Days 1 and 2 - I wandered about through Melbourne in a catatonic state trying to get adjusted from the swiss time zone. Needless to say my efforts were met with limited success. The funny thing about the land down under isn't just the time zone difference, it the swapping of seasons and the very odd loss of a day. Don't get me wrong, I understand why the day disappears (for me) but it is disconcerting nontheless and is the key reason why I am not bothering to place dates and times into this journal (I was there for eleven days in mid december, and I am afraid this is the best I am going to be able to do. During these days of sleepy ambling I somehow managed to visit the Melbourne botanical gardens, see the Australian WWII memorial visit Melbourne's tallest building, and have a BBQ with several of Fearless Leader's friends by the river. Oh, and lose multiple games of snooker and pool against Pete... who is masterful at both (more on this later).
On Day 3 we boarded the Spirit of Tasmania, a very impressive ship. It had its own museum, four restaurants, a video arcade, a bar with a dance floor, a cinema, and enough space to carry well over a thousand people. As the boat was pushing off Pete glanced over the side and said "are those plastic bags in the water... or could all of those things be jellyfish?" I poked my head over and sure enough, the boat was surrounded by vaguely transparent jellyfish... thousands of them. I got to talking with one of the Aussies about this later and she said, "Ah, well those ones will only burn you and leave a bit of a scar, its the blue ones you have to worry about, they leave you screaming even after you go unconcious" - now there's a heart warming thought, and it was only the beginning. Little did I know the wonderful world of toxic creatures I was walking in to. As the voyage went on we explored the ship. After losing horribly at pool and snooker against Pete I had my brief moment of glory as I crushed him at a game of air hockey. Although my glory was short lived as I then went to show Pete how to play street fighter the arcade game and was swiftly dispatched by the cpu.
Day 4 - After a long night of games, Tasmanian beer, and breathing in other peoples' rank breath (we stayed in the cheapest beds available - the ones in the rooms at the bottom of the boat that held thirty people each) I stepped onto Tasmania in the harbour of Devonport. We caught a shuttle to the Devonport tourism office where I discovered that there were Tasmanian penguins! No, I didn't see any at that time, but there were pictures in the tourism office and of course we were not going to be any where near them on the Overland Track since they are shore dwelling critters and the track is nowhere near the shore of Tasmania. I was bit saddened by this, but then again, we were trading penguin viewing for wallaby, wombat, platypus, echidna, and snake viewing, so I really had not right to complain. We had a quick breakfast nearby (correction, I had a breakfast, Pete had tea since he considered the crossants we were served on the boat a proper meal - which they were not by my standards) and then caught the bus to Cradle Mountain National Park. Along the road I was introduced to two very interesting details about Tasmania. One, it is one of the few places in the world where opium can be legally grown for medicinal puroposes. Two, the place has lots of suicidal echidnas... the spiny critters were wandering all over the road and forcing the driver to swerve constantly. When we got to the entrance to the national park we hopped off the bus and while Pete filled up water bottles I took it upon myself to browse through a few of the books on the wildlife of the area. I learned a few things, perhaps the most important was that all three of Tasmania's snake species are poisonous, two of them deadly. One of the species, the Tiger Snake, can kill a full sized adult human with its venom in less than twelve hours (the venom attacks the lymph system - essentially shutting it down) and is among the top ten most deadly creatures on the planet. And wouldn't you know it, we were starting our walk just at the beginning of the Tiger Snakes' mating season when they are most aggressive... A heart warming thought. So when I was done catching up on the deadly critters we would be hanging out with during the upcoming weeks I returned to Pete (patiently waiting for his sluggish compatriot), we threw on our rucksacks, and got to walking. The start of the walk was a little less than glorious since it we followed a dirt road for some seven kilometers, but we eventually reached the area known as Wombat Pool and things got interesting quickly. Not more than five minutes into the trail Pete raised his arm up to halt me and pointed up ahead. I looked closely and there was this fuzzy critter digging a hole in the side of a hill, a wombat! It basically ignored us as we fumbled around for our cameras and snapped pictures. We continued on passed by Crater Lake, climbed the cliffs next to it and got our first view of Cradle Mountain itself. We met some friendly Canadians at the viewpoint (who told us all about their experiences coming from the other end of the trail), took some photos, and went on our way. As we progressed toward Cradle Mountain we stopped briefly for a snack at an emergency hut and had our first encounters with the marsupial rats that infest buildings in Tasmania. Being marsupials they technically aren't rats of course, but they filled the same niche and scurried all over the place in search of crumbs and rubbish. Much more adorable than rats though. Anyhow, three hours later me made it into the Scott-Kilvert Hut were we enjoyed the first of our glorious pasta meals. During the middle of the night as we slept on the floor of the hut's second story the sounds of scurrying feet scratching across the floor rose up from below us - I briefly wondered if the food sitting right next to me in my rucksack was in any danger, but exhaustion lead to apathy and apathy lead to me passing out before anything got done about it.
