The Not-So-Plain Plains: Part 4

I’ll start with a confession. I am not the speediest of bushwalkers, not only in terms of actual walking pace, but also in terms of how quickly I pack up and get ready to depart. My walking companions refer to this as PFAing (short for the old Aussie slang: Piss Farting Around). It’s the ability to take a long time to get not much done. It’s an under-appreciated skill, and normally I’m accompanied by others who can match me in this (you know who you are!) 

[Waiting for me on a previous walk]

But on this walk, I am the PFAer nonpareil. So, knowing we have an early departure planned for our last day, I choose to play a different game. It goes something like this.

Move 1. Wake up excessively early. Yes, it’s not even 6am; it’s cold and dark, and the forest is dripping. But the rain has stopped. Up you get!

Move 2. Push aside any guilt you feel about ruining the quiet. You can’t wriggle out of a sleeping bag, deflate a sleeping mat, and stuff all your bits and pieces into bags without making an unreasonable amount of noisy rustling.

Move 3.  Go to the kitchen area, and find that water has pooled on the tarp roof. Further ruin the peace by splooshingthe water onto the ground. That’ll be sure to rouse the others from their tents!

Move 4. Forget about normal breakfast. A muesli bar will keep you going. No muesli bar? Never mind, a Snickers Bar or two is the breakfast of champions. And they’re just great with cold water.

Move 5. As the others amble into the kitchen area, greet them cheerfully, then stand up in an obvious way and go off to finish your packing.

Move 6. While the others have whatever they’re having for breakfast (don’t look; don’t envy!) go off into the forest for your toilet time.

Move 7. Your packing done, it’s time to buckle on your pack, lean nonchalantly against a tree, whistling and waiting. Better still, offer to help the others get ready. They probably won’t accept your offer, but you’ll have made your point.

 

In truth I may not have played the game this perfectly on our last morning. But – wonders will never cease – I am actually ready to leave with the others! 

 

That said, if I think that was the hard part, I am soon proven wrong. Tim has a plan, an untested one. Knowing how difficult our scrubby ascent onto the Februaries had been, he’s studied the maps, and thinks a direct descent towards the Wurragarra Creek can’t be worse. 

[Let the scrub bashing begin!]

We’re soon struggling through chest high scoparia and tea tree, and our trust in Tim is faltering. On our way in it had taken us around 90 minutes to get through the scrub. And that was uphill. Surely this couldn’t be worse? The answer to that may seem subjective, but sheer arithmetic must come into it. Yes it’s downhill, but we take over 100 minutes of rough, wet scrub bashing to reach the Wurragarra. I complicate matters by attempting an “alternative” crossing of the creek. When I finally crawl out of the scrub and join the others on the far bank, they’ve been waiting 15 minutes. That’s PFAing of which I’m not proud! I‘ve torn my trousers, have scrub debris down my neck, in my pockets, and through my beard and hair. If this morning’s walk is a game, I doubt even 0.5% of bushwalkers would buy it!

[A blaze on a creek-side pine - click to enlarge]

Tim is still upbeat, and assures us we’re almost out to the Arm River Track. Before that he stops to show us a very old and elaborate blaze on a pencil pine beside the creek. He tells us it’s older than those made by trappers and hunters, but relates to what was once called the Mole Creek Track. The blaze was probably cut in the late 1890s to mark a creek crossing point. It’s likely it was the work of surveyor E.G. Innes and/or his team as they surveyed potential railway routes.

[The scrub thinning, Mt Pillinger behind]

 

[Walking towards Mt Pillinger through coral fern]

By now the scrub has thinned out. Straggly, strangling shrubs give way to carpets of coral fern. It’s low, tough, deep green and makes for easy walking. We swish through the fern percussively, and soon reach the Arm River Track. It feels like a highway after our days of off-track walking, and we are glad of the fast and easy walking. 

