Text and photosBill Bennett

Day 2 - Hidden Bay en route to Ketchum Bay

Day 1 - The author enjoying a whisky in the evening sunlight at New Harbour

Overall, the tracks are pretty well-defined now, I think they have been well-walked since Chapman’s day. We probably lost the track two or three times every day once we left Wilson Bight, particularly in forests. But a bit of casting around usually found a marker tape, or spotted the pad in the distance. It helped enormously that we had excellent weather going over the South West Cape Range. It would have been more difficult in misty conditions, and definitely heeded rwildman’s sage advice that the track goes straight over “Every *&%$#! Summit rather than sensibly contouring around.”

One of our crew really started to slow down on the second day, and was very slow on the uphills for the next four days. This meant that travel times were much slower than Chapman, and probably slower than most parties considering doing this walk. We had lots of stops. Nevertheless, we made it! Our friend was actually unwell – he wasn’t hungry, the food made him faintly nauseous and he had little energy, possibly rotavirus.

Day 1: Melaleuca to New Harbour, 12 km, 5 hoursThis was a day on a fast good track from the airstrip to the lovely New Harbour beach. The track pops you out at a lagoon and there’s a campsite just south of that with good water. It’s quite sheltered but very mossie-ridden, though, so we walked to the larger campsite at the other end. Water in the creek was okay when we were there, but there had been rain the day before.

Day 2: New Harbour to Wilson Bight, 13 km, 10 hours We originally planned to split this over two days, but our flight was delayed by a day due to weather, so we made up the time. This was a surprisingly long day, taking almost ten hours, although we had some leisurely lunch stops. The track is easy to follow, but crossing the Amy Range from Ketchum to Wilson Bight is pretty overgrown and was hard work pushing through the scrub at the top. Also, make sure you follow the track at the back of the campsite which heads south from

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NB Chapman talks about tarns at the main summit with exposed camping. We found this tarn to be very meagre indeed. There was a much deeper and larger tarn shortly after the first knoll at GR 247824. There were lots of frogs and tadpoles and greenery, so we treated our water.

We carried on along the ridge, but we just ran out of oomph and called it at 4 pm after eight hours walking, camping in a saddle just below the climb up the main summit, GR 238836. We pitched tents on grass and low scrub, and with little wind it was a very pleasant campsite – lovely sunset to the west and a stunning dawn over the eastern mountains – Arthurs, PB, Ironbounds, South Coast all laid out for us.

Please also note – we had very calm wind conditions. The prevailing westerlies on the South West Cape Range are fierce and give this area an absolute thumping on a regular basis. This would have made this campsite pretty sketchy – it was difficult to get solid pegs into the ground under the grass and low scrub.

Day 3 - Group shot on the the South West Cape Range, looking south

Day 3 - East from high on the South West Cape Range, with the New Harbour Range and Ironbounds in the distance

Day 3 - Campsite high on the South West Cape Range

Day 3 - A tarn high on the South West Cape Range, with a frog population

Day 3 - High on the South West Cape Range with New Harbour Range and Maatsuyker Island in the distance

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Day 4: South West Cape Range to Window Pane Bay, 5 km, 7 hoursUp early and took us a solid two hours to climb the final bit to the summit – overhead scrub and our friend still badly slowed down by illness. But what a summit view!! The main summit plateau is only about 100 metres wide, and we all looked back as we crested it going “shame to be leaving those views behind”. Then we walked 100 metres to the northern end and went “holy crap!”. We stayed there for an hour just soaking in the coast, the beaches, Port Davey and Bathurst, it was stunning. I recognise that there are probably people reading this who may have stood on the exact same spot and seen

bugger all, as the weather is notoriously fickle. But if you get there on a good day, I would say it may well be the best summit view I have ever had in Tasmania.

Descent from the summit took us a long time – temperatures probably hit 30 °C, and we were all feeling it. Our friend collapsed on the track, and we were really worried. But we got some hydralite into him and carried his pack down the hill for about a kilometre and into the blessed shade of the forest. Just after you enter the forest, you drop down steeply into a gully that crosses a creek at approximately GR 231335. This was about 10 degrees cooler than the scorching air outside and the water

Day 4 - Window Pane Bay, ultra-white rocks

Day 4 - Dawn at high camp at 600 metres

Day 4 - The sublime view north from the South West Cape Range high point

Day 4 - South from a high point with the South West Cape just visible in the distance

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was icy cold and delicious - an absolute lifesaver!! Our friend rallied magnificently, shouldered his pack and we carried on to Window Pane along a fairly well-marked forest track. Pink tape was there when we needed it. We reached Window Pane Bay at 5 pm after a nine hour day and had a lovely swim. Window Pane Bay is absolutely stunning (again, with the caveat that it faces south-west into the prevailing winds). There is a sheltered campsite tucked into the trees round by the creek, but we camped on the beach as it was very calm and clear. I was lying in my tent with the door open looking out at the Milky Way when I saw a large quoll slinking along the beach and heading to the tents to check them out! It was a pretty special moment, but make sure your food is secured.

Day 5: Window Pane to Noyhener, 7.5 km, 7 hoursThe staked track wasn’t hard to follow, except when we crossed a creek in the forest. Just after you climb very steeply up from the creek, the old track carries on straight ahead and is very obvious. It has some crossed sticks on it

which some of us completely failed to notice. The new track turns sharp right here and is marked with tape and a bottle. Go that way. If you run out of tape, you’re on the wrong track.

When we got to Faults Bay, we followed what was probably Chapman’s original track and then it petered out before we got down to the rocks. We backtracked and found a much better track winding through the forest, marked with pink tape and lots of sawed branches. Follow this, and just keep looking for the tape. This led us down to Noyhener without any drama. This was fortunate, as it was high tide when we arrived. When we looked back along the coast where Chapman advises “just hop along the rocks for 500 m”, it was abundantly clear that this would have been impossible at high tide.

Interestingly, there’s a study of wave erosion on south-west beaches and Noyhener and Window Pane receive some of the highest wave energy of any beaches in the Southern hemisphere. Hence the enormous sand dunes.

Day 5 - Climbing the ladder to the campsite at Noyhener beach

Day 5 - Island Bay, just north of Window Pane Bay

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After that there’s a clear track all the way across the South West Cape and Pasco Ranges, with good water at Hannant Creek. We copped a bit of a thumping from the westerly wind and rain, but the pad is well-trodden and we were sheltered once we crossed over to the lee side of the ranges. There was little bit of uncertainty descending off the South West Cape Range just where it drops off steeply, and the main track is about 100 metres right of where you think it should be (we could see traces of an older track at this first point). rwildman has an excellent diagram in his post.

We got to Horseshoe Inlet at about 5 pm, and the tide was high. There is good water where the track crosses a creek about 200 metres before you reach the shore of the inlet. There was no wind, so we ended up camping on the green mossy ground at the shore. Our tents were pitched less than a metre from the water, squeezed into that little strip of green between the water and the trees It was all very peaceful. It would have been a different story if the wind had been up.

Day 6 - An idyllic campsite, if a little cramped

Day 6 - Tides at Horseshoe Inlet

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