Day 5 - In spite of the nightime marsupial invasion our food and gear made it through the night untouched. We left Kilvert Hut early and made a break for Cradle Mountain itself. Considering the fact that this was a bit of a backtrack for us we found a nice shrub to drop our bags behind and made our way to Cradle with minimal equipment. We climbed Cradle, not so bad for the first two-thirds of the trail, but the last bit was quite rough. There wasn't really a trail, just a lot of boulders on a steep slope. And finally when we made it to the top, a cloud drifted on to the mountain, we couldn't see a damn thing. When we were done with Cradle Mountain we tromped down to the valley, picked up our packs, walked two miles, dropped our packs again, and climbed Barn Bluff (which remained uncloudy and offered some amazing views). Now, I would like to take a short moment to comment on my interest in climbing yet another peak in the same day... I was 100% against it. But Pete had his heart set on climbing Barn Bluff and I wasn't particularly interested in having to explain his death to his Mom should he get bitten by a snake or plummet off a cliff so I accompanied him. Don't get me wrong, it was a really nice climb, I just wasn't too keen on doing just after having done one of the most strenuous climbs in the park and before having to walk another five miles to hut 2. As we climbed Barn it occurred to me that while Pete and I both love walking in the outdoors we actually are drawn to the activity for very different reasons. Pete seems to be in it for the personal challenge, climbing as many peaks as he possibly can and walking the greatest distance in the shortest amount of time. In short, it is a big personal competition for him. For me... well, I'm just not a particularly competitive fellow. I think I walk for the wonder of it all, I love meeting the international bunch of people on the trails and enjoy the constant flow of new experiences. There is some personal competition in it for me too, that certainly is a part of it, but it isn't my main driving force. Anyhow, after climbing Barn we made our way to Waterfall Hut in the valley below us. As we dropped into the valley I became aware of two things. One, I had impact damage on the bottoms of my feet from having climbed (and dropped off of) so many boulders. Two, there were wallabies all over the place. Really cute little critters. While I was brushing my teeth a fat wallaby kept hopping up to me and then all of the sudden BAM! this little wallaby hopped right out of the fat wallaby's pouch and was bouncing around all over the place. I swear the little fellow looked like he was on speed or something, I don't even want to guess at their metabolic rate. As we settled in for the evening I got to chatting with a few of the other folks at the hut, lots of nice people. Very pretty girl from Holland, a Londoner, a Spaniard (who was doing the entire trail in three days!), and a Melbourne school group learning how to trek, The school group was really entertaining too... the kids were just learning how to light their camping stoves as we were eating dinner and WOMPF! the flames kept on leaping up as too much fuel was used. I didn't think the hut would survive a full night of their activity!