[On the Arm River Track at last]

Merran and Libby lead off, and Tim and I bring up the rear. As the women pass a commercial walking group coming up the track, they nod and say hello, but don’t stop for a chat. However they’re sure we will. Not only does Tim love a good chat, but he and Merran’s son works for that walking company. And sure enough, as soon as we meet them we’re conversing with the head guide, whose boss is Tim and Merran’s son. We ask how their clients are coping with this “non-Overland Track” section of the Overland Track; a temporary change brought about by the loss of their second night hut in the February 2025 bushfires. He tells us that some walkers are fine with it, but others find the Arm River Track quite arduous.

[In rainforest on the Arm River Track - photo by Tim]

We wave them off, secretly glad to be going the opposite way. We’re soon delighting in the changing surrounds: now deep rainforest, now open heath. And then we hit the switch-backs, which start to feel never-ending. The constant downhill thumping takes its toll on the soles of our feet. Mine feel hot and on the edge of blistering. But there’s only one way to get this job done. “Soldier on” is a phrase literally made for this kind of persistent plodding. And it gets us there, back to the car in which we’re soon speeding back to Sheffield. There a café lunch together rounds off another great wilderness walk. We are feeling the privilege of being among the “0.5%” of walkers who’ve been where we’ve just been.

[What a privilege to walk in such places!]

 

The Not-So-Plain Plains: Part 1

How do I describe this place? I could try starting with the sound, or the seeming lack of it. Not that the forest is silent. Even in the dead of night there’s a faint thrum. Is it my own blood pulsing, or is it water softly whispering down the slope? The hoarse squeal of a squabbling possum briefly pierces the profound quiet. And when a strong wind arrives, the trees tut and shoosh at the interruption.

[One of the enormous pencil pines in the forest]

Might it be easier to talk about the light? Again I struggle. Even in the daytime the light is so low that an old light meter would scarcely register it. Yet it’s a darkness with shades and flecks, some murky, some hinting at an emerald shimmer. Just occasionally a beam of sunlight struggles through the foliage, only to retreat like a messenger at the wrong address. 

 

Then there’s what I can feel with hands, feet and face. My tent is pitched so close to a moss and lichen-draped tree trunk, that when I clamber out I can’t help but brush its damp softness. I can almost taste forest, unless it’s just its deep, damp-duff, pine-inflected scent.  

 

[Our forest campsite]

All of this might give the impression that I’m experiencing sensory overload. But no, it’s just how it is in a pencil pine forest, the type of forest we might all know and love, were we not so otherwise attuned. The type of forest that is becoming rarer as the decades pass, as heat, drought, neglect and fire take their toll. A fear of that might add to my deeply felt response to the forest. But whatever the rational explanation, this forest is simply one of the most soul-filling places I’ll ever visit.

[Starting on the Arm River Track]

But I should take us back to the start of the day, because places like this are inevitably hard won. And just getting here usually has its own story. I’d previously much enjoyed my two or three trips to the northern part of the February Plains, each time with Tim D. But for all its charms, the area shows many signs of human use and abuse, including intense fires, over-grazing and deforestation. In leading this walk, Tim must have decided it’s time we saw some less impacted parts of the Februaries.

 

We start on the Arm River Track, a formerly quiet track that has slowly become a much frequented short-cut to the centre of the Overland Track at the Pelion Plains. Most recently it’s also become the third day of some commercial trips on the Overland Track, following the loss to wildfire of a (private) hut and some trackwork in February 2025.

[Overland Track mountains, incl Pelion East and Ossa, from the Februaries]

There’s no disguising the uphill trend. We’re soon sweating our way up the long section of switch-backs that take up steeply up towards Lake Price, and our first mountain. Mt Pillinger is something of an outlier; not quite an Overland Track mountain, nor part of the nearby Cathedral Plateau. We cross the bridge over the Wurragarra Creek and pause for lunch in a grassy clearing off to the side of the track. 

[Mt Pillinger peeps out beside the Arm River Track]

[A pause near Lake Price]

Tim has been reassuring Libby that once we’ve left this busy-ish track, we will be heading off-track to the February Plains where, he says, “0.5% of walkers will ever go”. Libby, who’s very fond of remote and un-peopled wilderness, smiles and gives Tim a thumbs up. But as we’re eating lunch, a walker wanders up the Arm River Track. We give a friendly wave, and he comes off the track towards us, presumably just to say a quick hello. 

