ON THE RIGHT TRACK

Cradle Mountain’s iconic OverlandTrack

WORDS IMOGEN EVESON

IT’S 30 DECEMBER 1943 and a walker from Launceston writes of ‘good fun in the snow’ on the Overland Track that day. Their words, committed to the logbook 70-odd midsummers ago here in Old Pelion Hut, are somewhat of a comfort to read as I shelter for a few moments defrosting my fingers. It’s late spring and outside the unseasonal snow is settling knee-high.

But strange as it first seems to me and my small cohort of walkers – and as tempting as it is to call climate change – by both historic and contemporary accounts this is not a totally freak occurrence nor a contemporary phenomenon. “I’ve seen it snow every month of the year,” ranger Melody confirms when we cross paths with her back out on the track. Our guide Jill says she experiences about five white-outs a year. That’s the beauty and power of Tasmania’s Central Highlands: way up here in this remote alpine world it’s raw, unpredictable and so completely captivating because of it.

Over the course of four days in Cradle Mountain– Lake St Clair National Park conditions are wild and our seasoned guides Jill and Ziah don’t disagree. We follow the Overland Track on Tasmanian Walking Company’s Cradle Mountain Huts Walk, passing through glacially carved valleys, myrtle-beech rainforest and buttongrass moorlands and skirting alpine lakes lined with pencil pines and the sentinel of Cradle Mountain (the longer six-day signature walk continues on to Lake St Clair in the south).

The very first day sees an icy blizzard knocking me sideways as we traverse an exposed plateau; it whips so hard that one side of my face turns numb. From ground to sky, in front and all around me, all I see is white except for blue orbs glowing, almost extraterrestrially, from deep wells made by the boots of my fellow hikers up ahead. The famous boardwalk first laid out in the 1930s is down there somewhere and I better hope my foot finds it otherwise I’ve stacked it again – my pack like a paperweight in the freshly laid snow. Last week hikers were swimming in Dove Lake.

But for every challenging stretch and misstep there are moments of magic and majesty that few people get to experience up here. We complete the steep climb to Marions Lookout and the ragged peaks of Cradle Mountain tear through leaden clouds like the gothic castle of Gormenghast. Dove Lake – gunmetal grey today – lies like a moat at its foot. We watch in wonder as a frosty wombat shuffles across the snow and disappears into its burrow. And we walk through the aptly named Enchanted Forest as the sun breaks free for golden hour and illuminates the snow melt on the canopy. Everything glitters around us like a disco ball.

On our final day we follow the Arm River Track away from the Overland, cutting a path through bronze-green buttongrass moors so typical of the landscape here; with the sun shining as we begin our descent from the

alpine plateau, the distinctive round tussocks finally emerge in their burnished beauty from under an icing-sugar layer. We wind down through lush forest and as I breathe in the eucalypt of the bush and splash through the water that’s streaming fast all around us, the weight of my pack and the 100,000 steps behind me disappear; I suddenly feel light and nimble.

Sloshing shin-height through one last stream, I am exhausted but elated as we reach the trailhead. And when we climb into the minibus to head back to Launceston, I feel resolved to hold onto the unique mix of strength and stillness achieved only by the meditative act of putting one foot in front of the other for days on end. Walking, surely, is the ultimate in slow travel.

As we all look for ways to recalibrate how we travel – ways to slow down and truly soak in and safeguard our environments in favour of buzzing here, there and everywhere in the name of box ticking and Instagram likes – we’ll realise Australia has been doing many things right all along. From the legendary Larapinta Trail in the Northern Territory to the Bibbulmun Track in Western Australia, long-distance hiking that treads lightly on the landscape is one of them. And the Overland Track blazed the trail.

Just like the country’s environmental movement, ecotourism in Australia has roots in Tasmania. With 40 per cent of the wild island state protected in national parks and reserves, it’s perhaps no surprise that its tourism industry evolved in harmony with the environment.

Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park is part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, recognised for both its natural and cultural heritage: for tens of thousands of years, the palawa (Tasmanian Aboriginal) people have used, managed, modified and lived here among the alpine heaths and rainforest. Early European activities of hunting, surveying, mining and logging never quite took grip although several of the area’s present-day walking trails were made for these purposes.

The area’s history as a nature-based tourist destination began at Christmas in 1912 when pioneering Austrian botanist Gustav Weindorfer and his wife Kate opened the first accommodation in what is now the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park. Waldheim (Forest Home) was built from local King Billy pine for minimal environmental impact and Weindorfer doubled as both guide and cook, baking bread and serving freshly ground coffee for guests. He was instrumental in the area from Cradle Mountain to Lake St Clair being declared a scenic reserve (later national park) in 1922 and soon visitors began undertaking the journey between the two spots; today an accurate reconstruction of the historic chalet marks the start of the Overland Track.

Lest walkers lose their way, a local hunter named Bert Nichols blazed a trail and marked a track from the Pelion Plains to Lake St Clair that connected an existing loose network of trails, some of which are rumoured to follow Aboriginal paths. In January 1933 Nichols took out an advert in the journal spruiking his “five-day trip of scenic wonders” through the Cradle MountainLake St Clair Scenic Reserve. “Tramp across the roof of Tasmania,” he wrote, “but see it between December–February when it is carpeted with alpine flowers.” Other former trappers, including the legendary Paddy Hartnett, began guiding bushwalkers and building huts too, and in 1937 the track was formalised and dubbed the Overland.

It evolved from there to become what’s recognised today as one of the world’s great wilderness walks. And while independent hikers pitch tents or sleep in the basic timber huts that are dotted along the path (Old Pelion Hut, built in 1917 to house a mine manager and later appropriated as accommodation for walkers, remains as a fascinating piece of living history while nearby New Pelion Hut caters to walkers today), our experience has more in common with that of Waldheim’s early guests – freshly baked bread, good coffee and all.

Tasmanian Tramp

four-day walk along the Shipwreck Coast takes in hidden spots you just can’t get to in a car. Walkers retreat each night to an eco-luxe lodge that has been purposely and sustainably designed and constructed.