Cockle Creek

Cockle Creek is famously the end of the road, the furthest south you can drive in any Australian state. The road from Hobart is sealed as far as Ida Bay just south of Lune River. From there it is gravel, in good condition at first but dwindling as you pass through smaller and smaller places. Moss Glen may count as a village but most of them are just cleared camping spots with a composting dunny but no other facilities. And finally there’s Cockle Creek. Why would anyone go there?

beach and bay
Cockle Creek beach

Now that I’ve answered that question…

Camping at Cockle Creek

Years ago, up to WW2 and a bit later, Cockle Creek was a sawmilling centre, a period memorialised with signage and some rusting machinery. In the late nineteenth century it was a whaling base, remembered now by a fine bronze sculpture of a whale calf on a headland at the very end of the road.

Now, it’s just a National Parks camping ground across the road from the beach, with a ranger station, public toilets and water tanks. (You’re told to boil the water before drinking it.) Other than a couple of beach shacks which look as though they’ve been there for a very long time, it reminds me strongly of Lime Bay.

The South Coast Track begins (or ends) here, and the Cockle Creek to South Cape Bay section of it is one of the 60 Great Short Walks in its own right.

The camping ground is a great place for doing very little. Stroll on the beach and up into the estuary, watch the pademelons (resisting the temptation to feed them), spot the green rosellas near one of the beach shacks and the gulls on the beach, and walk down to the point to see the whale sculpture.

Not-entirely-native wildlife

One highlight of the longer walk was seeing a lyrebird crossing the track in front of me. They are not native to Tasmania but were introduced from Victoria when the species seemed vulnerable there. They are doing well, as are the Kookaburras, also introduced deliberately.

European wasps are even more abundant. I saw them on the beach, at my camp site, on banksia flowers beside the track and emerging from a nest on the track itself. They are opportunistic predators and scavengers and their success comes at the expense of native insects so we would be better off without them.

Cockle Creek to South Cape Bay

The walk is very straightforward and not strenuous, just long – 7 km each way. The track is narrow and often rough but always clear and with no big hills. It begins in mixed woodlands dominated by teatree, banksia and eucalypts, then alternates between swampy reedy open spaces and more woodland, according to elevation.

The forecast on my only full day in Cockle Creek was for showers, ‘clearing early afternoon’. I set off at 9am with light mist which became drizzle and fairly heavy rain as I went, giving me an inadvertent but useful insight into how well my gear would have served on a wet Three Capes walk. My raincoat was great but trekking pants got wet very quickly. (I rainproofed the other pair, didn’t I? These things happen.) My joggers were squelching before I got to the beach, too. On the other end, my broad-brim hat worked perfectly: it got wet, but I didn’t.

The beach, exposed to the Southern Ocean, was a dramatic contrast to Cockle Creek. I didn’t stay long, though: five minutes for photos, ten for a snack, ten more to see if the rain was clearing. It wasn’t, so I headed back to camp. The weather cleared as I went, and it was a nice day by the time I got back at about 2pm. Sigh. But it was a good walk in spite of the rain.

surf against steep beach
Surf beating against South Cape Beach

Three Capes Track – Day 4 and notes

Day 4: Retakunna Hut to Fortescue Bay

This, the last day, is the biggest (hardest) day of the walk, according to the rangers. The distance is not quite as great as on Day 3 but there are lots of steps: 800 up and over Mt Fortescue, then 2200 out to Cape Hauy and back, and some more on the last section which trends gently down to Fortescue Bay. The ranger told us to expect to take three hours to the Cape Hauy track junction, one hour each way on the Cape, and one more down to the Bay.

track to mountain
Our first target is the summit of that mountain

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Three Capes – Day 3

morning sky over sea
View from Munro Hut early on Day 3

Most of us were up early on Day 3 of the four-day Three Capes walk  because it is the longest, distance-wise, at 19 km. It’s not as hard as it sounds, however, because the first 16 km were an out-and-back walk from Munro Hut to the tip of Cape Pillar, carrying only a day-pack.

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Three Capes Track – Day 2

Day 2 on the track is more strenuous than Day 1 (previous post), proceeding from Surveyors Hut (130 metres altitude) to Munro Hut (240 m) by way of Arthurs Peak and Crescent Mountain (300 m), a total of 11 km which should take 4 to 4.5 hours according to the track notes.

Most of the route lies close to the cliff tops and the spectacular views present plenty of excuses to stop and rest for a few minutes. My camera will do most of the talking.

We didn’t see a lot of wildlife (it was the end of summer and the country was very dry) but wallabies grazed around the huts at dusk and dawn.

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Three Capes Track – Intro and Day 1

I was very lucky to revisit Tasmania in the second half of March to walk the famous Three Capes Track on the Tasman Peninsula, and in perfect weather. It’s a four-day, three-night hike, 48 km altogether, and the scenery is magnificent so I will spread my report over several posts. This one comprises a quick overview and Day 1.

Overview

The Three Capes Track was developed around 2012 as a major tourism project of the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service. It attracted some controversy at the time but that settled down as people voted with their feet: there’s a limit of 48 people per day, the number of beds in the huts, and it is nearly fully booked in the peak season.

The PWS site is informative and includes a good map if you’re not sure where we are. I will save nearly all my discussion of the practicalities for my last post.

Day 1: Hobart to Port Arthur and the beginning of the walk

The official starting point of the walk is an office in the Port Arthur visitor centre, the convict heritage site on the Tasman Peninsula. Walkers can drive down but I took a dedicated bus service from the Hobart docks. Its 7.30 departure in the last weeks of daylight saving meant that I saw the sun rise while waiting to board.

Signing in at Port Arthur entitles walkers to the freedom of the old penal colony (for two years, incidentally). It is beautiful and historic, however brutal its history, so most walkers take time to see it before boarding the small boat that takes them (us) across to Denmans Cove, the beginning of the hike.

Sunrise over Hobart docks
Sunrise from Franklin Wharf

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