The Overland Track

Day 0 - Arriving at Cradle Mountain

A slightly stressful morning of flight delays was thankfully overshadowed by an afternoon of beautiful weather, nice strangers and cute creatures.

Our bus driver, Mitch, gave everyone lots of helpful information about the walk, and some interesting information about Tasmania. Did you know that Tasmania has most of the world's dolerite? It is an igneous rock.

Our fellow passengers were great as well, two of which were a couple from Brisbane, only a bit older than us. The remaining five were a group of friends from all around Australia.

We stopped in Sheffield on our way up, which had a nice view of a mountain (Mt. Roland), and we ate some pies.

Not long after, we arrived at the National Park, collected our gear, and received our briefing. I liked the sense of humour of the ranger who gave the presentation.

As for the animals, we saw two wombats (+0.5 wombat). One was a local resident of the caravan park - Wilma - who often breaks into the reception and steals snacks. The other was a mother with the foot of her little one sticking out of her pouch.

- Wilma trying to get into reception

We saw three echidnas, they are much fluffier in Tasmania since they have no natural predators. Their fur, which usually hardens into spikes, remains mostly soft, so they have fewer and smaller spikes.

Also, I saw three pademelons (Sarah only saw one). These guys are very cute.

Dinner was zangy potato pasta (with extra zang). The campground was quite nice. I'd like to come back here to spend a few days. Sarah and I went for a walk at sunset, the mountain looked beautiful.

Day 1 - Ronnie Creek to Waterfall Valley

We started our day early with an alarm set for 6:30. Our aim was to catch the first bus of the day.

Our bags were already packed, so we just had to eat breakfast. As we were to become accustomed to, our breakfast was instant oats and pepitas, with a different dried fruit every day. This morning was date. We also had a couple pears for our final taste of fresh food, and a muesli bar each for an on-the-go snack. The group of five also gave us a banana that they weren't planning on eating.

We gathered our things and headed for the bus stop. We successfully caught the first bus of the day, and began our trek at Ronnie Creek. Our Brisbanian friends helped us out by taking a picture for us at the trailhead, and we were off.

Each part of the day was quite different.

The beginning was somewhat of a bowl, it was the lowest-lying part of the day, and definitely the clearest. We saw wombat holes, walking trees, and lovely little creeks flowing through the marsh. This was quickly followed by one of the most beautiful parts of the day. It was a set of waterfalls, flowing through rocks and around mossy trees. Magical. Unfortunately, this part was quite short.

We emerged from the magical rainforest to find a dilapidated hut at the exit of a lake overlooked by mountains. We walked up to the point where, if you looked back, you could see the entire lake. If you looked forwards, you could see the treacherous climb up to Marion's lookout. I quite enjoyed this part. Holding on to the chain as you ascend the rocky face is quite a unique experience.

We were immediately crowded by currawongs when we arrived at Marion's Lookout, they wanted my pear core. The ranger told us to look them in the eyes, staring them down makes them scared. They won't steal your food unless they think you aren't watching.

As soon as we left Marion's Lookout, it began to rain. We found refuge in Kitchen hut, where we made our first tuna wraps. Today's tuna flavour was chilli.

The rest of the day was quite nice. Unfortunately not nice enough to go up Cradle Mountain - it was foggy up there anyway. At our altitude, (roughly 1250m), the weather fluctuated between clear, wet, and foggy. The wet was very light, it felt like little kisses from the clouds. In this part we saw some beautiful mountains, cliffs, and valleys, as well as shrubs, trees, and creeks.

We got hikers high, glad to have completed the hardest climb of the entire track, and excited for what was to come.

This high ended as we descended through a steep forest with sore legs, and arrived at the Waterfall Valley hut. The hut well exceeded my expectations. The main room was heated by a large gas fireplace, with large tables and plenty of seats. The bunk rooms were spacious and clean.

- A couple wallabies hanging out near Waterfall Valley hut

We sat and socialised for a few hours. At first, it was just the people from our bus yesterday to get to the hut, but as the hours passed, the hut got busier. We will become familiar with these faces over the week.

