South Coast Track - Day 1 - Wed Dec 28, 2005

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Day 1 - Wed Dec 28, 2005

After spending the previous day in Hobart shopping frantically for food and sorting out other necessary things such as purchasing a decent pair of hiking socks, finding accommodation for the night we were intending to return, and ensuring coffee for the hike was adequately supplied (two boxes of Robert Tim's finest "pretend its not instant coffee when everyone knows it really is" coffee bags), we were finally ready to go.

It was, as always, an agonising task working out what clothes to take and what not to take. In the end I decided on the following:

- 1 pair of hiking boots
- 2 thick pairs of hiking socks
- 2 thin pairs of inner socks
- 3 pairs if undies !
- 2 t-shirts.
- 1 long sleeve thermal top.
- 1 pair of thermal bottoms (the always attractive "long Johns")
- 2 pairs of shorts.
- 1 pair of long hiking pants (from which one of the shorts is zipped).
- 1 pair of very light Thai fisherman's pants (for around the camp site, and for bed).
- 1 warm jacket (a wind breaker, also a good pillow)
- 1 waterproof rain coat.
- 1 pair of water proof over-pants.

I should say, there are changes I would make to this having now completed the hike, but I will leave such discussion until the end.

Our first day of hiking was to be an early start, as we had organised to be picked up in a mini-van at 8am by some bloke from Par Avion, the flight charter company of choice for flying us to the start of the walk at a little isolated airstrip known as Melaleuca. The only way to get to this place is by walking an extra five days from Port Davey (the closest point with road access), or flying. At $140 pp, its not cheap to fly, but given no real alternative accept a lot more walking, its not really that bad.

Upon arrival at Hobart's Cambridge Aerodrome, we were quickly ushered into a room with a rather large and intimidating set of scales. I don't know about others, but I always find it slightly disconcerting when airlines get hung up on the weight of baggage, as though the plane may drop out of the sky if things get to heavy. What added to my concern on this occasion was that they not only weighed our backpacks, but also ourselves. When I inquired as to why this was necessary, the pilot explained that this was to balance the weight distribution on the twin engine light aircraft we were to be flying in. Again, a little disconcerting I thought, but I should also mention that this was my first time in a light aircraft. After all weights were in, the pilot then announced the winner - me! - weighing in at 107 kg. I must say, I won convincingly - thanks again to Mum for a lovely Christmas lunch!

I must say, being on the heavy side is not always a bad thing - your alcohol tolerance is usually better, you can survive for longer without food, you stay warmer when its cold, and perhaps best of all, you get to sit next to the pilot when flying in light aircraft. I was effectively co-piloting the plane, which was almost a dream come true (I say almost a dream come true because my real boy-hood dream involved a train, rather than a plane). I even had my own head phones and microphone so I could talk with the pilot, which I did, at great length. Perhaps the only slightly disconcerting aspect of my seating arrangement was that I had access to all the controls the pilot had, and as such, was next in line to fly this thing should the pilot suffer a sudden heart attack. I made sure to observe everything he did, and asked lots of questions, just in case.

The flight to Melaleuca took around 50 minutes, and was not without some turbulence. In fact, most of the flight was pretty bumpy, but particularly so as we began to fly over the mountain peaks of the South West National Park. Being in the front seat, and in constant discussion with the pilot, I was fortunate to get considerable warning about when the turbulence would hit. It wasn't hard to predict - "is mountain, is bumpy". After crossing through the most turbulent section of the flight, known as the portal, which seemed to be perfectly timed near the end of our journey as a kind of climax (and also ensuring that anyone who wasn't already feeling nauseous, certainly was now), we then quickly descended and landed at the Melaleuca airstrip. The pilot then announced, "welcome to sunny Melaleuca". It was raining, a theme that was to continue throughout the hike.

After alighting the aircraft, we all looked for acknowledgement from each other that we all felt like throwing up. Quite amazingly though, no one had vomited during the flight, nor needed to upon getting off the aircraft. Of course, little did we know what lay ahead, for like the weather, vomiting was also to become a continuing theme for this adventure.

Given it was raining, and there was only limited shelter to stand under in the form of a little shed which held containers of fuel for our stoves, we quickly prepared ourselves to begin the journey. Due to laws disallowing the carrying of flammable substances on planes, we had to pre-purchase our fuel from Par Avion and fill up our bottles in this shed at Melaleuca. In order to cook in the National Park, you are required to take fuel stoves because the entire National Park disallows wood fires. We took along two stoves, Aff's Trangia which requires metholated spirits, and Alec's shellite stove. We ended up taking about a litre of metho, and 1.5 litres of Shelite. When it comes to fuel, I generally think, particularly after this hike, that you should take about 30% to %50 more than what you think you will need. Its not that heavy to carry, and its nice to not have to stress too much about running out, particularly when things don't quite go to plan.

After making some final adjustments to our very full back-packs, and taking the obligatory "beginning of walk, look how clean we are" photo (which I unfortunately do not have at the moment), we set off on our 13km to Cox Bight, which involved 3 to 4 hours of reasonably comfortable walking Southward, along a mostly boarded track. The rain cleared not long after starting the walk, which was slightly annoying given the time I had spent finding my rain coat and re-organising my backpack to be more waterproof (wrapping things like my sleeping bag and mat in large plastic garbage bags).

