Monday 11th Sep 23 South Coast Track, Tasmania It is quite reasonable to edit ones track notes when publishing. I’ve refrained from doing so in this entry in an effort to retain the immediacy of the thinking. It all looks and feels different a day or so later, especially from the comfort and safety of…
Sunday 10th Sep 2023 South Coast Track, Tasmania It is quite reasonable to edit ones track notes when publishing. I’ve refrained from doing so in this entry in an effort to retain the immediacy of the thinking. It all looks and feels different a day or so later, especially from the comfort and safety of…
Saturday 9th Sep 23 South Coast Track, Tasmania …who pings their PLB. It is quite reasonable to edit ones track notes when publishing. I’ve refrained from doing so in this entry in an effort to retain the immediacy of the thinking. It all looks and feels different a day or so later, especially from…
Friday 8 Sep 23 South Coast Track, Tasmania Ironbound Low Camp is a very loose term. Camp is not what you might imagine the the word. Any patches of ground that looked reasonable proved, on close inspection, to be potential ponds, or were located under vast tonnages of timber which is disconcerting to say the…
Thursday 7 September 2023 South Coast track, Tasmania Camped at Low Camp, Ironbound Range. 900m up and not quite 900m down. Descent like coming down a steep ladder covered in grease. Knackered. 0613 departure after discovering at 0500 our site was flooding. Slept despite listening to wind in the trees and surrounded by lots…
Wednesday 6 Sep 23 South Coast Track, Tasmania When I undertook my officer training we had what must have been the most idiotic leadership assessment exercise, run (I use the term loosely) by an officer who I can happily report did not survive her student review. Legend has it that she became a lady of…
Tuesday 5 Sep 23 South Coast Track, Tasmania We have woken to an unexpected sunny morning. The four day forecast had us expecting to pack up in rain and as we dropped off to the sound of rain last night that was a reasonable expectation. I did consider that the nature of the rain –…
Monday 4 September 23 South Coast Track, Tasmania The cabin went ‘dark’ by about 2030, the silence broken only by the slight synthetic rustle of moving sleeping bags and then by the mournful sound of an owl. Those things always sound like they have just been kicked out of home. The hut is cold –…
Sunday 3 Sep 23 South Coast Track, Tasmania Just inside the backdoor of Mr and Mrs Paton’s small unpainted weatherboard cottage was a blackboard. On it was recorded all the to’ing and fro’ing of the farm. Lambing tallies. Bales of hay. Eggs. Messages for each other. Dog dosing dates. Movements up and down the valley.…
Saturday 2 September 2023 South Coast Track, Tasmania Loading up an A frame pack with a weeks worth of flour, a change of socks and swimmers plus towel was about the sum of my trekking preparation once upon a time. Not so today. The pack was unpacked and checked then repacked – and of course…