The Not-So-Plain Plains: Part 3

There’s a problem trying to have a grandpa nap when your bushwalking companions are so darned interesting! As I lie in my tent after our long day of off-track walking, I’m hoping to have at least a micro nap before getting up to enjoy an afternoon and evening in our beautiful forest. But Tim, Merran and Libby are having a fascinating discussion, just within earshot. My curious mind usurps my tired one, and I lie there enjoying the chatter. I’m occasionally tempted to call out with my 2 bobs worth, but I refrain. Instead, after a small rest, I emerge from my cocoon and join the others.

[Resting, but not asleep]

Tim is setting up the tarp over our kitchen area, and I lend my lack-of-expertise to the exercise. Part of the reason for camping inside the forest is that showers and strong winds are forecast some time later. So we welcome the idea of a dry area for cooking and relaxing. Tim continues to tweak the tarp for some minutes, flicking some paracord over a branch, tightening a couple of knots, tautening a corner. Finally he exhales in satisfaction and sits on his camp chair under the tarp. We all do the same, feeling we’ve earned some downtime.

 

[Merran, Tim and Libby being interesting!]

We converse sparsely but comfortably as we feel the peace of the forest settling on us. If “Tim’s” forest had a grandma myrtle, this forest has both the matriarch and the patriarch of all pencil pines. We are truly in awe of these giant pines; older, taller and less scathed than any we’ve ever seen in our long years of walking in the Tasmanian highlands. They stand just metres from our tents, surrounded by their kith and kin, as well as a myriad other green and growing things. Wendel Berry, reflecting on the forests of his Kentucky farm, wrote “in the stillness of the trees I am at home.” We can only say amen to that.

[Green - and brown - peace inside our forest]

The weather holds overnight, although cloud cover is thickening as we breakfast. We stick with our plan to explore more of the area. This time we start by walking the width of our special forest. Thick layers of brilliant green moss and variegated brown leaf litter muffle the crunch of our bootsteps as we pick our way north. We emerge from the forest into what feels like bright daylight, and climb a small hill which looks down to a wide tarn. One shore of the lake is fringed by sphagnum and pencil pines; the other is rockier, and favoured by sparse eucalypt growth. 

[Pines on one side, eucalypts on the other]

As we circumnavigate the tarn, light rain begins to fall. We pause to put on rain gear – the first time on the whole trip – then continue exploring the lakeshore. We stop in a wide grassy section on one side of the lake, and can see plenty of animal traces such as pads and droppings. We conjecture that this would have been an ideal hunting ground for the palawa Aboriginal people, with hiding places such as rocks and trees adjacent to the grazing ground.

[Contorted pencil pine beside a tarn]

We now walk west for some time, and the rain showers come and go. There are no tracks, but we gladly follow wombat pads, as they can provide a route of sorts, given that wombats generally avoid the thickest scrub. There is a caveat however: these squat creatures are rather better than humans at walking under bushes. 

 

And now we draw close to areas that we walked through yesterday, but decide we’ll vary our route by making for a particular valley that the other three visited a few years ago. Bizarrely on that trip they came across a completely intact board game of Trivial Pursuit in the wilderness. We wonder if we can find this needle in a haystack again. Both Tim and Libby are sure they recognise certain landmarks.

 

[A fruitless pursuit down valley towards the plateau's edge]

They wander all over the place in what looks a rather brown’s-cows fashion. But despite their efforts, they can find neither the exact location nor the game. Perhaps the “0.5%” has come back to finish the game, and then taken it home again. Disappointed by this fruitless pursuit, and by the continuing showers, we walk quickly down to the southern lip of the Februaries. There we pause for lunch, in the shelter of some dolerite slabs. 

[Overland Track peaks from the edge of February Plains]

[Red seed heads of mountain rocket]

Between showers we catch views south over The Pelions and the Cathedral Plateau. But a cold, whipping wind and increasingly sharp showers make lunch a hurried affair. We’re soon off in the direction of the Tarn of Islands, knowing that not far beyond that we’ll find the stillness and peace of our home forest.

 

[Time to head for our forest home!]

Back “home” the wisdom of both a forest camp and a good tarp become clear. We fit neatly beneath the tarp, and sit sipping a warm drink to the sound of wind shooshing through the trees. Some of the younger trees sway and creak excitably as the strong south-west wind sets in. At ground level we only feel occasional wafts of wind. Even the patter of rain on the tarp is softened by the overhead umbrella of trees. 

 

It’s April, and with our part of the planet tilting away from the sun, afternoon soon morphs into evening. Likewise afternoon nibbles meld into dinner. There’s a moment of meal envy for Libby, who hasn’t had much time to prepare dinners before the walk. But she’s made up for it by providing generously in the cheese department, King Island blue, no less! At the end of the day, no-one will go to bed hungry.

Central Plateau Variations: Part 3

[Who else has walked here?]