It was apparent very early on that mud, and water, was to feature on this walk, although the early signs were quite tame. One thing we all agreed on at our first drinks break (about an hour or so in), was that we were glad we spent the time the night before waterproofing our boots. A lot of the boarded track was actually submerged in water. We were essentially walking through a boggy marsh, and given the considerable rain the South West of Tassie receives, it is not surprising that you end up walking in water. When you weren't ankle deep in water, you still had to be careful because the boards themselves were quite slippery. Unsure footing was also a sign of things to come.

It was as we approached Cox Bight, a rather large bay on the Southern coast of Tassie, that my mood started to change a little. Until this point, which was about 3 hours in, I had been walking quite comfortably, admiring the marshy planes, and the hills that bordered this quite remarkable area. Until this time, I remember thinking to myself how good it was to be out in the wilderness, away from all the Christmas madness that had brought me here. However, as we approached the beach, a sight that should have served to further establish the good vibes I had been experiencing, I started to feel a little irritable, and worst of all, a little queasy in the stomach. I attributed the irritableness with perhaps, a lack of water, and so stopped to have a drink. The queasiness, I assumed, was some delayed response to the turbulent flight three hours earlier. Everyone seemed to be saying they were not feeling 100 percent, so I had little reason to fear anything serious was looming. That was, until we arrived at the beach, and decided to stop for lunch.

Again, no one felt particularly hungry after the flight, so I didn't think anything of my lack of appetite. I was, however, concerned that unlike everyone else, I really felt quite light headed . Before continuing the walk after lunch, which was to be entirely on the beach until our first camp site, I drank some more water, and ate some chocolate to get my sugar levels up in the hope that this would improve things. Unfortunately, it did not. I soon began to fall behind the pack, much to the disgust of my "wannabe alpha-male-ness". Despite the sandy surface being perfectly smooth and firm, I also started stumbling every so often as my concentration deserted me. "Surely this is more than a small case of delayed travel sickness?" I thought.

Just as I thought this, we approached what essentially was the half way point of the Cox Bight beach walk, in the form of a relatively small hilly peninsula known as Point Eric. Traversing Point Eric involved leaving the beach temporally, and following the track through some pretty dense vegetation, and slightly up hill. It is perhaps a testimony to how ill I was feeling at this point, that my memory of this would have me believing this small ascent from the beach was like Mt Everest, and the vegetation, something from the Amazon. I was struggling as we clambered through the bush. However, there was one saving grace - point Eric had a camp site, and if we wished to, we could stop there rather than continue the walk to the other end of the beach. It was probably only 10 minutes after leaving the beach, that we stumbled onto a quite tranquil camp site. And clearly, we hadn't really gone up hill much at all because it was right on the beach. There was no doubt in my mind that we should camp here. Without a word, I dropped my back pack, and just sat on my bag, with my head in my hands. I was sweating significantly more than was justified for a relatively cool day, and not a particularly difficult walk. Thankfully, everyone seemed quite happy to stop (as others were also not feeling 100 percent, but seemed to still be attributing this with the flight, and were not exhibiting the same debilitating symptoms I seemed to be experiencing). I was quite conscious of the fact that perhaps I was just a big woos, and everyone else was just better at handling it. After helping Aff put up our tent (which from memory, I think involved me handing Aff a peg), I was just about to get in and rest, when an overwhelming need to vomit came over me. Suddenly, my apparent lack of ability to walk without stumbling vanished as I exhibited a Cathy Freeman style sprint out of the tent and away from the main camp site area. The vomiting continued in about half hour intervals for the rest of the evening, and to a lesser extent, that night.

Most people know what its like to be vomiting constantly, but is quite something else when you are away from all the comforts of home, and knowing you have only just begun a very long journey that will need all your energy, and you have a group of people effected by your illness. While some memories are a bit vague of this time, I do remember feeling very stressed, and Aff telling me to calm me down, saying "don't worry, we'll have a rest day tomorrow if you need it". There was, of course, little chance of me being able to walk any great distance the following day, if at all, for even if the vomiting stopped, I had lost so much water, and felt so lethargic, that just getting out of the tent was a huge effort. Also contributing to my woes, was a growing feeling of claustrophobia in the tent, which further compounded my nausea. In the end, I left the tent and walked down to the beach, away from everyone else (they had started cooking dinner, which was difficult enough to listen to, let alone smell). I just lay on my side on a grassy embankment, and stared out at the ocean. For some reason, lying on my side seemed to help things, but as soon as I sat up, I would soon be on all fours, decorating the Tasmanian wilderness with my own attempt at a Pro Hart style masterpiece.

As the sun set, I decided to try sleeping in the tent again. Thankfully, I was pretty exhausted, and managed to drift off to sleep for what must have been about 4 or 5 hours. I did, however, wake up at some insane time of the morning, again feeling nauseous, claustrophobic and feverish. The only relief was to zip open the tent, and stick my head out in the cold night air. Unfortunately, it was also raining, but this didn't stop me again sprinting out for one final performance. After this, I drifted back off to sleep, and next awoke as the sun was rising for day 2 of this already eventful hike.

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