For dinner, we had honey soy chicken, with Shin-Ramyun black for our second course. The honey soy was a bit bland, but the ramen really hit the spot. We spent the rest of the night reading until we went to bed.

Day 2 - Waterfall Valley to Lake Windermere

I got up early, before most others. I packed my sleeping gear in the main room as people slowly gathered. A couple people woke up and prepared some day packs, they wanted to climb Barn Bluff. We had another date for breakfast this morning (I accidentally put the date breakfast in both day 1 and 2). We ate with our Brisbanian friends, and left around 8.

Today, we prepared for the worst. Thermals, fleece, two rain jackets, and rain pants. It was wise to do so, as it was either raining or hailing the entire time. Luckily, it was a short day. We arrived at the turnoff to Lake Will early, and faced hail head-on as we walked to our lunch spot.

- Not Barn Bluff, some other hill

When we arrived, we were lucky to find a break in the weather, which lastest long enough to eat our tuna wraps. While preparing my wrap, a gust of wind blew the wrap into the bush. Fortunately it was not yet filled with tuna and we managed to salvage the wrap. The tuna wraps are the best meals of the day by far. We were feeling some sublime as the fog hid the true extent of the lake and Barn Bluff overlooking it.

We continued our walk to the hut. Sarah got a cold hand attack - which we treated with hot hands. This was short lived, and we continued onwards. The fog revealed some hints of beautiful vistas at times, but for the most part we couldn't see more than 50 metres in any direction. We took cover from the wind and hail as we entered the forest. It was a nice sight to see water running down the rocky path.

It was a completely different day when we emerged from the forest. The sun had come out, and we could see Lake Windermere and Barn Bluff. A ranger walked past us in the opposite direction. I think his name was Tim. He gave us the forecast - weather was decreasing (which I found out means getting worse) - and he marked our names off his sheet. Very nice guy.

The hut was a short walk away, where we took off our wet clothes and boots, and warmed up. It started to hail again as soon as we arrived. The hut was once again very nice. As we ate our snack the hail passed and the sun came out, so we went for a little walk. Visibility was excellent.

I had a nap, then we had a hot choc, then some hydralite. Dinner was ramen and spicy beef nachos. I revealed my secret surprise to Sarah. I brought Tony's Chocolonely in the bottom of my bag. Unfortunately it was the last thing either of us wanted. Something a bit closer to fresh would have done wonders after all days of nuts and processed foods.

Then the highlight of the day. It started snowing. I've never seen snow in a place like this. Dense forest next to a lake with no civilisation in sight. We saw a little wombat walking in the snow. Great day.

Day 3 - Windermere to Pelion

Basically everyone in the hut woke up early. Today was our biggest day of the week. 16.8 kilometres from start to finish. We had pear cobbla for breakfast and moved on quickly, earlier than yesterday, but many in the hut had already begun walking.

The beginning was magical. We exited the hut into a wintery wonderland. It had snowed even more overnight. The sun came out and shone on the snow-covered landscape. Trees and shrubs had a light covering, while the boardwalk had a nice thick layer of snow. I've never walked through anything like it. This was soon followed by wind and snowfall, also beautiful but I had to put my camera away.

The weather alternated between snowy and sunny every 30 minutes for a few hours. Luckily when we arrived at the lookout it was clear. The view was vast down the Forth valley.

This is where the walk started to get more difficult. In hindsight we made it more difficult for ourselves. We spent a lot of time and effort trying to keep our shoes from getting wet. Stepping on roots, logs, and rocks, we mostly managed to keep our shoes dry for a while. I had a greater stake in the game as the waterproof aspect of my shoes started to fail in the toe area. As long as the tops of my toes stayed dry, I was good. This did not happen. My socks got absolutely soaked. They were always going to get soaked.

The worst of these puddles was found in one of the best places of the walk so far. It was like the mossy forest of day 1, but way longer. We were walking through this mossy forest for kilometres. At times we became sick of it, but it always showed us something beautiful to make up for it.

Bridges across rivers, rocky paths with water flowing down, the sun shining through the leaves onto the mossy trees while it was snowing and the snow from the trees was melting simulating rain. Three types of weather all at once. It was an absolutely spectacular place. We had our tuna wrap lunch at one of the bridges. Water was flowing over a mossy rock face.

