Installment 2 April 8th - Tassie South Coast Track

It's a real struggle sitting in an email café, it seemed so much easier when I was getting paid for it. Strangely I think you're more likely to receive postcards from me, I have sent one. And another that I spent a while writing got left in my gortex jacket and is now a big pile of paper mache, so sorry for that.
Since I last emailed you we have indeed been on the South coast track, basically:

Day 1
Fly into Mellacuca by single prop plane with one other person, dropped off on a gravel airstrip, with a population of 2. Walked for about 4 hours in fair weather to a beach. Got photos taken by Dutch photographer for some magazine or other.















Day2
Set of from Beach in fair weather, said good by to Dutch guy, this is the last person we saw for a while.
Mud.
300 metre climb
4 River crossings.




Day3
Ironbounds
Rain turns to sleet and gale force winds as we struggle over the 900 metre range, 4 hours of decent in roots and mud, when the path just disappeared into a raging waterfall. Waited an hour and now sign of it being less than a Niagra falls. Eventually found a tree across the river, and crawled across this. (Near death experience number 1)
After 8 hours in total collapsed into camp.















Day4
Mud, Rain, Mud, Rain, Beach, Gale force winds, need to row across an estuary about 250 metres wide. With the wind behind us we made the first crossing in about 4 minutes, got the second boat and headed back.
Heading back takes about 20 minutes, trying not to panic I was virtually in tears of pain as we struggled across.
And 4 minutes back again, probably the most relieved I've felt in several years. Collapsed in heap while Siobhan bought me back to life.
















Day5
Shortest day of 4 hours, only issue was a cliff climb at one end of the beach, with the sea smashing against it.
Made it, set up tent, ate, and then out of nowhere 3 people appeared in the other direction making us jump out of our skins, first contact with people.





























Day6
Mud Mud and mud. Got lost once, then after 2 hours presented with 4 of the toughest hours of hiking ever. Siobhan stepped off a route and went up to her waist in mud at one point. We got to river at the end of a long day that met the sea. So I waded into it to cross the mere 5 meters. By the time it was up to my waist and getting deeper, with waves coming across making it very dangerous, we decided to wait and see what happened.
It got dark so we camped on the track, not much sleep with worrying about getting across the creek the next day.















Day7
It turns out that the tides were all messed up by the cyclones in the North of Austrlia, so the next day, although it should have been low tide it was only a about half a meter lower. Luckily this was enough and I stepped across first with the water only crotch high. Very jubilant. However, when I stepped back to show Siobhan the route I couldn't find it, and must have been on a ledge. We fiddled around and eventually got across.
Much relief, I can tell you.
This took us back to civilization, well Cockle creek, nearest shop 75 Km away, and no bus for 24 hours. This meant we had to continue on pasta rations, whilst people pickniced around us (in driving rain you understand)















Day8
Hobart, 2 days of celebrating birthday.
















Anyway since then we've more or less fiddled around national parks and done a lot of day walks. We ventured into another park for a couple of nights, but its quite cold and theres an awfull lot of snow on the ground.





















Casade Brewery - Hobart, with Browny bear
















Snow man curtousy of Katy Hebourne - in the Labrynth (Lake St Clare)




















Swamp Gum Tree in the Styx





















The Tarn Shelf - mount Field national park















The Labrynth - Lake St Clare

















The Labrynth - Lake St Clare