don't believe the hype

overland-track

Well, I walked the Overland Track in Tasmania last week with my mother. It's a 5-night, 60km walk (not including side trips) from Cradle Mountain to Lake St Clair. The walk goes through the Tasmanian World Heritage area and it's spectacular country! Here's a trip diary...

Sunday 11th March: Drive to Melbourne, catch plane to Launceston. Walk around Launceston trying to find Shellite for my stove. Coles doesn't have it, and neither does the service station. Ring Cradle Mountain Visitor Centre. They have it so we decide to buy it there. Enjoy last normal meal for a while...
Monday 12th March: Catch 7am bus from Launceston to Cradle Mountain via Devonport. Arrive Visitor centre at 10am. Buy fuel, register for walk, catch shuttle bus to start. Begin walking at 11.15am (18 months after first deciding to do the walk). 700m of boardwalk leads to a pleasant climb through rainforest (150m of altitude gain). Pack starts to feel heavy. Pass Crater Lake (very pretty) where people are swimming. Climb another 50m to a lunch spot. Climb a steep section which chains to grab onto the plateau and stop at Marion's Lookout to get great views of Dove Lake and Cradle Mountain. Walk across the plateau to Kitchen Hut. Stash packs there (glad to get them off). From here the climb to the top of Cradle Mountain is 250m of altitude, it's pretty steep and most of it is over a jumble of boulders. Return trip takes 2.5 hours. Mum stops about 3/4 of the way up. From the top the rest of the day's walk is clearly visible. Walk back down and have a bit of a break before picking up the packs again. Skirt around the west side of Cradle Mountain until past it and turn towards Barn Bluff (track here is pretty bad due to large rocks and rotten wood). About half way between Cradle Mtn and Barn Bluff, the track reaches a junction where we turn left (south) and drop into Waterfall Valley. By the time we reach the hut I am feeling real tired. Lucky tomorrow is only a short one!
Tuesday 13th March: Follow good track skirting around a ridge that runs SE from Barn Bluff. Once past this, we reach a wooden platform to put our packs on while we make the 1hr return trip to Lake Will, which is tucked in just south of Barn Bluff. The weather is unbelievably good and we take our lunch. We eat it on a small beach (complete with sand) on the shore of Lake Will. After returning to our packs, we hike another hour to Windermere hut (next to a lake). Mum is feeling pretty wrecked. We get to the hut at about 2pm which gives us some good recovery time. I manage to finally convince Mum to dump some of the food which she put in at the last minute (just in case). Unfortunately you can't really afford to carry extra kilos when you're as small as her. She is also not sleeping and one of the group of nurses sharing the hut with us gives her a quarter of a tablet to help. Hopefully she will feel better tomorrow, or it will be a long trip!
Wednesday 14th March: Mum is feeling much better after getting 6 hours of sleep (instead of 2 like she has been). Today is a long day, 5 hours of walking, so we get up early and are on the track shortly after 8. When we saddle up, she comments that her pack is much lighter, so it looks like we'll be OK. For the first couple of hours, the track heads SSE across the plains toward Mt Pelion West. This is easy walking, pretty flat with just a couple of short climbs and descents. There is a lookout about 200m off the track where we later find out one of the nurses stumble while trying to put her pack on, and was saved from falling over the edge by one of her friends who grabbed her! I get really hungry and eat lunch at about 11am. Once we get to the slopes of Mt Pelion West, the track enters forest and skirts around the eastern flanks of the mountain. We know we need to lose about 200m of altitude to get down to Frog Flats (in the valley) and then gain it again on the way to the hut. We walk for another hour and a half through forest without feeling like we're going downhill, and then suddenly we're at Frog Flats, which comes as a surprise. We stop for a brief break and then continue as we figure we might as well get the day finished and it's only about 12.30. We re-enter the forest on the other side of the valley and walk continuously uphill along muddy track to reach the Pelion Plains. From there, I figure it's only a short hop to the hut and I speed up. Half an hour later I'm still walking and I am slowing down! But eventually the hut appears and it's a big new hut with 6 separate sleeping rooms (sleep 6 each) and a big kitchen/eating area. Not to mention a fantastic view of Mt Oakleigh from the porch! Very nice! Since we started walking so early, it's only about 2 and we have all afternoon to lounge around.
