Since we had a day and a half to spend at Melaleuca I
decided to take a look around. After deregistering us on the walker log at the
airstrip I took a stroll down the Needwonnee walk.
On arriving back at the hut
Owen said he’d been told there was a chance we could get on a flight that day
so we quickly packed our gear and headed down to the airstrip. Owen’s feet were
in bad shape and I was hoping that we wouldn’t be disappointed after he’d
struggled to get his boots on and hobble down to the airstrip, but when the
plane arrived our names were on the manifest and we enjoyed a very pleasant
flight back to Hobart.
From the air the South Coast Track looked very inviting,
starting off from Melaleuca with duckboards as far as we could see and the
track notes suggest that Melaleuca to Cox Bight is “easy/medium” walking, so if
we had the extra day a visit to Cox Bight might have been a possibility. But
other sections are rated as “medium/hard” and if the Port Davey track is
“medium” walking then I think “hard” is a level that is beyond me.