It’s rare to walk the Earth and not be following in the footsteps of others. At our first campsite, we’d sat relaxed and content – when the weather allowed – and imagined the Palawa, Tasmania’s Aboriginal people, doing much the same over tens of thousands of years. The shelter, the water, the hunting, the clear views, would all have made this a wonderful summer place. What stories, songs and dances must they have shared here, and passed on for countless generations?

[A place of contentment]

For the Palawa, European invasion stopped all that, whether though disease, forced eviction, or deliberate killings. Others would now eye off this high country for their own purposes, and they did so quickly. In the 1830s, when G. A. Robinson (the so-called protector of Aboriginals), travelled through the Central Plateau to round up any remaining Aboriginals, he noted that “wild cattle was seen grazing … and several young calves appeared among them”. 

So this “empty” Central Plateau became a favoured place on which to summer livestock. It’s estimated that between 1860 and 1920, up to 350,000 sheep and 6,000 cattle were summered up here annually. This is tranhumance on a grander scale than I’d ever imagined. Gradually cattle became more highly favoured than sheep, and by the late 1870s, settlers from the Mersey Valley and surrounding districts had acquired cattle grazing leases on the plateau. They built tracks such as Higgs Track, Warners Track and Dixons Track so they could drive stock up to the high country each summer.

But as we were discovering first hand, the “warmer” months on the plateau can still be harsh, making navigation difficult. Around 1913 a farmer from Meander named Charles Ritter, who had leases in the Walls of Jerusalem area, thought to make a safer all-weather drove route from the top of Higgs Track/Ironstone Hut area to the Walls. It was probably completed by 1918, and became known as Ritters Track. While it was called a track, I had long wondered whether it was ever more than a series of large rock cairns that could be followed even in rough weather. On our fourth day, we were hoping to find out for ourselves.

[An old sketch map by Keith Lancaster, showing Ritters Track]

The night had been exceedingly windy, and none of us had slept much. Jim wasn't feeling great after a poor sleep punctuated by some unwelcome toilet trips in the dark. We’d already decided to adapt our schedule, allowing for another night here at Pencil Pine Tarn, and a short wander today. That meant Jim could stay back and “keep our camp secure”, which he generously volunteered to do. The rest of us would pack lunch and a day pack, and go in search of Ritters Track.

Three years earlier we’d half-heartedly looked for some cairns between here and Long Tarns. That time we’d only had some rough, third-hand notes, and our explorations hadn’t allowed us to say with any certainty that the cairns we found were part of Ritters Track. This time, we had not one but two lots of GPS data indicating the supposed locations of Ritter’s cairns. The only thing against us was the weather, which remained showery and ferociously windy: in short exactly the kind of weather Ritter hoped his track would deal with.

[Tim contemplates the route]

Tim and Larry, our two GPS-bearers, lead the way, at first taking us almost east, seemingly back to where we’d come from. I expressed my surprise, but Tim assured me we’d soon swing south. And once we’d picked up a cairn, we’d start heading more south-west. 

Before long one of our navigators signalled us to join him. According to his GPS, we were within 20 metres of one of the cairns. But what were we looking for? A pile of rocks in a landscape made of rocks? And rocks that have been glaciated, ice-shattered, and scattered about willy-nilly over aeons? The five of us wandered about, a little clueless, until someone finally had their eureka moment. 

[Surely a Ritters Track cairn?]

We hurried over towards an obviously human creation: four or five rocks piled high atop a large boulder, forming a rough and wonky pyramid. If the cairn’s size wasn’t the clincher, the mop of long, grey/green lichen on the rocks was. This indicated it was no recent or random cairn, but one put here deliberately, and many decades ago.

[Tim and Larry spy out the next cairn]

The next couple of hours saw us slowly following our navigational nerds from cairn to cairn. Sometimes the next cairn was visible from the current one, but at other times we were glad to have the GPS data. This was not the sort of “track” that, once found, you could easily follow. Apparently Ritter didn’t choose a straight-line route towards the Walls of Jerusalem (which today was clear to see ahead of us). Rather he kept to higher, less boggy ground, winding around the plateau on ground over which cattle could more easily move.

[A clear view towards the Walls of Jerusalem]

Another matter sometimes confused us. We found multiple other cairns dotted across the landscape. Some we considered Ritteresque: good copies, but not originals. Others were mere wannabes: poor imitations that lacked size or age, the creation perhaps of bushwalkers or anglers. Our rule of thumb was that a true Ritter cairn would be substantial, vaguely pyramidal, made with care, and bearded with lichen. We came to admire the labour that Charles Ritter, presumably with the help of his fellow drovers, had put into building the many dozens of cairns. The heavy rocks would have taken some effort to move, and the conditions for doing that work would seldom have been ideal.

