Explorer : Mud, Leeches and Stunning Beauty in Tasmania

Written By Unknown on Senin, 28 Januari 2013 | 17.35

Alex Hutchinson for The New York Times

Waves crash into the shore along Tasmania's South Coast Track.

I stole my first glimpses of Tasmania's rocky southern coastline from about 2,000 feet up, peering through the rounded pane of the cockpit window whenever I felt composed enough to look up from my sick bag. Beside me, our pilot, Thomas, was riding the yoke as if it was a mechanical bull, trying to keep the single-engine Cessna steady as gusts roared in from the Southern Ocean.

My wife, Lauren, and I were on our way to the starting point of the South Coast Track, a seven-day tramp along a trail that remains as untamed now as it was over a century ago, when the route was first blazed to help shipwrecked sailors find their way back to civilization. This swath of wilderness, protected as part of the 2,300-square-mile Southwest National Park, is the last stop from Australia before Antarctica. Its remoteness, rugged terrain and often fearsome weather have kept it essentially uninhabited and unexploited — for good reason, as we would soon find out.

We had ordered a slim guidebook to the trail — the only one available — and were reassured to read that "many experienced walkers regard the track as easy." The route spans a modest 52 miles, with campsites peppered throughout, so we decided to finish it in seven days (the guide recommended seven or eight), and splice a demanding three-day side trip to a nearby mountain peak into the middle, for a total of 10 days. After all, we didn't want to squander our vacation on an insufficiently challenging trip.

Thomas finally turned the plane inland, and pointed into the distance. We could see a tiny splotch of white in the otherwise unbroken sea of green scrubland: a patch of flat gravel that would serve as our makeshift airstrip. From here we would hike back down to the coast, then follow it from the southwest corner of the island to the southeast, finishing at the southernmost tip of the southernmost road in Australia — a spot marked by a wooden sign engraved with the words "The End of the Road" — where a pickup truck would be waiting to shuttle us back to Hobart, the Tasmanian capital. (The trail has been unaffected by recent widespread wildfires.)

That first day — after our inner ears had regained their equilibrium — was idyllic. After three hours of walking across gentle buttongrass plains, we reached the coast and camped in a sheltered grove of eucalyptus trees next to a creek. As the sun set, we strolled along a beach dotted with starfish, watching wallabies and pademelons — mini kangaroos, essentially — feed among the dunes, while oystercatchers swooped above the crashing waves.

We woke the next morning to the steady patter of rain on our tent — not a big surprise in a region where it rains an average 250 days a year, but a gentle reminder that the trip wouldn't be all moonlit walks and cute marsupials. We hastily strung up the ultralight silicone-coated tarp we'd bought specially for the trip, and breakfasted under it in relative comfort. Then we hoisted our packs and set out eastward along the beach.

Though the route follows the water as much as possible, there are stretches where the coastal cliffs are impassable. This necessitates long inland detours across poorly drained moors, through lush rain forest, over two subalpine mountain ranges and through dense scrub that's "as thick as hair on a cat's back," as one of the original trailblazers described it in 1906.

Much has been done since those days to smooth the passage of the modern traveler — boardwalks over some of the swampier quagmires, ropes strung across deep river crossings, basic pit toilets at some of the most common camping spots. Still, no two trips along the trail follow exactly the same path, thanks to the constantly shifting coastline and the tides. Picking our way along the route, we started to get a taste of the coastline's stunning topographical diversity: beaches alternating with rocky inlets, gnarled trees twisting away from the salty wind, columns of water erupting from blowholes at the base of dramatic cliffs.

Partway through our second morning, we reached a set of cliffs that jutted out into the water, blocking the beach we were trying to follow. Skirting the base of these cliffs is "normally easy except at high tide," our guidebook blithely assured us. Seeing that the tide was still rising, we hurriedly began to pick our way from boulder to boulder, scurrying along the sand between waves.

It turns out that oceans are much less regular and predictable than we, in our landlubbering ignorance, had presumed. Rocks that had been comfortably out of the water during one set of waves were suddenly under two feet of pushy surf in the next set. Soaked to the thighs and clinging to the abrasive cliff face with white knuckles, we eventually made it to the other side with a recalibrated sense of what "normally easy" means.


Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang

Explorer : Mud, Leeches and Stunning Beauty in Tasmania

Dengan url

http://travelwisatawan.blogspot.com/2013/01/explorer-mud-leeches-and-stunning_28.html

Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya

Explorer : Mud, Leeches and Stunning Beauty in Tasmania

namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link

Explorer : Mud, Leeches and Stunning Beauty in Tasmania

sebagai sumbernya

0 komentar:

Posting Komentar

techieblogger.com Techie Blogger Techie Blogger