A few weeks ago on Easter I was walking the South Coast Track in Tasmania’s South West National Park. Compared to my previous long hike – the Overland Track – this track is more challenging, there are no huts along the track, it is more remote with less visitors and rangers around and the track usually tends to be very muddy.

It was eight great days of hiking through wilderness and along beautiful coast line, but I have also been extremely happy when I returned home. I wouldn’t call it disappointing, but the track conditions certainly have been a lot worse than I expected – and I was prepared for a lot. Half of the track was pure mud, in fact it’s almost safe to say that whenever the track leaves the direct coast line and beaches to cross open plains or the South Cape Range for example, it becomes a real muddy mess. Sometimes I was standing up to my hips in mud and it’s really not a great walking experience if you have to wade through mud for several kilometres every day.

In the end I would say I’m very happy that I did the walk, because the remaining, not muddy, part of the track was just beautiful and exciting even though the weather had been very challenging. But I am also pretty sure that I won’t walk the South Coast Track again, there are a lot of tracks in Tasmania that provide a less frustrating experience. But who knows, never say never.

• Day 1 – Melaleuca – Point Eric (13 km)
• Day 2 – Point Eric – Louisa River (17 km)
• Day 3 – Louisa River – Ironbounds Low Camp (9 km)
• Day 4 – Ironbounds Low Camp – Turua Beach (5 km)
• Day 5 – Turua Beach – Osiridium Beach (12 km)
• Day 6 – Osmiridium Beach – Granite Beach (8 km)
• Day 7 – Granite Beach – Lion Rock (12 km)
• Day 8 – Lion Rock – Cockle Creek (8 km)

There’s a new photo gallery with 250 photos in my Picasa Web Album. But keep in mind that the photos mostly show the better parts of the track. I didn’t take many photos of mud or when it was raining, for obvious reasons.

What had been a bit disappointing was the lack of wildlife. From other walks I was used to having wildlife everywhere. Even in Hobart I only need to walk half an hour from the city to be able to see wallabies, parrots, possums and more in the surroundings of Mt Wellington with a bit of luck. But on the South Coast Track there was barely anything. Maybe I was simply unlucky, but the only wildlife I encountered mainly was a number of beautiful parrots and other birds. I haven’t seen a single wallaby, pademelon, possum or wombat. It seems like other tracks are more suited if you want to see wildlife.

For this walk I had been a lot better prepared than for the Overland Track, and I replaced a lot of my gear before I left. Still I was very surprised when they checked the weight of my backpack at the airport and it turned out to to be more than 22 kg! With gas and water added in Melaleuca I started the walk carrying more than a third of my own body weight, but it felt lighter than on the Overland Track.

The best piece of my equipment had definitely been the tarp. It was raining a lot and the tarp allowed me to pitch and pack my tent and other stuff without becoming wet, a big advantage. It also provided a lot of storage room, since my new tent doesn’t have a real vestibule. A small lightweight tent and a tarp, that’s a good combination.

I was also very lucky to carry a bunch of string. Not only is it useful to have a clothes line to dry your day clothes, it also helped me to repair my gaiters which broke after a couple of days (cheap ones) and also to fix my shoes, because the shoe lace on one of them broke. You can’t carry spare parts for everything, so it’s helpful to carry universal tools like string and a MacGyver knife.

Like I wrote before I left, I bought a light mosquito repellent pump spray with Picaridin. It’s called Aerogard and worked very well. Whenever I used it I didn’t have any trouble at all with insects and I didn’t notice any sort of skin irritation. So it was a good choice.

My new tent, the Vango F10 Helium 100, worked ok. It took me a few days to figure out how to set it up in the best possible way, but ultimately I got used to it. If you plan to buy it please be aware that it’s really (really) small. It’s not possible to sit inside. Changing clothes is difficult too. It might be better to take the Helium 200 which is a bit more spacey with only little more weight. I also had a few condensation issues, but only when it was wet outside or with high humidity, or when I had wet clothes inside the tent. It wasn’t too much of a problem. In the end, for a 1 kg tent I can’t complain, it’s a quality tent. But I was glad I had my tarp, so I was able to store shoes, backpack and day clothes outside during the night.

I’m not sure what I will do next. It’s now pretty cold in Tasmania and it will probably last until October/November. I guess I won’t do much walking/hiking during winter, it was almost a bit too cold for me on the South Coast Track, I prefer really hot and sunny weather over cold and rainy times. Moreover I don’t have a warm sleeping bag and my mattress sucks. But I don’t want to buy new equipment at the moment. So I will probably save my leave days until next spring or summer and concentrate on my work during winter. I would love to do another cycling tour around Tasmania (including west coast this time) next summer but I would need around 4 weeks to do it.