This forest took us all the way to the hut. It flipped back to being more snowy than wet as we got close, along with being more eucalypt than myrtle-beech. Once we emerged, the hut presented itself. We noticed that huts can only be in areas with clearings, as they all have helipads, so clearings became our beacons.

New Pelion is ironically one of the older huts. It is large and has many beds, but it wasn't quite as warm and the first two. The view from the hut of Mt Oakleigh was excellent.

We warmed up as we socalised with our Brisbanian friends James and Emily (I learned their names). They encouraged me to trade half a block of Tony's with another group for a bag of twiggy sticks. They had brought 1 kilo of twiggy sticks and 2 kilos of cheese. Doug and his group (who are also from Melbourne) were stoked to have gotten rid of some twiggies.

Other things that Doug's group brought included 2.5 kilos of oats and 4 bottles of fireball (1 per person). They started the hike with almost 30 kilos each. Honestly very impressive.

Sarah and I had beef teriyaki and lamb biryani for dinner. Two freeze dried meals as a reward for our big day. Best day so far.

Day 4 - Pelion to Kia Ora

We started this day a little slower. I was hesitant to put my wet clothes on.

Breakfast was yum, we had appla. The apple chunks had good texture. Eventually we got prepared and made our way out, with some fresh water in the tank. We both remarked that our packs felt lighter and better than ever today - which made us ponder whether we had left anything important behind.

Fortunately this was not the case and we were just feeling good. We had a goal to speed through the day, we had been told by Oscar that the rain was forecast to be 47mm, that plus the melting snow from yesterday made the tracks incredibly wet. My socks still hadn’t dried from the previous night, but it didn’t matter, since they had become wet again within 10 minutes.

Our day was a climb, followed by a descent. The climb took us through a beautiful rainforest, similar to yesterday, though wetter. We passed fast-flowing creeks, which were brown from the tannins, and many, many mud puddles.

We had already given up on keeping dry, learning from yesterday’s mistakes, so we didn’t hesitate to push through these puddles at speed. It was surprising how wet the track was in this first half, but we didn’t even know the half of it.

We emerged from the forest to Pelion Gap, where, if the weather was good, we would have left our bags to go check out a couple mountain tops. The weather was not good. It was so incredibly cold and windy. We walked quickly to keep warm, and to leave the buttongrass moorland as soon as possible.

There was boardwalk for some time, but after we got over the second little hill and started to descend towards the hut, we realised how different the water would make this walk - if you could even call it that. The trail had become a solid stream of water up to our ankles, there was no chance to keep your feet dry even if you wanted to. This was the most fun I’d had on the hike so far. Running down a wet creek in boots was so joyous. Before, when we chose to put our shoes in the puddles, there was a bit of hesitation, we knew it was right but it wasn't what we wanted. In this moment we did not care anymore, the hike had to be hiked, and we chose to enjoy it.

We reached the hut before midday, and chowed down on tuna wraps while we contemplated how we were going to get our wet clothes to not be so wet.

Kia Ora was another modern hut, but this was not to its advantage. The heater was immediately swarmed by everyone's wet clothes in the misguided hopes that they could possibly dry by the morning. The water evaporating from everyone's clothes, combined with the nearly 30 people crowding inside of a single room, meant that this hut became extremely humid. It would have been impossible for anything to dry.

Emily, James, Sarah and I chose to spend most of our time outside in the cold, after playing a couple rounds of cabo.

We had a nice evening, we chatted with more people today and got to know some people’s plans for getting to the ferry. Cabin fever started to stir about ferries being cancelled and booked out. Some groups were planning to walk from Kia Ora to Narcissus in one day (skipping Bert Nichols). Others were planning on getting up at 4am on the final day of the hike to make the 9:30 am ferry. We thought that was ridiculous.

Dinner was one shin ramyun black and one chicken tikka masala. Both quite yummy. Today was the most fun day so far.

Day 5 - Kia Ora to Bert Nichols

We spent the worst night of the week in the worst room of the night. It was so incredibly hot and muggy, and there were at least three different snorers.

