Overview

Our intention was to complete the Port Davey Track from Scotts Peak Dam and then continue on the South Coast Track to Cockle Creek.
Rather than co-ordinate food drops, we decided to carry food for the whole trip and set off with 12 days food, figuring that if we were delayed we could always ration our supplies to extend a few days.

We’d been planning this trip for quite some time and I had been doing preparation training, including a 36km day walk and hill climbs a couple of times a week with a fully loaded (20kg) pack so I think I was in good shape for the walk. Plus I have plenty of experience bushwalking in Tasmania including the Western Arthurs, Hartz Peak, Mt Picton and several trips to Mt Anne , so I thought I knew what to expect, but I still found the walk quite difficult. 

I don’t know how often the Park’s and Wildlife track notes are updated but the time estimates as well as the ratings don’t seem correct. Usually walking times are very conservative and easily achievable but we struggled to come even close to the indicated times.

You might also notice, if you add up the distances that I calculated for the route using Google Earth it adds up to 72km, rather than the 63km indicated for the Port Davey track.

On the plus side, I have heard that the Port Davey track is not worth doing as it not as scenic as the South Coast track, but I have to disagree. While it doesn’t have the water views of the coast track the landscape is magnificent and well worth a look.

I am a little disappointed that we didn’t continue on to the South Coast track, but given how I went on the Port Davey track I don’t know how I could have handled it. I found I was struggling with the “medium” walking of the Port Davey track so the “hard” sections of the South Coast track seem impossible, at least for me.

In a way, I am grateful that Owen’s feet prevented us from continuing. On our return I discovered that I had dropped nearly 10kg of body weight in just 4 days and was stiff and  sore, not even counting my injured knee.

Day 1 – Scotts Peak Dam to Crossing River (21km)

We arrived at the campground/car park at around 7:30am and after registering our walk we set off. When I did the Western Arthurs many years ago, I think we must have left from Red Knoll, as the first part of the walk was unfamiliar, but we were soon out onto the button grass plains. there was some mud, which was to be expected, but we arrived at Junction Creek at around 9:20 and stopped for about 10 minutes and then pushed on to Crossing River.

My plan had been to camp at Crossing River, but we arrived quite early, around 1:30pm and Owen was keen to push on to Watershed camp. The boat crossing at Bathurst Narrows worried us, with the possibility of bad weather delaying our crossing, so Owen wanted to get that out of the way while the weather was good.

Added to that, there is no way to avoid getting your feet wet getting across Crossing River, so we didn’t want to do that at the start of the day and as it was still quite early, we continued on to Watershed. The Parks and Wildlife track notes say there are campsites on both sides of the crossing but I didn’t notice the one on the southern side, though I admit that I wasn’t looking out for it.

Crossing River has a respectable flow even in January and while the shallower water seems like the best place to cross, the water is flowing faster there and we found the slightly deeper, slower moving water the safer option.

We should probably have taken the time to change our wet socks as our feet started to give us trouble and a couple of kilometres past the river we were becoming uncomfortable and we started looking for possible campsites. There aren’t very many as the open ground is mostly quartz outcrops, but luckily we spotted an area just off the track, just big enough for a tent. While it was covered in quartz pebbles these were small enough not to be a nuisance and we had just passed a small creek 50 metres before, so we had water available.
Also the track notes don’t make Watershed camp very appealing, saying “The campsite is usually wet but do not be tempted to continue as there are no sheltered sites for many hours” and I didn’t want to make a huge effort to push on just to end up sleeping in a bog (as it turned out, Watershed camp is quite good and not at all wet when we arrived).

The location of our camp for day 1 is  MGA Zone 55  431100.000, 52257000.000 (-43^o 7’5.88”, 146^o9’11.03”) to the north west of Mount Robinson.

As we pitched our camp, a couple of walkers (Col and Amanda) passed along the track. Col had found the watch I had dropped somewhere along the track and returned it. They were making for Watershed camp and were moving along at a good pace, unlike us.

Dinner for me  that night was Macca’s cheeseburgers and cup a soup and I was quite happy to lose the weight of those cheeseburgers from my pack. We’d covered 21km on day 1 and found it quite tiring.

Day 2 - to Spring River via Watershed camp (26km)

We left at 7:30am with a day’s hard slog ahead of us. Even though the previous day had been overcast we discovered that we were getting quite sunburned and made sure to apply sunblock before starting off.