[Libby inspects another genuine Ritter cairn]

As we walked, we imagined driving cattle through this terrain. How different it would have been to walk or ride here accompanied by the sound of hoofs and mooing; the steam from their breath; the swish of their tails; the slop of the slush beneath their hard hoofs; the smell of dung and drover alike. We could admire, celebrate even, the hard labour of these cattlemen, without wishing that this was still happening. Clearly driving and grazing cattle between here and the central Walls – where the best grazing was found – made a mess, and altered the landscape hugely. The unsustainability of the practice, both environmentally and economically, led to grazing being prohibited above the 3000ft contour (914m) in 1973. 

[Tim and Merran at our lunch stop]

While it had been fascinating to follow the footsteps of Ritter, after lunch it was time to complete our off-track loop back to the campsite. We were beginning to wonder how another grey-bearded fixture was doing. We found Jim relaxing in the sun, which had finally made a welcome return. As Tim placed his small solar panel in the same patch of sun as Jim, I remarked that we now had two solar collectors. Then, over a relaxing afternoon tea, we swapped stories of our day. Jim noticed that a couple of us were red in the face, and when we conjectured that a combination of windburn and sunburn might be to blame, he was all the gladder for his rest day.

[Two solar collectors hard at work]

When the shade from the pines started overtaking us, we followed the sun up the hill. It was good to gain a little altitude, to change our perspective, and to feel a windless sun after 48 hours of gales. Eventually we wandered back down to the camp, and we were soon off to our tents. How good it felt to be in that now quiet space, without wind tearing my every thought away.

[A calm Pencil Pine Tarn]

In that calm state, I began to ponder on our walk, and to think about the footsteps we had followed to this point. Whether it was those of the Palawa, those of the cattlemen, or those of the pioneer bushwalkers, the ones who were here before us are now gone. Without feeling at all morbid, I apprehended afresh my own impermanence. None of us – grey-bearded or not – will hang around even as long as Ritter’s cairns. Sooner or later each of us will follow in the footsteps of those who are gone. 

It was in a time of pandemic, nearly 400 years ago, that poet John Donne reflected so powerfully on this. 

No man is an island, 

entire of itself, 

every man is a piece of the continent, 

a part of the main; … 

any man's death diminishes me, 

because I am involved in mankind,  

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; 

It tolls for thee. 

Freycinet Experiences 3: The Path Less Trodden

[Treading lightly on the Friendly Beaches] 

In my family we call it “explorer blood”. It’s the urge to see new places; to choose different routes; to go that little bit further to see what’s over that hill. I have it, my father had it, and his father had it before him. But I didn’t expect it to come into play here, on the Freycinet Peninsula, which feels known to me, tamed even.

Yet as we walk from White Water Wall towards Bluestone Bay, I start to get that old tingling in the blood. It rises as Jodi tells us we’ll be taking a route that is not well known; not often walked. It’s certainly new to me.

We carefully scrub our boots at the bay. We don’t want to be responsible for introducing Phytophthora root rot here. That fungal infection has already killed many susceptible plants in other parts of the national park, and we don’t want to carry it in on any infected mud on our boots.

[Boot scrubbing at Bluestone Bay] 

Overnight it rained, pattering on the roof of our accommodation, lulling us to sleep after our long day of walking. Today it’s cool and windy, and there are still showers about. At the bay we watch a pair of sea kayakers launch into the water. We hope they hug close to the steep cliff-bound shore in these blustery conditions.

As we climb through the bush I imagine how Aboriginal people would have used their rafts along this coast over thousands of years, hunting the seals and sea birds that are still prolific here. We pass a midden which holds clues to other parts of their diet; especially shellfish and marsupials.

[A distant sea kayak near Bluestone Bay ... click image to enlarge]

We’re soon high above the rocky coastline, and looking down on the kayaks, now just small dashes on the corrugated dapple of the sea. It’s exhilarating to be here, like seeing an old friend doing new things in a new context.

[Looking back towards Cape Tourville] 

Most of us take a break at a high point with a view back towards Cape Tourville, but Jodi pushes on to some place she and Eric refer to as “the yellow rock café”. When we finally catch her up we get the joke. Jodi has hooked up a large yellow tarp over an improvised table. An amazing lunch spread covers the “table”, actually a piece of duckboard track. 

[Jodi and Eric at the Yellow Rock Cafe] 

After lunch we start the slow descent towards Freshwater Lagoon, at the southernmost end of the Friendly Beaches. There are old disused tin mines and random exploration digs in the area. Most are now just revegetated holes in the bush, which is thicker here in the sheltered low hills.

[On the descent to Freshwater Lagoon] 

We eventually get back to well trodden paths in the form of an old exploration track. This soon leads us to the coast at Freshwater Lagoon. On the beach we see our first other people of the afternoon: a family playing a game of beach cricket. As though to join in this pretence of summer, Eric and a couple of others go in for a swim. The day is now calm, and the low sun glitters off the ocean as we watch both swimmers and cricketers.

[A chilly dip at the southern end of the Friendly Beaches] 

We still have 3 or 4 km to walk up the beach and back to the Friendly Beaches Lodge, but in these conditions that will hardly be a trial. It’s time for boots off and trousers rolled. That makes me think of T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”.