Day 6 - Made the very long trek from Waterfall Hut to New Pelion Hut, a total distance of 24 kilometers covering savanah and jungle. This in and of itself wouldn't have been so bad, what made the day miserable was my (stupid) decision to take a (short) break and walk the side trail to Lake Will and the falls right next to it. The guide book described the trail as a pleasant stroll and nothing could have been further from the truth. The muck and mire surrounding the lake made Wales look tame in comparison. It took us nearly two hours to make the supposedly simple trek and I managed to step in one particularly boggy bit at the end which dropped me into the mud up to my hips. Needless to say my gators didn't help this situation very much as the much flooded right over them. Anyhow, after this rather unpleasant experience we continued on our way and descended into Tasmania's jungle where we had our first snake encounter - and as luck would have it our encounter was with the infamous tiger snake. It was suning itself in the centre of the trail and I didn't even see it until struck at me. Fortunately I had poles in front of me and the thing struck my pole instead of me. I stood in shock for a moment as I noted the yellow stripes on the black body and was shaken out of my daze as Pete started tugging on me to back up. We jumped back quite a ways and watched as it struck again in our direction and quickly slithered under the cover of the ferns. As the day came to a close I found my coordination was starting to really fail me due to exhaustion and foot damage, and I made the sudden realisation that I may actually not physically make it to out of the jungle before nightfall (Pete being superhuman was of no real concern... he has to slow himself down when walking with me the mere mortal). Anyhow I kicked myself into overdrive and got to about a six kilo per hour rate, not bad considering the fact that I was in a world of hurt.
Day 7 - I never realised the bottoms of my feet could actually go purple, oh well, the wonders of pain killers make such matters quite inconsequential. We left New Pelion and took a side trail to climb the 1617 metres to the top of Mount Ossa, Tasmania's tallest peak. The view was as stunning as the climb was tiring, well worth the effort though. After climbing Ossa we ventured on to our next stop, Kia Ora hut. We had debated a bit about whether we should stop at this hut, since it was only about 2pm when we arrived (Ossa took less time than expected) but the sudden cloudburst and hail which followed swiftly ended the dispute. We spent a relaxing afternoon playing cards, washing up toxic socks, and cleaning ourselves a bit... a chore we were well overdue for. Incidentally, when I went over to the Kia Ora falls to wash some of my clothing I got latched onto by a leech which had suckers that just wouldn't give up. I think the world could do without the order Platyhelmenthes.
Day 8 - After a nice evening of card playing with a londoner, a netherlander, and three melourners one of whom was the head of the Melbourne school group we had run into earlier (a really nice fellow named Murray) we left Kia Ora early and trekked the nine hours through jungle and swamp to Pine Valley. The trek wasn't particularly difficult, but the terrain rated quite high on the unpleasantness scale, particularly the swamp where the nastiest mosquito population on the planet resides. Pete had been commenting on how silly I was to be wearing trousers throughout the trek when we had been having such pleasant weather, but his words came back to haunt him as the mosquitos got to work at sucking the blood out of his legs. I actually donned my waterproof coat in the swamp just to keep the vampiric critters from getting me... it worked too. Later in the evening when we were taking our situation into account I had a grand total of two bites while Pete had several dozen. But I digress, along the trail we came to an area that had several trails branching off towards various waterfalls. We dropped our packs and walked to a couple of them, and unlike our previous detour to see Lake Will and its associated falls this was well worth the effort. We saw Ferguson and Russell falls, both stupendous in their own way. One (I can't remember which was which) was so close to the trail that we could go and stand directly beneath it, we even breifly considered trying to follow the tunnel that crossed behind the falls but then disregarded this option as too high on the RTML scale. Would have been pretty cool though. The other falls could not be as easily approached and we only got a view from about fifty metres away. They were nothing short of stunning, the water appeared from beneath the dense jungle overgrowth and poured straight over the blackened rocks with a majesty unlike anything I have ever seen (and being quite a sucker for falls I have seen quite a lot of them). On arrival to Pine valley Pete announced that since there were two hours of daylight remaining he was going to climb the Parthenon (the nearby mountain that overlooks the maze of lakes known as the Labyrinth). I wasn't really hurting anymore, but my interest in doing more walking after eight hours of slogging through jungle and swamp was a little lacking, so I decided to stick around at the hut and play some cards with the other folks that were arriving for the night. Ironically (darkly amusing perhaps) five minutes after Pete went on his way up the mountain I read a warning notice to walkers regarding the tendency for people to become hopelessly lost in the area and disappear. One of the rangers later told me that a girl had vanished just nine months ago and that not a trace of her was ever found, he chuckled and added "those damned devils, they make detective work on this island near impossible"! And Pete had just gone marching off alone into this wilderness, I briefly wondered if I would ever see him again... and then more importantly tried to remember where he had put our ferry tickets. Can you imagine having to call your friend's parents and tell them that he has dissappeared, is probably dead, but nobody will ever be sure because the devils do such an outstanding clean up job? Regardless, as dinner time approached Pete reappeared and we got to cooking our dinner. Pete, who was now quite tired of our nightly pasta feast decided to make himself chinese rice (a dish with peanut sauce and soy and I am thus allergic to) while I made up yet another bowl of pasta for myself. All would have been fine if I hadn't been a klutz and knocked my meal all over the ground just before I was about to eat it. I was able to save a lot of it, but it got some dirt and chunky stuff in it and made the whole meal a lot less pleasant.