The track is overgrown in many places and I was getting tired of the narrow trenches. I’m not sure of the purpose of these but they have straight sides as if they have been cut with a trenching tool of some kind and are often just wide enough for one boot. I got my boot caught in one of those deep trenches and overbalanced, wrenching my knee. When the track opened up and I could walk it was fine, but there are very few places where you can actually walk. It is often trench warfare, with narrow slits cut into the quartz just wide enough for one boot, so you either have to have one foot in the trench and the other on the rim, or straddle the trench. I found the first option better, with my injured left leg in the trench and the right leg doing most of the work on the rim of the trench. Other times it is scrub bashing or bog hopping.

Owen’s feet were starting to give him trouble and when we got to Watershed he wasted no time getting his boots off.

Watershed camp is not a bad spot, but we’d only covered 9km for the day so far, so after a short rest we pushed on. Watershed to Spring River is badly overgrown in many places and more than a few times I wondered if we had lost the track. It was a hard slog and my arms and legs were scratched and bleeding. The pandani leaves are also treacherous with sharp edges and I recommend long sleeves and trousers, but unfortunately I didn’t have any apart from my wet weather gear and it was too warm to walk in that. At times it took us 20 minutes to cover 300 metres.

At one point I asked Owen if he still had the combat knife he’d brought with him. When he said he did I asked him to kill me now. Owen suggested turning back to Watershed camp, but knowing what we’d already been through I didn’t want to do that again. 
I hoped the terrain ahead might be friendlier. I was wrong.

It was quite tiring fighting through the scrub and I was really looking forward to reaching Spring River. We finally arrived at a campsite next to a river and I was happy to believe it was the Spring River campsite, but Owen said the real campsite was another 300 metres further on. I took a bit of convincing, but there was some very wet ground just past the campsite and I didn’t want to face going through that at the start of the next day.

Owen had the GPS and I was relying on him for estimates of our schedule, but I was starting to become a little sceptical of his estimates of distance and times. Travel times are very difficult to estimate as it depends very much on the terrain and distances based on grid squares can be way out when the track is meandering. 300 metres turned out to be 1.8km when we finally arrived at Spring River at 5pm. 

C&A had already arrived and set up their tent at Spring River. I was surprised to see them again. They were motoring along so well when they passed us on day 1 that I didn’t expect that we’d catch up to them. They also commented on the totally unexpected condition of the track. We were also able to return the favour of the previous day as Owen had found a rain jacket that they had dropped along the track.

I was exhausted and let Owen pitch the tent on his own. I crawled into my sleeping bag and  I was done for the day. I couldn’t even summon the energy to cook dinner and my left knee was still painful.

Day 3 – Spring River to Point Joan and a little further (13km)

After a good nights sleep things looked better. There’s a new bridge across the Spring  River, so getting across was no trouble at all. In earlier times with the log and rope  crossing it must have been quite perilous when the river is in flood. The new bridge is high above the river so even in high flow it should be safe to cross.

My knee was giving me less trouble than the previous day and I felt pretty good after a good night’s rest but even so, the descents and climbs were wearing me down.

As we were doing one of the many descents I jarred my injured knee again and was in excruciating pain and a few hundred metres further on the same thing happened again. Pressing my fingers against the side of my knee I could feel grinding as I bent my leg, but the only thing to do was push on. I tried to avoid bending my left leg and let the right leg do the work, but occasionally I caught my left boot and involuntarily bent my knee and pain shot up my leg. Oddly on the few sections of open track where it was possible to walk, I found I could walk without much discomfort, but the descents were quite slow and painful and I decided to jettison some food. I hadn’t eaten as much as I had expected and wasn’t very hungry so I opted to dump the muesli and trail mix I was carrying. It was probably a couple of kilos and Owen took my lead and threw out some food too. We still had plenty of freeze dried meal packs so we weren’t going to go hungry. It seemed to make a difference. Plus the track opened up on to a plateau and I was able to motor along quite well.

Once out on the plateau we could feel the breeze more than before and I started to become concerned that the crossing at Bathurst Narrows might be a problem if the wind picked up any more, so I decided to increase my pace, leaving Owen behind.

I was planning to attempt the crossing solo and pick up Owen on the return trip but he wasn’t all that far behind me and by the time I got the dinghy in the water he had arrived.

As were readying the oars we saw a launch pass by and I considered hailing them to ferry us across but I didn’t want to impose on them.