I grow old ... I grow old ...

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

[Trousers rolled ... or shorts on for a walk up the Friendlies]  

But my own trousers are neither white nor flannel, and today I feel far less maudlin about ageing than Eliot. If there are mermaids singing today they are just the crested terns which pose and chatter and wheel as we stroll up the beach.

[Crested terns on the Friendly Beaches] 

From City to Summit 5: Generations

While sitting atop Sphinx Rock I’m thinking about generations. Our family has been visiting this lookout rock for more than thirty years, but how many generations of Hobartians have done the same before us? And how many generations of the Mouheneener Aboriginal band came to this perfect outlook and its “downstairs” shelters? More than a thousand?

[Emily looks back on Hobart from the Zig Zag Track]

Our own three generations delight in the views and the lunch provided by Lynne. But my mission to get to the top in good time keeps popping into my mind, as well as the question of who‘s going to join me for the final stage. As I bite into my apple, I learn that it’s all sorted. Our eldest granddaughter, 9 year old Emily, is set to accompany me to the top.

The two of us set off, Emily bounding ahead, bursting to climb her first mountain. At a similar age I thought to do the same, also after a family picnic. I had crossed the Hawkesbury River, west of Sydney, clambered up the far bank, and begun climbing the Blue Mountains. Or so I thought, until I was dragged back after a sister informed on me.

For Emily it is actually happening. We follow the Sawmill Track steeply up through rocky scree, cross the Pinnacle Road, then angle back towards the aptly named Organ Pipes. Emily asks if the dolerite pillars are the actual top. I tell her we have to take the Zig Zag Track around the Organ Pipes before we get to the summit. She just smiles and skips ahead to find herself a walking stick.

[Looking down on the city from the Organ Pipes Track] 

My thoughts turn to gloomier matters: namely plans for a cable car that would slice through the sky above here. I am revolted by the idea; by the thought that this mountain, this sky, this view, could be visually “mined” by a company for their profit. And for the convenience and momentary thrill of some.

I have travelled on cable cars in the European Alps. History, geography, snow and a huge population warrant their use there. None of those factors pertains here. Tasmania is not Europe, and can’t try to be. Our strength is wildness, not amusement rides. But besides the aesthetic and environmental objections, I also doubt that an economic case could be made for this venture. I fear seeing State government money – our money – being endlessly siphoned off to rescue a failed venture. Tasmanian history is littered with such stories.

[The view south over Storm Bay and the Channel from the Zig Zag] 

Emily and I walk on beneath what could become invaded space, violated silence. We are making statements with our feet. It’s the very day thousands are doing the same in support of the threatened World Heritage forests of the Florentine. We do what we can, and we hope.

At around 900m the Sawmill Track hits the Organ Pipes Track, and we jag left. I’ve been telling Emily about the tree line, and she notices that the trees are starting to get shorter. She’s also curious about the source of the Hobart Rivulet. As we turn onto the Zig Zag Track, each fresh flow of water prompts her to wonder whether the Rivulet might start here.

["Is this the source of the Hobart Rivulet?"] 

We catch up with a group of adults who are also heading for the summit. They are very impressed with Emily’s efforts. She smiles shyly, but I think she’s pleased. If she needed any extra encouragement, the timing is good. The track is now into its steepest section, drawing adjacent to the southern flanks of the Organ Pipes. “That’s why it has to zig zag” I tell her.

More interesting to her are the small patches of snow we start to find. Briefly Emily forgets all about the mountain. She whips off her gloves, plunges her hands into the snow, flings snow balls around, even fashions a miniature snow man.  Eventually, and for the first time on the walk, I have to urge her to keep moving. Clouds are threatening to obscure our summit views.

[Getting close to the top of kunanyi/Mt Wellington] 

Then we turn a corner and the track becomes a long, broad hump stretching towards the highest point. In concentrating on how Emily was faring I’ve almost forgotten that this my destination: the 1271m summit of kunanyi/Mt Wellington. All that remains is to climb the humble pile of boulders that surrounds the high point and its trig station, and join hands in triumph. A German tourist kindly captures the moment for us on my camera.

[We made it! Emily joins me on the summit]

Then it’s back to the car, which has been left for us in the nearby car park. If I’m inclined to think this a little anti-climactic, Emily snaps me out of it by putting the traditional pile of snow on the bonnet of the car. I remember afresh to be proud of my young apprentice, and give her a congratulatory hug. May we share many more summits!

Melaleuca: Down the River of Time

That night we play cards in the ranger’s hut: a game of “Up and Down the River”. Despite my ignorance of the rules, I finish equal second, almost clinching a card-shark reputation.

On the walk back to my Nissen Hut a full moon sails clear of cloud. I take my camera down to Moth Creek to try and photograph her reflections. I always seem to think of the moon as feminine. The creek is wide and still, and the moon reflects perfectly from its molten, dark surface. But my photographs fail to capture her wonderful light and alluring face. Some faces just resist being well photographed. I suppose that’s what memory is for.

