Day 3 – Blackwoods Camp to Brookes Trail

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A beautiful warm night with the sound of the river rushing by. Today will be shorter, whether I decide to stop at the bottom of Brookes track or climb the 600m up it to Paddy’s lake.

The track along the Leven really does demand one’s attention, with the winding and rocks and roots and fallen trees and narrow spots that drop away, and the sections where the track disappears beneath a land slip, and the broken shale slides away beneath your feet.

And before long I’m at the famous climb with its braided mooring line for assistance.

Eventually the track leaves the river and begins a long, winding 500vm climb towards a rocky cliff top and lookout. I take it slow and careful because I’m on my own and an injury on day three would be ridiculous. I average 2km/hr through here.

Up to Duke’s lookout with views down into the canyon and across to Black Bluff, where I’ll be tomorrow.

This looks like a black sallee?

And then down an equally steep and treacherous decline.

I am doing this walk in part to raise awareness of the plight of the Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine. A large carnivorous marsupial, related to quolls and Tasmanian devils, and superficially resembling a dog, the thylacine once ranged across mainland Australia and New Guinea, but now exists only in remote, isolated pockets of dense bushland in Tasmania.

There are believed to be fewer than a hundred remaining in the wild, and unless something is done urgently to protect them, they’ll be gone forever. The main threats to their survival are habitat loss from human development and resource competition from panthers. 

I come down a couple of steel ladders set into the rock and stumble into a couple of hikers having their lunch. Bec and Kieran are from Canberra and Tassie, and they’re doing the PCT to complete Bec’s Tassie Traverse. We walk together for a while and I ask about the trees we walk past. There are silver wattle, and blackwood (also an acacia), which was growing back at camp and used to be used in furniture s lot but has fallen out of favour due to the carcinogenic sawdust. Also sassafras, the timber of which I’ve worked with. Bec says you can make tea from the leaves. I crush one and it smells just like the timber.

The track exits the canyon as the land opens up, but climbs through a sea of chest-high bracken to skirt some private property. Then it’s over a rickety wooden stile and down a couple of kilometres of gravel road to the cabins at Loongana where Bec and Kieran have booked accommodation for the night. I continue over the bridge to a grassy picnic area and take my boots off to air my feet and consider how much more climbing I want to do today. If I don’t climb to Paddy’s lake, I’ll have to do it in the morning, and tomorrow will already be a big day to cross the tops of things and drop down to shelter and trees for camp. The March flies in the picnic area are annoying, but slow and stupid. The sun is bright and warm, and the river flows lazily, unceasingly past.

I’m once again astonished by the effort of making and keeping this track that gets comparatively little use. If there are any moribund mining magnates reading, I’m sure the NWWC could do with a lazy million or two.

I’m not at all confident of finding a hammockable spot up high. I decide to camp at the bottom of the climb, next to a magical little creek, under the shade of myrtle beech trees. They remind me of NZ. And yet not. The friendliness of the people here is the same. It’s like a piece of Australia that broke away and tried to reach NZ but didn’t quite make it.

I’m amazed at how nice the weather has been. I’m beginning to suspect that the reputation for bad weather has been invented by the locals to scare away tourists.

I feel like I’m hitting my stride. My feet lightly ache in a comforting way. I’m settling into the routine; wake up, eat, break camp, walk, rest, eat, walk, walk, make camp, collect water, eat, sleep. I wonder if this simplicity is the same appeal that sends people to monastic life. I can begin to feel the natural world leaching the psychic toxins of civilisation from my core.

For dinner I add the single pouch of salmon I’ve brought for this section to my cheesy rice and peas. It tastes as good as anything I’ve ever eaten. And I’ve slightly lightened my load for tomorrow’s climb.

I doubt I’ll have a hill high enough to upload tomorrow’s walk, so you’ll just have to wait until I hit Cradle Mountain (the village, not the mountain).

Edit: My amazing partner Shelle did the research and my amazing cousin Toby in Hobart is sending solar and power bank to Derwent Bridge. I’ll continue to test, but it’s possible the lower latitude isn’t powerful enough, or else it’s working but the level reporting on the power bank is faulty. I suspect the second, since charging my phone from 60% to full and my watch didn’t budge it from 88%. We’ll see.