[Lunch near the Arm River Track]

We soon ask him where he’s headed, and are suitably shocked – and some of us amused – when he says “The February Plains”. We quickly explain why we’ve broken into sudden laughter. We share a bit of information on possible routes, and Ned (not his real name) walks off up-valley towards some formidable looking scrub. Before we’ve packed up from lunch he’s back, having found no way through the tangled bush. He asks if he can join us as we try to find our way up to the plateau. Shortly afterwards Ned must be wondering whether it’s the blind leading the blind, as our own “route” is very rough, steep and scrubby. We push uphill through scarcely yielding scrub for about 90 minutes before the slope finally eases, and the scrub becomes relatively thin. 

[... and the scrub finally yields]

We’ve been on our feet for more than 5 hours, nearly all of it uphill, some of it in gnarly scrub. Keen to find a campsite doesn’t fully express it! As we dump our packs to do a search, Ned says he'll keep walking. He’s wanting to camp as close to Mount Oakleigh as he can. Tim looks over the map with him before we wave “Mr. 0.5%” farewell, and start our own search in the vicinity of a nearby lake, one of the few in this area with a name. 

[Tim and Ned check the map]

After close to an hour, we eventually choose a large, thick pencil pine forest. There is a sunnier, more exposed lake-side camp nearby, but as we’re expecting strong winds in a day or two, we’ve chosen to have a protected campsite for all three nights. And protected it is, as well as hinting at being the above-mentioned soul-filling place. We’ll find that out later, but for now our order of business is simple: stop, set up camp, eat, sleep.

[Sunset and moonrise near our camp]

A Long-Awaited Reunion: Part 1

Walks can take a little time to organise. Who’s coming? Where are we going, and when? And then there’s transport, food, tents, weather, contingencies. The list tends to go on. But for eleven years? That does seem excessive! Strange but true, this walk had its genesis back in 2009. Five of us – Tim O, Jim, Mick, Lynne and me – were on an extended tramping trip in New Zealand. 

[In the Beginning: (L to R) Mick, Peter, Lynne, TimO and Jim, 2009] 

That trip went down in legend as the start of the “pirate captain/cabin boy” nonsense that we’ve maintained to this day. While that’s another story, its relevance for the February 2020 walk was that in March 2009, we met an Austrian backpacker named Brita. At the time we were walking the Routeburn Track. While Brita was much younger than all of us, we got on very well. Importantly she was quite tolerant of our pirate accents and general silliness while walking … or resting, or cooking, or eating!

[1st Meeting, Routeburn Track 2009. L to R: Jim, Brita and Ranger John] 

This was in the early days of Facebook, and that plus email enabled us to keep in touch. Our on-going contacts confirmed that Brita was a keen traveller, and an adventurous soul. So we weren’t surprised when, having qualified as an osteopath in 2018, she decided to work in New Zealand. For a European that felt like just next door to Tasmania, and she expressed interest in “popping over”. So for the next year or so, Jim sold Brita the concept of a reunion walk in Tassie with us. We’d be able to offer free accommodation, sight-seeing and socialising on a grand scale. I’m not entirely sure Jim didn’t also promise steak knives.

Skip forward to February 2020. Most of our original 2009 group could make the reunion walk, although Mick had followed his heart to Darwin, and couldn’t join us. But our group did expand to include our regular walking friends Libby, Tim D and Merran. The question then became: where would we be taking Brita? She was keen to walk the Overland Track, having succumbed to illness on a previous attempt. Most of us had done that trip multiple times, and thought we should go somewhere a little more adventurous.

Two years earlier we’d had a brilliant off-track adventure, walking from Lake Mackenzie through the Blue Peaks and overland to the Walls of Jerusalem. (You can read more here, then here, and finally here.) A variation on that walk firmed as the early favourite before logistic issues, the need for some early departures, and Jim’s fondness for huts led to a rethink. And given that the trip was Jim’s baby more than anyone else’s, we caved in to his suggestion. And that was that we walk in to Pelion Hut (bending towards Brita’s Overland Track wish, and Jim’s love of a hut), via a new-to-us side track (bending towards Tim D’s adventurous navigator impulse, and Tim O’s love of new routes), and base ourselves in the heart of the highest part of Tasmania, with many mountains to climb, and some beautiful ancient forests to "bathe" in (a plus for everyone).

