very little light, and the bathrooms (non-flushing) were on a different floor from the bedrooms. Our two guides doubled as cooks for the evening meal each night, and we hikers doubled as housekeepers, cleaning the huts before setting out each morning. We who had just come from the luxuries of the Great Ocean Walk were taken aback when we heard one of the Australian hikers in our group declare the huts “lovely, and far more luxurious and commodious” than she had expected.
The next day began with still more rain and drizzle, but that soon let up and we began to get some of the views we had been promised: Lakes Will and Windermere, the Forth River Gorge, Mounts Oakleigh and Ossa, Paddy's Nut, and Pelion West. At Pine Forest Moor Hut scones and cream awaited us.
By Day Three the weather had sorted itself out and become beautiful. The hiking was good, but we passed up the option of climbing Mount Oakleigh (a distant also-ran in the list of highest summits in Tasmania) in favor of an earlier arrival at Pelion Hut. There we had a pleasant card game going by the time the summiters straggled in, looking tired but triumphant. Having them find us sprawled decadently around a card table so shamed us that we resolved to climb the next mountain offered, no matter what the weather, what its height, or what our condition. That night an Italian hiker in our group, a retired chef, inserted himself into the dinner preparations and worked miracles with some canned soup.
But the next day our chickens came home to roost. There were two options: a 4-hour walk to Kia Ora Hut, or a 7 – 8 hour version which included the summit of Mount Ossa. Even if we hadn't been shamed by having chosen rummy over Mount Oakleigh the day before, Mount Ossa is the highest mountain in Tasmania (5,305 feet) and conveys bragging rights. Limited bragging rights, because no one has ever heard of it, but “highest” gives us enough raw material to work with. We first walked to Pelion Gap, a sort of crossroads where we abandoned our backpacks because the climb was going to entail too much clambering up and down large boulders for us to have those on our backs. They had to be tightly closed and zippered against the currawong birds, breakers and enterers of astonishing skill. (One woman in our group came back to find that her toothpaste and toothbrush had been extracted, sampled, and discarded, right next to her backpack.) All we needed to take with us were water, and caps and gloves for extra warmth at the summit. Our guides showed us an ingenious way of arranging everything needed in the hoods of our rain jackets, which would then be tied around our waists.
After lunch we divided into summiters and lodgers, and we summiters set off up a very steep (“assertive” in the parlance of our guide) and rocky slope for over an hour. We needed both hands to navigate the boulders, so poles were more of a hindrance than a help. We abandoned them as we went along, hoping our guides would remember where and would remind us to collect them on the way down. (They did.)
Finally we climbed through a “gateway” between two rocky tors, and onto the summit. There we were rewarded with wonderful views – 360°s – of the top of Tasmania, with mountain peaks all around. We gulped down gallons of water because it had been buried in the hoods of our jackets and pretty much inaccessible on the climb up. The guide handed around Cadbury's chocolate; a lot of the food Brits love most are available on that side of the world.
The 2½ hour descent was if anything more demanding than the ascent. It is easier to clamber up big boulders than to jump down them, or slither from one to the next. And as one of us was to discover soon thereafter, older legs to not take kindly to being used as shock absorbers.
She was merrily chatting to a fellow hiker so it was some time before she noticed that something black, fat and formless had affixed itself to her and had no intention of being merely shaken off lightly. There are recommended ways to remove an attached leech, including lighted matches and salt. Neither of those was available, and she would have lacked the presence of mind to use them even if they had been. Abandoning reason in favor of primitive animal instincts, she screamed and yanked it off. Still hungry but now annoyed and determined, Leechie didn't miss a beat before reattaching itself and investigating whether her fingers had anything to offer him. One of the guides was unimpressed that Leechie had only got as far as her ankle because the eatery of choice for leeches is a groin. (And sure enough, in the shower stall that night Suzy discovered that Leechie not only had one friend who had gone the extra mile and was contentedly feasting away in her groin before his meal too was unceremoniously ended; he had several cousins who were happily munching on her back. To her dismay, Ellie was forced to interrupt her beer drinking to come and pluck them off).
Leech-free, we spent a pleasant evening in the hut playing cards with a cheerful young Tazzie woman who worked for the Cradle Mountain Overland Track Company as a handywoman. She would walk from hut to hut, doing whatever needed to be done, be it cooking, cleaning, plumbing, electricity, digging wells, chopping wood – you name it. She walked alone, usually at night, and if a hut had no room for her in it, she would climb up and sleep on it, on the roof. An uncommon lifestyle, but one that had done nothing to blunt her ability to win at cards. Or to walk quickly. When we left the next morning she stayed behind to clean up after us and perform routine maintenance around the hut, and she still reached our destination at about the same time we did, striding briskly under a heavy backpack.
The last day on the Overland Track began earlier than usual with a 3+ hour walk to Lake St. Clair. We were not sorry to see the end in sight, mainly because Suzy's legs (now both) weren't recovering from Mount Ossa very quickly. (In her defence, MRIs later showed them to be fractured.) We walked through forests and over large roots until the only impediment between us and the finish line was another hanging bridge. This one lacked netting on the sides and had sizable gaps between the planks. Also a prominent sign warning that only one person at a time should attempt to cross. We hoped this had more to do with swinging and swaying than the structural integrity of the bridge.
Over we went, one of us showing uncommon bravery and the other grim determination to reach the end of the CMOT. A boat took us across Lake St. Clair, where a bus met us and took us back to where we had started out. Gear was returned, the obligatory group picture taken, and congratulations offered along with champagne and hors d'oeuvres. Before leaving Tasmania we fulfilled the standard tourist obligations by taking ourselves to Wineglass Bay, Port St. Arthur, and Hobart.
What to say about the two hikes we took in Australia? They were certainly a study in contrasts: sun vs rain, gourmet food vs canned soup, luxurious suite vs closet-sized room, strolling on the sand vs climbing almost vertical rock. We know we will never see all Australia has to offer, but our self-imposed guidelines don't require that of us. The Great Ocean Walk pampered us, but the Cradle Mountain Overland Track fulfilled most of what can be found on the Getting Started link. (Note that we reserve the right to revise that list at any time, without prior notice.)
click here to see a gallery of the photos