This was sufficient motivation to move into the main room. Sarah left around midnight. I followed shortly after. Slept perfectly from then on.

Since we were in the kitchen, we woke up pretty early, as people started to come in to get ready for their day. As mentioned, there were a few groups going all the way from Kia Ora but to Narcissus, skipping the night at Bert Nichols. They wanted to get up early for their big day. We thought we might as well take this opportunity to get ready ourselves. It is nice to get to a hut early and start relaxing.

For breakfast we had pearpricot. The pear and apricot chunks all fell to the bottom in the gluggiest breakfast of all. We were up and moving at around 7. This was the second day of putting on wet socks and shoes, but once again, the water filled them within the first 10 minutes and all was back to normal.

Today was waterfall day. There were a few side trips to see waterfalls, but we chose to only see the last one, Hartnett falls. Mitch, our bus driver, had recommended it as the best one if we could only see one.

The hike started similar to how the previous one had finished. Soggy rainforest, walking over tree roots and through puddles. This was basically how it was the entire day. That being said it was quite beautiful.

The turnoff to the waterfall was around 6km into the hike, so we dropped our bags and left. Since weather prevented most of the side trips on this hike, we were wearing our packs the whole time we were walking, so it was lovely to spend some time without a pack.

We walked through a bit of tall bush and bog to get to the falls. It was very much worth it. The water was incredible. Since it had rained and snowed so much in the previous days, the water rushing down the waterfall was massive. We saw the water fall from the top, down a massive cliff, and into a river carved through the rock. Absolutely incredible. This waterfall is part of the Mersey River, which flows all the way into Devonport.

After seeing that, we were wet enough. It was time to finish the hike. Little did we know we still had roughly half to go. There was a surprisingly large hill, the top being du cane gap. This hill however was not large enough to take us out of the forest. Once we had reached the gap, it was all downhill to the hut.

We got to the hut just as it started snowing. We de-booted and de-socked, went inside, then prepared our things and went to warm up. The ranger was about to leave when we arrived. He gave us the forecast, rain and snow for the rest of the day, but 0-1mm tomorrow, on our final day. This was the best news all week.

We had some snacks, chatted, and made all of our hot beverages. A tea, a hot chocolate, and then two more teas. Somewhere in there we had our tuna wraps. We warmed up the tuna in the pot which was nice. We decided that we would be part of the ridiculous group getting up at 4am to catch the ferry. Our fears got the best of us. We had a booking for the 9:30 am ferry, and didn't want to risk getting there late and hoping that we could get on the 1:15 pm one. If we couldn't get on, we would miss a night in Hobart, and have to eat nuts and seeds (Sarah began to call it bird food) for dinner and breakfast.

The vibe on this night was nice. It was the last night for most, so everyone was winding down. Sarah managed to get everyone staying in our hut to come down to the helipad for a group picture. I shared our second block of Tony’s around.

We all went outside to look at the beautiful view of the mountains as the sun came out. We returned inside and it was quite dark, which pretty much marked the end of our day. We said a final goodbye to our Brisbanian friends Emily and James, and went to bed for our 4am alarm.

Day 6 - Bert Nichols to Narcissus

The 4am alarm was very welcome, it was not a very sleepy night. I wanted to get up and moving. And that we did. The whole room was awake and packing their things. We didn’t have breakfast, just put on our (literally) ice cold clothes and moved out. With the head torch on, I could see a couple metres in front, it was very fun.

The forecast was wrong. It wasn't our wettest day, but it definitely wasn't our dryest. I was more than over the wet, but the snow was charming so it was hard to stay mad.

I would yell signals like “heads” and “gap” when there were branches and leaves to avoid, or creeks to step over. We were determined to make the ferry, and we moved like it. We maintained our pace until dawn, when we had to stop to admire the beauty.

We realised we had plenty of time until the ferry, so we took the remainder of the walk at a gentle pace, enjoying our last moments on the track. The snow really adds a lot to the environment.

We reached a wobbly suspension bridge, then it was only a short walk until the hut presented itself. This was a cute old hut. It only had space for 16 people, but it looked like there were at least 20 that stayed there overnight. I'm very glad we woke up early instead of spending our last night there.