[... And beautiful mossy forest] 

You’ll see now that we do try to accommodate as many preferences as we can. But you’ll also guess that there can be a certain amount of cat-herding involved. Once the miaowing had died down, we met for a very early departure one Friday in early February. The plan was to meet our northern-based friends, Tim D and Merran, at the turn-off to the Arm River Track. This provides a well accepted way into the middle of the Overland Track at the Pelion Plains. But we weren’t going via the Arm River. Instead Tim had found another way into the same destination, which he assured us was less steep and probably easier. (According to Jim “he lied!”, but more of that later.) Certainly it’s fair to say we were innocent as lambs as we drove up the long dirt road to the start of our walk.

[At the start of our 2020 walk to Pelion] 

The weather was warm and sunny, and the march flies had found us well before we’d slapped on sunscreen and laced up our boots. We snapped the obligatory departure photo, and hoisted our too-heavy packs. We were keen to leave the march flies behind, although soon enough that keenness receded as the climbing began. We’d started at the edge of an old logging coupe, which soon graded into forest. Our ascent was a steep, diagonal sidle, following a route rather than a clear track. Regularly we were clambering over fallen logs and up mossy banks, which was energy sapping work. As some of us hadn’t eaten lunch, we signalled to the front walkers to look out for a good shady spot near water. We soon regretted being too prescriptive, as Lynne and I were already sore and sorry after only an hour of ascent.

[Will this do for a lunch stop?]

Half an hour later the perfectionists up front finally stopped. To their credit their choice of lunch stop was excellent. In the cool, mossy shade of a beautiful myrtle beech forest we drank and ate and rested. As we chatted with Brita we learned a bit more about the mysteries of osteopathy, and also heard her confession that she hadn’t done overnight full-pack style walking for some years. In short, she wasn’t finding the going much easier than we were.

[Will Tim fall in the mud?] 

The good news for all was that we weren’t too far from the top of the main climb. After lunch the track duly levelled out, and the optimist in me started to feel we were over the worst. I was wrong, of course. We still had to get to the junction with the Arm River Track. And that was well short of half way to Pelion. What made this realisation harder was that Lynne was limping, struggling with knee pain.

[Lynne and Tim O in forest before Lake Ayr] 

The two of us adjusted our speed, as did Tim O, out of sympathy rather than his own need. We walked slowly, rested frequently, and kept hydrated. Lynne also practised stretches that Brita had suggested, and they seemed to help a little. So the afternoon wore on, the miles went slowly by. It remained very warm but the sky had grown hazy with smoke from the horrific Victorian bushfires. 

["I die here!" Lynne rests near Lake Ayr] 

The route now trended downhill through forest towards Lake Ayr. We rested in sight of the lake, a milestone that made us feel we were in the Pelion neighbourhood at least. An hour later we finally plodded into Pelion Hut. It was after 7pm, and we’d been walking for more than 6 hours. 

[Nearly at Pelion, with Mt Pelion West behind] 

To our surprise the fastest of our party had been at the hut for only half an hour. Everyone had found the going tough, particularly because of the hot weather and the very early start. Our hut champion, Jim, had managed to sequester a few bunks for us in the hut. We had planned to put up tents nearby, and leave the hut bunks for Overland Track walkers (who had paid for the walk). Jim’s argument that we too were fee paying park pass holders held some sway. But sheer tiredness was an even more powerful argument to leave the tent in the pack.

And so, after a quick meal, and a slower cup of wine, Lynne and I joined Jim and Brita in one of Pelion Hut’s bunkrooms. “Tim D. lied, you know” said Jim as we settled into our sleeping bags. “That was a lot worse than I remember the Arm River Track being.” Tim D and the others were safely ensconced in tents, so there was no comeback from them. And, despite our experiences of the day, Lynne and I were more inclined to invoke a pilgrim saying we’d learned: “It is what it is.” Although on this occasion, I’d have been glad to say “It was what it was”, and hope that the return journey would be another story altogether.