I thought it best to leave our packs on shore until we’d seen how rough the crossing was. We did the crossing together , one oar each and it wasn’t too bad at all in the channel; a bit choppy and we missed the water on a couple of strokes but made it across quite easily.

As we were starting to launch the second dinghy, the boat we’d seen before drew close to the shore and the skipper offered to take us across. We just had to row the first dinghy back to the start and collect our packs. It saved us a bit of work and we got the chance to meet some tourists on their Melaleuca Experience.

When they dropped us off at Joan Point the skipper even gave us a couple of fresh apples each and they were delicious.

C & A arrived at the other side just after we completed the crossing and they were able to come over on the launch without doing any rowing at all. Apparently another couple of walkers were just behind them and they got an even better deal, being ferried all the way from Farrell Point to Melaleuca in the launch!

C & A stayed the night at Joan Point but Owen and I pressed on as we wanted to arrive at Melaleuca early in the morning before the plane left.

It was quite difficult to find the track out from Joan Point. Once we were out on the ridge the track forked, with one track leading straight on and the other taking the eastern side of the ridge. Someone had placed small white rocks across the path on the western track, suggesting to me that was not the route to take and tried to call Owen back. I got more concerned when the track descended into a forest and disappeared altogether, but  there are various markers (twine  and tape attached to branches) that you really have to look out for, but they guide you down to a campsite that isn’t marked on the Parks and Wildlife map.

There’s a good little creek but beware the rocks are extremely slippery.

We set up camp. It was pitch black that night and I had left my torch in my pack. When I had to get up in the middle of the night to urinate I could only shuffle a metre or two from the tent in the dark.

Day 4 – Joan Point to Melaleuca (12km)

Our plan was to get up early  and set off by 6am to give ourselves plenty of time to make it to Melaleuca before the plane arrived at 10am. 

After breaking camp Owen was keen to scrub bash to try to reconnect with the track further south, but I thought it safer to backtrack to the point where the tracks diverged the day before and then continue on the eastern track. It was a lot easier finding our way out the way we came in and it only took us 10 minutes or so to get back on to the main track. It had seemed a lot further coming in.

I was still finding the descents slow because of my knee, and didn’t want to risk jarring it as I had done before and deciding slow and cautious was the better option. We had already discussed the “every man for himself” strategy to make sure we didn’t miss the plane, as at that point, we didn’t know how often flights came in and we didn’t think continuing on to Cockle Creek was still a realistic option.

Owen powered ahead, getting further and further out in front. At one point he called back to me, to make sure I was still following. I called back but couldn’t make out what he was saying. The track looks quite flat on the map, but there are still a lot of ups and downs. As I climbed every rise I hoped I’d be able to see the airstrip from the top, but was always disappointed  and there’d be another descent and another rise ahead.

We’d been advise by the skipper of the launch at Joan Point that it was a 3 hour walk to Melaleuca and we’d already done nearly a couple of kilometres the day before, so 4 hours should be plenty but I began to realise there was no way that I was going to reach the airstrip by 10am.

When I heard the plane right on time at 10am, I hoped Owen had made it to the airstrip. Then there was a second plane, doubling our chances so when I heard the first plane leave I wasn’t too concerned but if I heard the second one take off I think I’d have been quite downhearted, so I picked up the pace, not stopping to drink or collect water at creek crossings and I was quite hot and thirsty when I finally arrived at the airstrip. I couldn’t see Owen although I could see the plane. I was in need of water and wasn’t sure whether to head for the plane or the creek at the other end of the airstrip, but the Parks and Wildlife volunteer waved me  to head toward the plane and then I sighted Owen.

That last mad dash had taken its toll on Owen’s feet and they were in pretty bad shape, but it turned out that we could have had a leisurely stroll and taken as much time as we wanted for the last 12km. There were plenty of planes coming and going, but unfortunately they were all going out fully loaded so we’d have to wait a day or two anyway.

We headed up to the huts to rest and for Owen to attend to his feet. We were advised to check back at the airstrip around 4pm to see if there were any seats available and on doing so we were able to book seats on a flight out 2 days later at 2pm.

The walker huts and facilities at Melaleuca are well set up and we had the luxury of a hut all to ourselves. The volunteer staff there do a fantastic job looking after the facilities as well as the visitors and they checked on us a few times to make sure we had everything we needed and provide information. 

Kudos to them.

Day 5 – Melaleuca to Hobart

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.