Tasmania
Trip Start
Jan 13, 2009
1
6
17
Trip End
Ongoing
Hobart, Australia
Saturday, April 11, 2009
During our 2-day stop in Melbourne, a nice enough but totally unremarkable city, we stayed in a backpacker hostel that was a definite throwback to the college dorm days. "Great" to be back among drunk dudes running the halls at 3 in the morning, and techno music blaring through the whole floor. We sure have missed that ambience... Anyway, it was worth checking out one the main cities of the country.
A short flight across Bass Strait took us to Tasmania, our reason for coming to this side of the continent. We landed in Hobart, the largest town in "Tassie," and managed to rent a car once the slacker dude manning the counter rolled out of bed and made it to work over an hour late. Next, of course, was the mandatory awkwardness of again getting accustomed to driving on the left-hand side of the road. We were pros at this by the time we left New Zealand after owning a car there for 3 months, but it's been 9 years since then. (Yeah, that's right, 9!). Dan did the driving; Melanie, in addition to navigating, had the all-important job of reminding Dan to stay in the left lane, turn into the left lane, stay left, STAY LEFT!!! Actually, we picked it up again quite quickly, and by the second day it was pretty much dialed. (Just as safe as driving in the US...or in other words, quite dangerous.)
We checked out Hobart and surrounds for a couple days. Hobart is a great town. One of the most striking things for us about Tasmania is just how Oregon-esque it is. Situated at about 40-43 degrees latitude and experiencing a cool maritime climate, the parallels-both tangible and intangible-are everywhere. Temperate conditions, plenty of rain, a large commercial fishing fleet, oceanside communities, high mountains, apple orchards, vineyards, and even rainforests with huge trees and timber wars to match. Feels like home!
The centerpiece of our Tasmania visit was a 6-day kayak outing to the remote wilderness waters of the island's southwest corner. The Port Davey Marine Reserve and surrounding Southwest National Park are a big part of the Tasmanian World Heritage Area, a wild region of mountains and coastline encompassing some 20% of Tasmania. A big reason this corner is still unpopulated by humans is that it is quite a harsh climate. It's lashed by the full brunt of the "Roaring Forties," the infamous band of strong westerly winds and storms that circle the globe at this latitude. The Port Davey and Bathurst Harbor region is not a place to be taken lightly...
First, this outing involved a bush plane flight to a remote airstrip, in a single-engine Cessna 206. We were delayed by an incoming storm system (surprise!), complete with pounding rain and rolling thunder and lightning. Once conditions cleared enough, we were able to take the indirect route around the southern Tasmania coast. Quite a flight. On one side, stunning coastal scenery with some of the most beautiful ocean cliff-scapes we've seen, being pounded by big surf; on the other side, a stormy Southern Ocean stretching to the southern horizon and, beyond sight, Antarctica.
We arrived at the remote Bathurst Harbor airstrip (a strip of gravel piled onto a wetland), loaded the double kayak with our mountain of gear (all the while avoiding the nest of giant biting ants...it is Australia after all, where seemingly everything is poisonous, spiny, or predatory), and pushed off into dark waters. After 6 miles of hard paddling, we barely managed to make it to an old cabin before nightfall, but not quite before the next storm cell hit. A race against heavy rain and wind. It was clear this storm system would bring some nasty conditions, true to character. It poured and poured for several hours, then quite suddenly it stopped, as if a faucet had been turned off. The abruptness of these showers would be repeated many times over the next few days.
The next day was our big push west, into the teeth of the westerly winds being funneled through Bathurst Narrows. Paddling on narrow waterways through 2000-foot tall mountains covered in grassland and forest, we encountered stronger and stronger winds and bigger and bigger waves. Our progress was made by crossing a series of exposed channels, with frequent rests in sheltered coves at every possible chance. At our final crossing of a large side bay, the wind had attained sustained speeds of 20-25 knots, gusting to 35 or more. Some wind gusts required just ducking our heads to keep a low profile and trying to keep our paddles moving, even if we actually were blown backwards a bit. The waves were 4-5 feet tall, steep, close together, and breaking. Melanie, being in the front cockpit, got fairly soaked whenever the bow of the kayak plunged into the face of the waves. But our boat was very stable and stayed upright and, most of the time, moved in a forward direction...slowly.
We found a nice camp on a narrow spit of land covered in a forest of eucalyptus and tea trees, right in the center of the Port Davey Wilderness. We used this as our base camp for the next several days, watching storms blow through and going for a few long paddle outings around the area. We were continually impressed by how fast the weather and water conditions changed here. They say that about every place, but this one has anywhere else we've been beat by a long shot. The water would change from a mellow, inviting, more or less smooth surface to a raging white-water squall with breaking waves and angry wind gusts, all in less than half a minute. After the squall passed, conditions would change back just as fast. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in a boater.
Southwest National Park is not renowned for productive ecosystems, being lashed by the Southern Ocean and having poor soils. We did see several interesting and colorful birds (even bright parrots) and marine life, and we had a wallaby (a small type of kangaroo) and her baby hang around our camp. We never got to see them, but we heard them at night and followed their tracks around by day. Mostly, however, this is a place to experience what feels like the southern edge of the world. The starkness, moodiness, and violence of this unique corner of the globe is something one feels as much as sees or hears. When the full moon shined through the parting clouds, reflecting off quiet black waters and eucalyptus canopies, it was hard to believe this was the same place we could barely travel through just hours earlier.
The last two days of our trip saw good weather and smooth water, especially for our return paddle to the airstrip. When we returned from our trip (beautiful flight over the mountains of western Tasmania) we met up with our friends from Oregon, John and Melissa and their 4-year-old son, Sam. It is really, really great to see friends from home when halfway around the world. The next day we embarked on a 13-hour epic drive across the entire island, over the mountainous spine of Tasmania's World Heritage Wilderness Area. A major highlight of that trip was exploring the giant eucalyptus forests, which have some of the largest trees in the world. We ended up at a wonderful private nature reserve, the Mountain Valley Wilderness Holidays, where we saw Tasmanian devils, platypus, cute possums (yes, cute), glow worms, and many, many wallabies, not to mention numerous birds. Tasmania is an incredible place to visit, highly recommended.