The molten surface of Moth Creek, Melaleuca, SW Tasmania 

Though I’m standing on a modern jetty, the moon reminds me that this area holds far older stories. It's highly plausible to view this whole south-west landscape as an artefact of Aboriginal burning over 30-40 000 years. Looking at the broad expanses of buttongrass, and the relatively small patches of forest, it makes sense.

Buttongrass thrives under a regime of regular, if small scale, firing. If its left unburned, scrub and then forest start to assert themselves over moorland. With rainfall as high as what is received here, you would, under other circumstances, expect to find much more rainforest. Indeed you do find it along rivers and in sheltered patches, but it’s not as expansive as it might be.

Why did Aboriginal Tasmanians burn this country? Two reasons stand out. Firstly fire in buttongrass moorland is followed by strong regrowth, and this “green-pick” attracts grazing animals. They are more easily seen, and more easily hunted, when concentrated in a small recently-burned patch. Secondly a burned landscape is easier to move through than a scrub-covered one. That’s good for a nomadic people, as any bushwalker could confirm!

A well-fed pademelon: one marsupial favoured by the selective burning of moorland 

The so-called “conciliator of Aborigines”, G.A. Robinson, walked through this area with his party in 1830. Whatever harm his attempts to round-up and resettle the original Tasmanians might have done, he seems to have been motivated by a genuine concern for them as human beings. This, remember, occurred during a time of martial law in an often lawless colony. Life was cheap, and the lives of natives, for some, ranked below that of livestock. The impact and worth of Robinson's missions may be vigorously debated, for sure. But on a purely physical level, his journeys through this country were extraordinary.

For over four months, Robinson and a party of up to 20, journeyed from Recherche Bay in the south-east to the far south-west and west coasts. They walked first along what are now the South Coast and Port Davey Tracks, at the time either untracked or Aboriginal routes. They then travelled to places as fearful - and exciting - to bushwalkers as the Western Arthur Range and the west coast between Window Pane Bay and Macquarie Harbour.

An aerial view of the rugged Western Arthur Range in fine weather! 

Robinson kept a detailed journal, at times accutely describing the ruggedness and beauty of the landscape; at others bemoaning the numerous illnesses, personnel difficulties and weather set-backs of the summer/autumn trip. An excerpt from 10 March 1830, gives a flavour.

Here nature appeared in all her pristine forms; perpendicular cliffs, immense chasms through which the water was heard to gush with frightful roar, mountain tops hid in the clouds, and anon the piercing wind gushing up the ravines rendered our situation truly uncomfortable.

I continued still very unwell. Yet there was no alternative; to decline was useless. No medical assistant, no friend near to soothe or to offer consolation. The night excessive cold.

While the party was occasionally re-supplied by boat, it was otherwise self-sufficient. I marvel at this mixed group of British and Aboriginal men making such a journey without all the 'survival' gear modern walkers count essential. But then Robinson and co. had both the assistance of the 'natives' (as they called them) and the psychological goad of not wanting to concede to 'weakness' in front of the same.

The dubious reputation of Robinson within the contemporary Tasmanian Aboriginal community is tempered for some by the detailed observations he made of Aboriginal life, beliefs and customs in the 1830s. While he may not always be trusted as accurate, there are precious few other contemporary accounts.

We've noted already that Robinson saw many Aboriginal huts around Melaleuca, and that the area appeared to be a “resort” for the Needwonee people. Apart from having a good supply of water, game and especially swan's eggs, the area between Melaleuca and Cox Bight also appears to have had a strong spiritual significance. 

Through conversation with his Aboriginal companions, Robinson learned that one of their central creation stories took place here. In that tale one of the ancestor spirits, Moinee, “was hurled from heaven and dwelt on the earth, and died and was turned into a stone and is at Coxes Bight.” This is probably at Point Eric, in the middle of the bight.

Visiting this broad, bleak and beautiful landscape, it is not difficult to see its special significance. The river of time has touched this place over a very long period, with little else to obliterate its work. Before the Moinee story, before Cox Bight even existed, sea levels were much lower than they are today. The Needwonee’s ancestors would have walked over land to what are now the De Witt and Maatsuyker Islands, but what would then have been hills.

The river flows back further still. Before humans, there were other animals. During our visit we see many birds, including wonderfully cryptic ground parrots, and some mammals, especially pademelons. We find evidence of many more: a ringtail possum dray in a tree; wombat droppings; echidna scratchings. All of these have lived here, and in landscapes that have now worn away, for millions rather than thousands of years.

Where's Wallicus? Can you find the ground parrot (Pezoporus wallicus) in this picture? 

But that too is an eye-blink in geological time. The quartzite that is the foundation of much of the south-west is Precambrian rock perhaps one billion years old. The moon is around four billion years old, the earth itself older still, and the river of time flows back beyond that.