Day 9 - I woke up to torrential rain slamming against the top of the hut. We had planned on descending into the Labyrinth during the morning but these plans quickly changed due to the weather. Instead we decided to make a break for Narcissus Hut at the North edge of Lake St. Clair. As we set out on the trail and took a last glance at Pine Valley we realised that this was the same decision being made by everyone else in the hut, Narcissus was going to be quite crowded. As we walked the rain continued showing little sign of abating, and then it happened. My trusty fedora, which has served me well through rain and blistering sunlight sprang a leak. Just above my brow I suddenly felt a chill run over my head. Within an hour rivulets of water were streaming down my face and neck and into my clothes. When we finally got to Narcissus I was soaked to the bone. Water had pooled in my boots, my clothes were drenched, and my hands were prunes. The hut wasn't full, but it was close to it... and we knew the huge crowd that would soon be there. We considered walking over to the nearby dock and catching the St. Clair Ferry that ran twice a day, just so we could get ourselves out of this unpleasant weather. I must admit I think we were both stunned when this suggestion emerged from Pete's mouth, but our determination to complete the trail kept us from taking this easy way out. We did alter course though and made a break for Echo Point Hut halfway along Lake St. Clair, this seemed for preferable to dealing with the dank zoo we knew Narcissus would become and MUCH better than trying to pitch a tent in the storm. Three hours, and six leeches later (the little buggers kept slipping on to my hands giving me these nasty little bleeders) we made it to Echo Point Hut. It was really remote, we were the only ones there, and it looked like there was only space for 6-8 people. Anyhow, we started taking our gear out and as we did so I was confronted with several nasty surprises. First, my thermarest was soaked. Second, my sleeping bag waterproofing had torn open and the bag was drenched. Needless to say I was a little less than happy (note, I must buy better waterproofing for my gear). Pete went outside to wash off, not sure why considering the fact that it was still raining, and I took a look at the map. We still had at least three and a half hours of sunlight left and by my estimate we were not much more than three hours from the meager amount of civilisation on the south end of the lake. I explained my situation to Pete and within in twenty minutes we were on our way. More leeches, more mud, more rain. As we neared the South the rain lightened a bit and we saw a spectacular reflected rainbow coming off of the lake. I scrambled for my camera, but it was deep in my pack and covered in plastic to protect it from the rain and by the time I got it out the colours had all but vanished. Pete did get a photo with his camera, but seeing as it takes him ages to develop anything he ever takes I don't expect to see it for a very long time. Anyhow, we made it to civilisation and went to the accomodation desk at the National Park office to ask for some help in finding somewhere dry to sleep for the night. The fellow looked at us with a bit of disdain and said sorry, only one bed left. "Is there anything else available" I asked. I must have looked really pathetic at this particular moment (not a hard thing to do after trekking through savannahs, mountains, rainforests, and swamps) because his expression softened and he said "yeah I know a place up the road that might be able to take you, I can even give you fellows a ride if you're not too keen on walkin a further seven kilos this evening". We took him up on the offer and got "rooms" in trailers at the Derwent Bridge Inn. They were pretty bad, but in all honesty, after days without a shower and all the rain proper shelter was looking good. After cleaning up and setting some of my stuff in front of the heater to dry we went over to the Inn's main hall for a drink. We sat back enjoying the atmosphere when the bar maiden came up and asked us if we would be interested in joining the weekly pool competition. I said no but Pete threw in his two dollars with enthusiasm. The rest of the evening was a bit of blur. Pete played well, beating a bar maid in his first game, beating several bar ruffians (for lack of better term) in his middle games, and then losing to this kid who moved on to become the champion for the evening. Aside from the fact that Pete came in third, he his very honorable playing style (Pete is not a sneaky or mean player) and his very British attitude (which borders on chivalrous) won both of us "strangers" the respect of all the townspeople in the hall (which essentially accounted for the population of Derwent Bridge)! People kept coming up to me as the games were going on asking about where we were from and what a straight shooter my colleague was. The first bar maid he beat even came up to give us both kisses when the night was coming to a close.
