South West Wilderness? Tasmazing!

Yes, I wrote 'tasmazing' which I know isn't a real word, but whatever. Today I went to Par Avian at Cambridge Airfield to board a light aircraft. The aircraft would then fly fir an hour to Melalucea. That's the boring details out of the way, now lets go! <Cue Music>

A twin engined tin can that liked to wiggle around when 4000 feet in the air.

The red line was our route. You can click for bigger.

The route was simple, just go around the southern most point of Tasmania and land in the middle of nowhere. It was also the first time I've ever been in an aircraft that was in danger of being punctured by a stray pigeon.

Here was my view. So if we hit a mountain I'd be the first of the passengers to know.

"...And this button makes the wings fall off."

That little sand coloured patch in the middle? That's the landing strip.

I had a front row seat, past Bruny Island, over Cockle Creek (the most southerly point you can reach by car) and over the South Cape (The most southerly point in Australia) then, after a shaky last half hour, we landed on a small airstrip that was built by 'the' Deny King, who happens to be a bit of a legend in Tasmania (he died in 1991, so he's quite a recent legend). Then it was time for my camera to do the talking.

these are not just mountains, these are untouched for thousands of years mountains.

Yep, I did spell it right.

Then we would have to take to the water to get to Clayton's Corner at Port Davey. Yep, from the sky to the water, like the graceful and noble duck.

The boat of kings!

Water water everywhere, but this stuff is apparently drinkable (I didn't test that theory)

You may have noticed the weather conditions. For an area that sees over 100 inches of rainfall a year it was amazing. The warm breeze from the north east meant my hoodie went straight into my bag as soon as we landed, along with my redundant hat and gloves. This is supposed to be Tasmania, in Autumn, and the only water I got hit by was the spray from the boat as the pilot turned captain, Thomas, cranked up the speed once we got out of the 5 knots zone.

We arrived at the now public shelter to find a few fishermen already at the jetty. They had been catching crayfish earlier on in the day. That sounds like a great thing to do, just sail around in a huge yacht and catch fish... maybe I'll start saving, I'm sure I'll find a yacht on eBay for next to nothing.

They sell yachts on eBay, don't they?

Turns out this 'corner' is a popular place for passers by to just stay in a night or two, walkers and sailors alike.

And here's Clyde Clayton, he died in 2006 (but he did have a cool name) and his story was enough to be published into a book, that you will no doubt go and read now. Unless you buy books from Amazon.co.uk

Better than most hostels.

A short tea break and then a ten minute stroll up a hill to see, well, this,

Great stuff. It was also a chance to talk to some fellow travellers. A couple of Americans and the rest were Aussies, but I was the youngest and Englishest. There was one larger group of Aussies travelling together who seemed fascinated to see a backpacker come out to this area, which I found odd. I would have thought lots of backpackers would want to see one of the world's last natural wildernesses up close. To taste the air, hear the birds (seeing them is more difficult) and just spend a day in a place that is a natural wonder whilst they are here in Oz.

Back to the boats and on to a beach further up the harbour for lunch.

On the way we passed a small bunch of islands that were like a natural barrier against the rough Southern Ocean. Ships often come into the area to seek shelter when the sea is too rough, like 70ft waves too rough.

Just as an indicator, some of those islands are about 70ft high and sailors have seen waves crash over them.

On the way to the beach we also spotted a Sea Eagle, which is an awesome bird that is a sight to behold, so the complete opposite of my ex-girlfriend! Thank you, I'm here all week.

BEHOLD! As my mighty camera struggles to pick up this amazing beast.

That's enough bird spotting for now, as after a short walk on the beach it's lunch time!

If you bite into a pepper bush leaf, it tastes like pepper... then your tongue goes numb.

It's not dirty, it's Tannin (tm)

Clever girl....

The weather was still in the mid-high 20's, which even the Aussies were surprised about as we grabbed some really nice food (I'm talking Greek salad, smoked salmon, cheese and some local wine) some chose to sit in the shady spot, but I opted to sit in the sun on the beach with a few others, which was a good choice because it was nice, but bad because of European wasps! (Look away if you are Lauren)

'Où sont les bonbons?'

The wasps weren't really a big deal. The birds however were right little teases. In the small clearing where the food was laid out you could hear some amazing songbirds in the trees, but seeing them was nigh impossible.

THERE'S ONE!

So I took pictures of other things instead...

Holy teapot, Batman!

Then, it was back to the boats to head back to where we started. The sheltered waters of the harbour are home to platypuses and often dolphins chase mackerel into the shallower water to separate them and catch them easily. But we didn't see any of that. We did, however see rich people's boats

Then it was back on land, where things got a little bit touristy.

The Needwonnee were a Tasmanian tribe that lived in the area thousands of years ago, until us lot killed them all (basically). We walked along a well made board walk to catch a glimpse of how these people lived.

Here is an Aboriginal creation story, about the first man, Parlevar. I was going to just link it to a wiki article but Googling 'Parlevar creation story' yields no useful results, so here's each of the 6 walls big enough to read... hopefully.

Good story. Next we went to Deny King's actual house, where he lived for blimmin' ages! I want to read the book about him now (not right now, obviously) because he just sounds like an awesome guy.

Anybody that has wild carnivorous plants is pretty awesome already.

Plus he lived here.

Then it was time to fly back to Cambridge. I was in the middle of the plane this time as I was in the front on the way out. I didn't mention earlier that the headphones we were wearing actually patched us in to the chatter over the skies. I couldn't understand anything they were saying, but the reams of numbers and digits the pilots and air traffic guys were saying was quite interesting.

Hobart

And that was my day. Although kind of expensive, I think it was well worth it as I saw a corner of the planet I will probably never see again, from a vantage point I have never been before and it was glorious!
Tomorrow I intend on finally meeting some Tassie Devils (that aren't dead on the side of the road).