That night, as I stare at the moon reflecting from the surface of Moth Creek, I ponder the whole nature of time and space, and what is behind it all. Some, like me, sense a mind … even a heart. Some sense nothing at all. But both are ready to be awed and humbled by that experience. Better that than never stopping to reflect at all.

Brickendon and Woolmers

Some pictures to tell the story of Brickendon and Woolmers, two convict-worked, World Heritage listed farms near Longford in northern Tasmania. Please click on the link beneath this image to view the album.

http://picasaweb.google.com/auntyscuttle/BrickendonWoolmers#

Thoughts from the Overland Track: Part 1 - Mt Pelion East

[part 1 of a series of reflections on a November walk through Tasmania's Overland Track]

Mt Ossa and the rest of the Pelion Range from the slopes of Mt Pelion East

Pelion Gap, at an altitude of 1126 metres, is the high point of day 4 on the Overland Track. It is a place more exposed than most to the wild weathers that made, and continue to make, this high and rugged area what it is. My rule of thumb – that there is always snow in November in the highlands – holds true today. Showers turn to flurries of sago snow as we sag down at the Gap.

It’s been a constant hour and a half trudge up from the Pelion Plains, but the promise of fresh bread from a friendly commercial guide has drawn us on. We top the bread with homemade raspberry jam, cheese and other delicacies. The heavenly taste brings internal sunshine even as the next snow shower swoops over the Gap.

Four members of the group think better of our earlier plan to climb Mt Pelion East. That leaves three of us to don extra layers, including gloves and overpants, before we continue up the mountain. I’ve been here twice before, but it is hard to resist the short, sharp ascent up what looks an impossibly steep summit ridge.

My hazy recollection, that you walk straight towards the nipple-shaped summit before skirting left then ascending from that side, proves accurate for once. But as we start to clamber up the final steep band of dolerite, sago snow engulfs the mountain – and us. We shelter behind some pillars, the sago piling up like tiny styro-foam pellets at our feet. We are in no danger. This is a half-hearted sprinkling of snow that will melt within the hour. But it does make me wonder what it would have been like here 12 000 years ago, during the last Ice Age.

Waiting out the snow showers, Mt Pelion East

Back then the confetti of snow at our feet would have been several hundred metres thick. And we would have been waiting a couple of thousand years for it to melt, giving the slowly flowing snow and ice ample time to grind away the bulk of Pelion East. The peak itself is a nunatak, meaning it stayed largely above the deep snow. But its flanks, exactly where we are standing, would have been buried deep. The brutal and relentless mass of ice would have gouged away most of the mountain side. Later that day we will find glacial erratics – large boulders carried and dropped by the moving ice – peppered throughout the Pinestone Valley.

I am sobered by the thought that Aboriginal Tasmanians were here during that whole age. Without the likes of boots, down jackets, Gore-Tex, polar fleece or ruck-sacks, and carrying only fire and essential tools, they ranged throughout this whole area, leaving their own “erratics” in the form of quarries, middens and all manner of other artefacts. The Pelion Plains and similar open buttongrass areas are probably the largest artefacts of all: the result of aeons of systematic Aboriginal burning.

The snow soon stops, and we scramble the final few dozen metres to the summit. Tim is in his element, reminded of foul-weather scrambling during his years in Scotland. Rose, from the Netherlands, is just thrilled to be in such a wild and elevated place.

From the summit we can see for a hundred kilometres or more in every direction. Across Pelion Gap is Mt Ossa, the state’s highest peak. For a short while the snow showers have cleared its bulky eminence, as they have the other mountains of the Pelion Range: Mt Pelion West, Mt Thetis and Paddys Nut. The wind too has dropped, and it looks like we will have at least five minutes to enjoy the summit before the next shower. On a day like today that is more than we could have asked.

Federation Peak - Part 5

[part 5 of a 15 part series describing an ascent of Tasmania's Federation Peak]

5) Passing Wargata Mina

Farmhouse Creek to the South Cracroft, Tuesday February 5th, 1991

To the left is the indistinct track to Lake Sydney, a remote glacial lake cupped between Mt Bobs and The Boomerang. I passed that way another day, and got close enough to a platypus to hear it breathe. But on this day we go straight ahead, up and over the lushly forested saddle, and on towards Federation. In the distance some currawongs send out their claxon call, to me the signature sound of the highlands. Immense King Billy pines, metres in circumference, deep green with deeply furrowed trunks, guard the track. They are ancient outposts of Gondwana, common here in the high rainfall high forest, but increasingly rare in the drying climate that begins to take hold even here in southwest Tasmania.

From the saddle the track has been re-routed, out of respect for other ancients – Tasmania’s Palawa. Aboriginals lived here thousands of years before Abraham or the pyramids, and they left hand stencils at Wargata Mina, a cave west of here. At the request of their descendants the track, which once went by the cave, has been re-aligned to give the sacred site wide berth. It is now one of the few pieces of land under direct Aboriginal control.