Day 10 - This was the day we were supposed to have been walking in from the bush, so we didn't have bus reservations to Hobart (the Tas capitol from which all further bus lines depart) until late in the evening (we were planning on spending one evening in Hobart's hostel "the pickled frog". With a long, boring day in Derwent Bridge ahead of us we ambled over to the front desk and checked out. As were sorting out check out details one of the bar maids walked past and again commented on what nice kids we were. In parting conversation she asked us where we were off to and we answered Hobart. As she started walking away she said, "that's a shame, if you were going north to Devonport I would have gladly given you a ride". She disappeared behind a building as Pete went about strapping down his bag and suddenly the neurons did their thing and I said "Pete, why are we going to Hobart"? "So we can catch a bus to Devonport" he replied. "But she is going to Devonport now. Doens't it make sense to not have to pay for tickets into and out of Hobart if someone is offering us a ride to the place we want to be getting to"? He looked at me with that uncanny "pete's been enlightened" look and said "Run after her"! So we hitched a ride to Devonport and four hours later were dropped on the side of the motorway in the middle of the city. We wandered in the true fellwanderer fashion for an hour along the city streets and eventually made our way to the harbor where we knew the tourist information office was. When we got there we sorted out hostel locations and suddenly I caught sight of a brochure on penguin viewing along the north coast. Four hours later after eating, checking email at an internet cafe, and mixing with some of the tassie natives at the harbour, we were in a taxi on our way to Penguin beach, about fifteen minutes outside of Devonport where the Penguins come ashore just around sunset. The beach was dazzling (took lots of photos) and as the sun went down the little birds started appearing in the waves. They would waddle up the beach dunes to the bushes and deck we were standing on and suddenly make very loud gargling sounds. Vomit. The sounds of penguin vomit filled the air as the penguin mommies and daddies yacked up partially digested fish to the young in their nests. There were two tassie rangers there to make sure the public didn't harass the penguins, particularly to keep folks from taking flash photos since just a single flash can blind one of the birds for days. Red light does not bother them though and through the creative usage of some cellophane, our flashlights, and my digital camera's lowlight settings I was able to get one reasonable photo of youngster waiting for it parents to arrive.
Day 11 - Spent the day in Devonport. I got a razor and some soap to rid myself of the rather itchy barbarian look and Pete got the bright idea to go to the Devonport maritime museum. It would have been ok for ten minutes but we somehow ended up spending and hour and a half there! Pete seemed very interested though, and after his immense flexibility regarding my "penguin passion" I didn't say a word about it. As we were walking along the shore back to the tourism office where we had left our bags we passed a familiar looking fellow, Murray. We chatted for a while and learned that he and the Melbourne school group which followed us the whole way along the Overland trail were booked on the same ferry and were staying on the floor just above us. Anyhow, to make a long story short (yeah, like that's possible with me) we boarded the boat, ate dinner with Murray and the rest of his kids, watched a bunch of films on board with them, and then played cards thoughout the entire night with them. Again, I will comment on what it is that I find so fantastic about trekking. Part of it is the majesty of the natural world, part of it is the challenge, but most of it (for me) is getting to know people from all over the world. I don't remember all of our conversations, but the kids and teachers were so curious us and we were so curious about them (Pete less so since he currently lives in Melbourne) that the night of endless card playing simply flew by. A good thing too since the plane I boarded four hours after disembarking the Spirit had its film playing system damaged and would not be showing any films... I slept the whole bloody way back to LA (all fifteen hours of it).