Thursday 15th March: We are on the track by 8 again as it was really good to get going early yesterday. The track goes pretty much directly south today, over the Pelion Gap. To get to the gap we walk a couple of kilometres along flat ground, and then we have a steepish climb that seems to go on forever. This section take an hour and a half. James (who is also doing the track with his mother) and I team up as we both want to go up Mt Ossa today which is a four hour side trip. Once we reach the Gap, we dump our packs, have a quick break and then set off. The track climbs very steeply up the side of Mt Doris (which is a rounded peak next to Mt Ossa) and then skirts around the South side of it to get across to Mt Ossa. You get great views here, there are lots of dolerite cliffs around and you can see back north to Barn Bluff and Cradle Mtn from the saddle between Mt Doris and Mt Ossa. After this saddle the track becomes VERY steep and climbs about 300m up to a small saddle between two dolerite stacks. By the time James and I reach this point my legs feel like rubbish and we get a view of the other side - where the track descends briefly and then goes up again! I have to admit that while I was walking up that section I had to rest about every 20m. The mountain has a surprisingly large flat area on top (the size of a paddock) and follow the track across this to a pile of boulders which is the summit. We sit there for a little while and marvel at how high it is compared to other peaks (Mt Ossa does NOT look like it's the highest peak from the track so it's surprising). Then we head down which feels much better as it uses different muscles. After descending we have a longish break for lunch and then set off for the hut. As we descend from the Gap, clouds come over. We reach the hut at about 3.30 and shortly after that it starts raining. Well, we knew the weather was too good to last the whole trip!
Friday 16th March: Still raining when we get up, and it seems to have set in. Oh well, break out the raincoats. We have decided to go to the end today, skipping one hut, as we need to catch the 9.30 ferry on Saturday. The morning's walking is tough - we spend 3 and a half hours trying not to twist our ankles or fall over due to the slippery tree roots. We are walking through wonderful rainforests with huge mossy trees - it feels like it's straight from Lord Of The Rings. We also cross Du Cane Gap in the morning, it is not as tough as Pelion but we are tired now. It's the last uphill section and it will be good to get it done. I get ahead a little and arrive at the top of the gap (easy to miss as it's only marked with a small metal Land Survey marker stuck to a boulder) with my shirt soaked in sweat. I wait for 5 minutes and then decide to continue as I am wet and getting cold. We have been walking today with a girl called Maude from Quebec and so Mum will have some company. I continue until the Windy Ridge hut where we will have lunch. As soon as I get there the rain comes down, and I put some water on for the others so they can at least get a hot drink. The water boils and I wonder where they are but they eventually arrive, very wet. We have lunch and are glad that we aren't going to be sitting in this hut with 12 others for the whole afternoon. The rain eases and we set off again, it's all downhill from here to the end. As we pass down the valley the weather gradually improves, and our pace quickens. Toward the end we are feeling very sore and our legs move slower. When will it end? We reach a suspension bridge and we can now tell it can only be another 20 minutes or so. Finally we reach the hut, it is the oldest hut so far. We'd hoped that it would be more or less empty due to people catching the ferry this afternoon. It is not very full and the people seem nice. We rest for a couple of hours and then after dinner a game of 500 starts. We play a few hands and then 4 guys show up just before dark. They have come all the way from Pelion hut! Turns out they ran out of cigarettes and decided to finish ASAP. One of them has twisted his ankle and looks like he's been in pain for a while - his face is very drawn. They decide to sleep in the kitchen to avoid making it crowded.
Saturday 17th March: Wake up, eat, catch the ferry (it was late) and head to the Visitor Centre for food, drink and a spot in front of the fire. Catch the bus to Hobart. That night I lost my mobile phone in Hobart which was rather annoying.
Sunday 18th March: Fly to Melbourne, drive back home.

You meet some really cool people walking the track, and you share the huts with the same people most of the time. We got to know a few. The ones I remember most are:
* A group of 4 Americans - 15-year-old, his grandparents and one of his great uncles. The grandparents had spent the last 14 or so years riding the bikes in various parts of the world and had done about 40,000 km. The kid was home-schooled and had been travelling with them for 4 months.
* Another mother and son (I mentioned them above)
* A German couple who walked in the Arm River track, did Mt Oakleigh and Mt Ossa and then walked back. They always carried their packs as she had gotten lost and spent a night out before.

So, all in all it was good fun and great views.