Over lunch – mine a squashed but still-fresh bread roll from home – I think about Aboriginal presence in this area. To our group this is wilderness, the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. But to those who left hand stencils in Wargata Mina over 10 000 years ago; who spat paint against outstretched hands in the deep dark, it was home. They and their descendants have walked and worked this land ever since. The extensive areas of buttongrass are partly a result of Aboriginal burning, and some of the tracks they used have become the tracks we use.

But not the new section of track beyond the saddle at the top of Farmhouse Creek. We’re among the first to use it, and we make rapid progress down the slope towards the South Cracroft River. As it flattens out the track moves out of forest into more open heath. It looks to have been hastily cleared, with the stumps of felled paperbark, ti-tree and bauera protruding everywhere, and some of the cut foliage still strewn about among the buttongrass. We adopt a four wheel drive-like gait, lifting our legs high to prevent us tripping on the low stumps. The literal downside of this is that we’re more prone to slip on the almost grassy, sometimes mossy surface. At least with so few feet having gone before us, there is mercifullly little of the usual southwest mud to mark our occasional falls. It also helps that the threatened rain has been little more than a thin drizzle. And not long after we cross the South Cracroft, we even begin to see Federation Peak – a cloud-shrouded giant looming before us.

A Hymn to Tasmania

[A Welcome Speech to the Interpretation Australia Association (IAA) National Conference in Strahan, Tasmania by Peter Grant, October 3, 2005]

What is this place, this island you have come to that we call Tasmania? In a sense there are as many Tasmanias as there are people who experience it. So I would like to simply share something quite personal of what Tasmania means to me. I call it “A Hymn to Tasmania”, adding a warning footnote that not all hymns are “happy clappy”. Many of the best have a dark or sombre note through which hope and victory must struggle to shine.


Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is universally regarded as a magnificent work of art. In addition to the beauty of the subject, there is something about the enigmatic smile that has sparked both admiration and speculation for as long as it has existed. Likewise there is a certain magnificence to Tasmania. Here is an island – an archipelago of islands as our late Premier Jim Bacon liked to say – that is admired across the Strait by the majority of Australians, and loved by the increasing numbers who come to it from further afield.

Here you will find a beguiling mixture of utter wildness and amiable approachability. As American writer and photographer Arthur Rosenfeld put it “nowhere have I seen such breathtaking contrasts arise so naturally from the dialogue between mountain and forest, clarity and cloud, sun and moon. A person can disappear in beauty like this."

But once you have penetrated the beauty of this island you will find, as with the Mona Lisa, that there is also an enigma. Instead of a smile however, it is an enigmatic frown. On this heart-shaped island, there is a feeling that the heart has been hurt if not broken at times. What is the source of this frown; this veiled heart-ache? For me it derives from a sense that something tragic, something sad, flawed or failed has happened here. A skein of melancholy seems woven into the warp and weft of this beautiful place.

And our history bears this out, starting with the Aboriginal tragedy that unfolded here following European invasion. It is difficult to see how we can use any other word than invasion. Surely “discovery” is just plain wrong, and “settlement” euphemistic at best. Even before 1803 there were skirmishes between the Palawa, the original Tasmanians, and the Europeans – as there were also friendly exchanges. But once the English decided to come, their gaze having turned here following their capture of French information on the island, there was little that could stop them. Aboriginal resistance was blunted by both guns and germs. The Palawa, so long isolated from a host of germs, quickly succumbed to European-borne diseases. It was a victory of sorts merely to survive under such circumstances, but Tasmania’s Aboriginal people have survived … and we will hear more of that story later.

Not only were the English determined to injure, infect or ignore the island’s long-established inhabitants, they also worked to supplant them with convicts. This cargo of human misery was to be transplanted out of the old country – out of sight and mind – to the “end of the world”. A place where nature herself was to be one of the keenest gaolers. Thus were culture and nature dubious allies in old Van Diemen’s Land.

And then there is our more modern history, in which the worst excesses of Van Diemen’s Land were to be expunged through hard labour. But this time the work was not so much for the overseers as for ourselves. We would delve, cut, sow and pluck a new state into being, even changing our name to Tasmania as though to distance ourselves from “the hated stain” of our convict past.

So how have we fared on this rebound from the past? Let me employ an extended analogy. The ancient Hebrew prophet Hosea was given one of the most bizarre jobs in the bible. He was instructed by God to marry a prostitute named Gomer. This was so that he could experience, and then communicate to his peers, what it was like for the Lord to have his “wife” – the people of Israel – constantly unfaithful to him through worshipping false gods.

As I look at modern Tasmania, I sometimes feel a little like Hosea. I love this place, yet Tasmania, like Gomer, seems always ready to run off after false gods. In the post war years this included the idea that we could become a manufacturing centre – “The Ruhr Valley of the South” was the rhetoric of the time – if only we could produce enough cheap power to attract heavy industry. The loss of the irreplaceable Lake Pedder was one result of this short-skirts-and-gaudy-make-up approach. And currently it seems that we are selling off our forests for a cheap drink and a bit of slap-and-tickle, while only the Madam makes any money.

