September 2010

Walk on the Wild Side

Thanks to some luxury-minded outfitters, you can now experience Tasmania’s wilderness in relative comfort

WORDS LEISA TYLER

THE scenery is spellbinding: dark, moody rainforests dating back to the Gondwana period; wild rivers swirling and snaking down mountains; and desolate beaches that seem to stretch on forever.

Until recently, experiencing Tasmania’s wilderness usually meant having to rough it out — surviving off bland, dehydrated food, sleeping in a tent, and forgoing a shower and tipple at the end of each day. But thanks to some luxury-minded tour operators, things have become much comfier.

Architect-turned-entrepreneur Ken Latona kick-started Tasmania’s luxury bushwalking trend a decade ago with Cradle Huts, a series of ecologically sustainable lodges dotted along the Overland Track now taken over by travel company Anthology. Starting at Cradle Mountain and ending at Lake St Claire, the 80km trail is dotted with dolerite mountain ranges, pandani forests and freshwater lakes.

Although it’s one of Australia’s most famous walking tracks, the Overland Track is renowned as much for its scenery as its incessantly bad weather (like snow in summer). So when Cradle Huts started offering guided walks to groups of no more than eight people with hot showers, gas heaters, clean dry beds and gourmet food — including bottles of local wine flown in by helicopter — it was nothing short of a revolution. There are now more than a dozen luxury guided walks operating on the island.

“Tassie’s guided walks are a great way to get people into places they wouldn’t otherwise go,” says Ian Johnstone, the designer and operator of the east coast’s Maria Island Walk. This four-day walk traverses the length of Maria Island — a former penal colony turned national park — and won “Best Eco/Wilderness Adventure Experience” at The Australian Travel & Tourism Awards 2009. Trekkers spend two nights in temporary canvas tents and the last in the beautifully restored Bernacchi House at Darlington, Maria Island’s eerie colonial-era ghost town, before enjoying a final celebratory champagne lunch.

“Most people love to be in nature, but not necessarily the challenges that come with it. So what we did was take the inconvenient bits out,” says Johnstone.

Tarkine Trails started with a very different objective: saving Tasmania’s old growth forests from the voracious wood chipping industry. Established by a group of idealistic bushwalkers, these avid conservationists hoped to prove that utilising the forest for tourism could be more economically sustainable than chopping the trees down.

Tarkine Trails may not be as well-funded as Tasmania’s other eco-ventures, but their walks are among the most memorable. One walk meanders across a plateau in the Tarkine — 447,000ha of temperate rainforest in the island’s north-west, named after an Aboriginal tribe that once lived in the area. A large corridor had been pegged for logging when Tarkine Trails, with the local lobby group the National Tarkine Coalition, decided to craft a track through the passage’s heart, drawing attention to its plight.

“The forest was so thick it was impenetrable,” says Mike Thomas, a spritely medical doctor who had spent more than 100 days cutting what is now known as the Tarkine Rainforest Track. Following animal tracks and land contours, the six-day hike takes in treasures such as a three-tiered waterfall and a rare red-hearted myrtle grove. Trekkers must carry their own sleeping bag and mat, but Tarkine Trails has canvas tents stationed along the trail, and provides delicious healthy, organic meals with wine.

Sections of the Tarkine have since been put on a protection list, with government plans to develop eco-tourism in the area.

WITH BOOTS ON Keen to indulge my love for Tasmania’s wilderness with a few creature comforts, I sign up for Anthology’s Bay of Fires walk, which departs from Launceston. This four-day, 23km hike skirts the surf-line of Mount William National Park in Tasmania’s far north-east corner. Originally established as a habitat for the eastern grey kangaroo, the park is renowned for its big sunburnt boulders that frame beach after beach of perfect white sand. Things aren’t so idyllic when our group of five guests and two guides set off, though. Whipped by a feisty offshore wind, the ocean is a thundering cauldron of foam. Sand stings the back of my legs, and it’s so soft that my feet sink ankle-deep with every step.

Tasmania’s climate, driven by Roaring Forties winds and ice-cold Antarctic currents, can be as cruel as its history. Following the island’s settlement as a British penal colony in the late 1800s, its Aborigines were hunted to extinction; a tragedy also met by the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger. Yet remnants of Tasmania’s original inhabitants are everywhere. Our botany and zoology student guides Rosie and Monica explain that the Bay of Fires got its name from English explorer Tobias Furneaux. Sailing up the east coast of the island in 1773, Furneaux recounted seeing the heath ablaze with fires — lit as part of the Aboriginals’ sophisticated forest regeneration scheme.

Later on, we stop at an enormous midden, which Rosie identifies as a mound of seashells discarded during ancient tribal feasts. Further along she shows us a wombat burrow and describes how, when under attack from dingos, the muscular marsupial will encourage the canine into its warren, then crush its skull with its steel-like bottom.

Early that evening, we stumble into the Forester Camp, a cluster of aluminium and canvas tents furnished with comfy beds and sleeping bags that are tucked in behind the sand dunes. Monica and Rosie, seemingly energised by the day’s efforts, prepare a menu by acclaimed local chef Daniel Alps — celebrated as one of Tasmania’s finest — using mostly organic and locally sourced ingredients. There’s double brie and black olives for starters, followed by barbecued fillet steaks and salad, all washed down with a peppery pinot noir — not bad for bush tucker.

The next day we wake to big blue skies and only a whisper of a breeze. We continue along the coastline as temperatures push into the low 30s. The ocean, a pale shade of turquoise, makes it feel like we’re in the tropics, but one dip with my big toe into the water reminds me how close we are to the South Pole.

With seven hours of walking, day two is the longest. It’s exhausting, but worth it when we arrive at the award-winning Bay of Fires Lodge where we’ll spend the next two nights; a sleek timber-and-steel structure boasting 180-degree views of awe-inspiring coastline.

Notably, at all of Anthology’s accommodation, the visitor’s ecological footprint is lessened. The Lodge is built according to aspect, minimising the need to heat or cool — while catching rain from the roof. Electricity is solar, toilets are composting and cooking is with gas.

On the second day at the lodge, we swap our boots for a paddle in the estuary of nearby Anson’s Bay, a popular holiday village. Even as the weather turns erratic, local holidaymakers continue playing on the shoreline and cast out lines in the hope of catching a fish for the evening barbecue. I rest easy in the knowledge that I’ll be enjoying my evening feast in the comforts of the lodge, washed down with a fine local riesling or two.