Matt Down Under

My sleep was ok, usually I never sleep well except in my own bed at home. Breakfast was great again, with cake, tea and apples. Normally I wouldn’t take apples as they are heavy, but since I was mostly doing basecamping here it was not a problem. And again I really enjoyed being so organised with only few bags, no trouble at all getting ready for the day.

At 9am I was ready to leave, I was planning to climb Mt Maria. I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to climb a second -even more difficult - mountain just one day after Bishop and Clerk, but the weather looked alright and I was afraid I would have to skip it (like I had to in 2008) if the weather became worse the following days.

Walking inlands to the track that leads up Mt Maria was nice, I was passing the ruins of the Oast House and saw many wallabies and birds. It took me about an hour to walk to the junction from where a track leads to the top of Mt Maria. From there it was 4 hours return according to the signs.

While I walked up there I had a feeling I was the first on the track that day. The vegetation was very thick and I constantly ran into spider webs. There were pretty much no views until close to the top, so the climb up can feel quite tiring. It’s like a never-ending track and it gets steeper and more diffcult the higher you climb.

Close to the top I arrived at a large field of boulders. The track led straight across it. As it started to rain a bit I sat down, had a break and thought about it, I didn’t feel very well doing so much rock climbing, I’m usually not someone who takes unnecessary risks only to get a photo from the top. From my position I could see a signal construction on what I thought was the top of Mt Maria, and it was still at least an hour away, but then I noticed the real top of Mt Maria was actually quite close, not far from where I was.

Then I heard other people climbing up after me, and it made me feel safe enough to go ahead. In the end all the rock climbing was far more risky than I would have wanted, but I tried not to think about how to get back down later. The things you do in order to reach the top first and get a photo without other people on it.

The view from the top was amazing, but it was just below the clouds, very cold and windy. I took some photos, put on my wind braker and sat down in a sheltered spot to have lunch. More and more people arrived, by the time I decided to climb down there were around 20 people up there.

Surprisingly climbing down felt much easier than climbing up. I was back at the start of the track in no time, but this time I walked via Hopground Beach instead of the Oast House track. Hopground Beach is where the famous Painted Cliffs are, a formation of sandstone cliffs with beautiful natural patterns. I didn’t actually go there, the Parks and Wildlife people recommended to go there at low tide which was around 6pm, it also happened to be the right time for sunset. So I decided to go back to the camp, have a shower and dinner first and then come back later.

I took my shoes off and walked in the water, it felt really fantastic after 6 hours of bushwalking and climbing.

Later after dinner I grabbed my gear and walked back from Darlington to the Painted Cliffs. Just when I arrived at Hopground Beach and saw other people already walking around the Painted Cliffs, it started to rain. I couldn’t believe it, it always seems to rain in Tasmania when you really don’t need rain at all. I did what I usually do, cursing the weather, cursing Tasmania, cursing the whole world. Then what usually happens, happened: the rain stopped, and made feel like an idiot once again. By now I should know that rain in Tasmania never lasts long, in most cases it rains for a few minutes and then it’s gone. I’m trying hard to learn to have more patience, it’s difficult.

One good thing about the rain however, was, that it scared off all the other people who were not clever enough to bring a rain jacket. So suddenly I had the whole Painted Cliffs for myself, and what’s even better, suddenly it turned into one of the most amazing sunsets ever. It took maybe 30 minutes until the sun was gone, and during that time it shined towards the cliffs like a spotlight, which looked absolutely stunning. I felt like the luckiest guy in the world, I had all the time in the world to take amazing photos while the sun did its best to provide assistance. I was impressed.

Just when the sun disappeard and I was packing up, other people arrived, hastily taking photos realising what they had just missed, but it was too late, the sun was gone. I think from that night on I never left my camera unattended, even in the bathrooms. It happened to me once that I lost all my beautiful photos from Maria Island and more, and I didn’t want it to happen again.

Back in Darlington I sat down at the beach again, listening to the waves in the dark. It was a starlit night, beautiful. I saw a wombat walking along the beach in the dark, certainly one of the last places where I would expect a wombat.

Later in the tent I looked at all the photos again I took during the day. I always do that, just to remind me what an awesome day I’ve had.