I have recently returned from Alaska, a place with many resonances for a Tasmanian. Alaska is seen – indeed their vehicle number plates proclaim it – as “the last frontier”. (We are “Your Natural State”.) When Alaska was purchased from the Russians in 1867 for $7.2million (about 2c an acre), it was derided by the press and many politicians as a waste of money for a useless “ice-box”. (While no-one had to buy Tasmania, I’m sure some of you consider us to be Australia’s bar-fridge in terms of climate! And doubtless Cascade & Boags would be happy to fill that role for you!)

Despite its inglorious beginning, one of Alaska’s biggest roles today is as a reminder of what the lower 48 used to be and used to have. In Alaska you will find vast forests, huge wildernesses of ice-fields and glaciers, wildlife in unbelievable abundance. Tasmania plays a similar role for Australia, albeit on a smaller scale, especially in terms of intact wild ecosystems. Chief Geographer Henry Gannett, writing of Alaska in the late 1800s, stated that its grandeur, “is more valuable than the gold or the fish or the timber, for it will never be exhausted.“ This quote, more than a century old, sets out some of the alternatives both Alaskans and Tasmanians still face today.

And in neither place is it always a straightforward choice. In Alaska the tourists that come to see the grandeur, especially those in cruise ships, can overwhelm the local populace and the unique local culture. Juneau, the state’s capital, is dominated as much by its plethora of souvenir and merchandise shops as it is by its stunning mountainous surroundings. The locals know that you only have to go 100 metres up any hill – and there are plenty of those – and you will shake off the exercise-shy tourists. Either that or wait for winter! In Sitka, where I spent most of the last month, the best coffee shop in town, a wonderful Bohemian hang-out, is hidden away at the back of a bookshop, and thus protected from the majority of the “boat people”.

Bulk tourism of this kind seems to be a very mixed blessing. Which is where Tourism Tasmania’s “Experience Strategy” seems to me to show the way. Here it is recognised that you will only add value to tourism, and win the word-of-mouth game, if you offer an authentic experience. Can you truly experience Alaska by spending several days in a cruise ship, stopping en-masse in ports that sell food and merchandise that comes from the cruise companies, and is usually made elsewhere? And if you seldom meet a local and go no further afield than the shops, how “Alaskan” is the experience? You could see the same scenery, and more wildlife, by staying at home and watching the Discovery Channel. You would also avoid sea sickness.

Tourism Tasmania, to its credit, has recognised that tourists increasingly demand an authentic experience. Moreover they have seen that the key to providing such experiences in Tasmania is interpretation. And so a circle starts to form, cycling through experience, stories and meaning to authenticity … with interpreters central to the whole process. However it will not remain authentic if we Tasmanians “whitewash our tombs”; if we try to gloss over the tragedies of our past or the inconsistencies of our present.

American novelist David Guterson (“Snow Falling on Cedars”), who himself lives on an island, observed that:

Islands fill mainlanders with an unabashed yearning for a life simpler than the one they endure, a pared-down life in which all that is elemental - sea, wind, sun, love, the last light of day, the sand beneath fingernails - is brought to the fore-front of existence.

In Tasmania we can choose to pander to that illusion. We can try to convey that here you will find only blessed and happy people; the cleanest and greenest of economies; food and wine fit for gods; and bounteous wild and untouched wilderness, all in perfect balance. Or we can tell the truth: that the human drama, with all its pathos, comedy, tragedy, farce and struggle, is played out here in the nature culture of Tasmania, just as it is everywhere.

And yet … it seems to me that there are lessons that can be learned from observing Australia’s island state closely. Our conference theme is Nature Culture: Interpreting the Divide. Here in Tasmania if we have witnessed, and continue to witness, some of the dreadful results of the perceived divide between the two, there are also positives that have been gained. I have spoken of tragedies in relation to our Aboriginal, convict and resource extraction histories. But each of these also shows us a hopeful side. Despite everything, our Aboriginal people have survived. And their culture and presence is burgeoning, as you will witness when you hear Jim Everett or walk the Henty Dunes. Likewise our convict past, as Richard Davey so eloquently reminds us, managed to produce some unexpected – and at the time unwanted – positives in terms of resistance, ingenuity and the triumph of the human spirit. And our natural resources have not been, and will not be, completely pillaged. Here in Strahan you are on the edge of 1.38 million hectares of World Heritage Area – saved and so-proclaimed through the action of individuals who loved this wild home, and told their rulers so.

As you experience the extraordinary places around Strahan, and around the rest of Tasmania, try to resist the notion that this is a place untouched by what happens where you live. And above all reject the notion that you are an alien here. As Gary Snyder has pointed out, nature is not a place to visit, it is home1. Welcome home.



1. The Practice of the Wild, p 7