Day 1: I started at Dover lake which is a beautiful park. The first day is the hardest hiking with steep inclines. I also had the worst weather of the hike on day 1. There was a good deal of mud too. There was mud all along the track but on day 1 I wasn't used to it yet so I spent a good deal of time and energy trying to jump over puddles. I didn't get to climb cradle mountain because a park ranger recommended against it since it was overcast. I got to the first hut in Waterfall Valley at around 3pm and went for a quick dip in the pond. The waterfalls were pretty but nothing spectacular. I ate an early dinner of couscous and went to bed around 7pm. One of the best things about camping/hiking is the shifted time perception. No staying up late to work, just sleep when it's dark(or a little beforehand if you're tired).
Day 2: The second day was a big day for me.
I snuck out of the hut at 6:30am without waking up many of my 9 hut-mates. I
got to walking and made it to the next hut at Windermere Lake at 9am where I
met another group of hikers and had breakfast. I made pancakes because I am a
gourmet hiker. They didn’t flip very well but they were still tasty. I was back on the track quickly. It was a
beautiful day. I did well for the next few hours but started to fade around
1pm. I was looking for the frog flats hut for lunch and was beginning to get
discouraged. I caught up with 2 other groups and none of us could find the hut
so eventually I just picked a nice log for lunch. I found out later that frog flats is an
emergency campsite only and that there isn’t actually a hut there. I was
feeling good after lunch, put my pack back on, took 2 steps and fell in a mud
hole. It went up to my mid-thigh. After that I was just walking to get to Pelion
the hut where I was planning on sleeping. It was a total of 24km on day 2. After I dropped my pack I found a river (arm
river) to wash off all of the mud that I had accumulated during the day. I
spent the rest of the day lying in the sun. I had an early dinner again but was
a bit more social and talked to a woman named Anna who was also from Melbourne
and needed a bit of a walk to clear her head of a bad relationship that she had
ended the week before.
The people that I met along the track and
met up with several times were: Anna, who I have just described, Jim a middle
aged Jewish man doing the walk in 3 days, Tom a real life Bear Grills who slept in a waterproof hammock, 2 brothers on a birthday party walk,
3 guys from Adelaide meeting a friend in Hobart, 3 mothers from eastern
Melbourne, 2 older men who walked for 11 days and did all of the extensions
probably an extra 100km, and 5 medical school students.
Pelion was a beautiful hut there was a few
additional groups who had done day hikes but we were all in bed early.
Day 3: Day 3 was going to be my lazy day I
didn’t have nearly as far to go but the Melbourne mothers were up early and
were making noise. I still had a leisurely breakfast before heading out. It was
a 2-hour walk up hill to the base of Mt. Ossa the highest mountain in Tasmania.
I dropped my pack on the platform and climbed over Mt. Doris and up Mt. Ossa.
Mt. Doris had a track but Mt. Ossa was covered in snow so it was scrambling up
rocks and trekking through snow most of the way. I made it to the top by 11am so I climbed
around and ate lunch at the summit. It was beautiful, I could see all the way
back to Cradle Mountain. After about an
hour, I made my way back down the mountain just as the next few people were
getting close to the top. Down was much more fun than up, I sat down and did a
(several) bum slide(s) most of the way down. The recommended time to climb the
mountain was 6 hours return. I did it in 4 counting an hour for lunch. After
picking up my pack it was only another 1.5 hours to Kira Ora Hut. I considered
pushing on and making it to the next hut but after going for a swim and putting
on my dry clothing I couldn’t talk myself into it. I hung out with the med
students for a while and the Melbourne mothers. Jim also caught up to us. It
was a fun evening in the hut.
Day 4: Another big day of hiking but today
was net down hill and had plenty of stops.
I left just before 6am. I hiked
to Du Cane hut for breakfast. It is an emergency only hut but it was one of my
favourites. Can you spot the toilet in this picture? 
It was just a pit under a stump.
I really liked Du Cane. The next stops were Ferguson and D'Alton Falls.
They
were spectacular. I walked a bit further
and got to Harrison falls. They were less spectacular but good for a swim. The trips to the falls gave me a good break
from my pack and I was back on my way. I made it to Bert Nicoles hut for lunch
just in time to see the 3 boys from Adelaide as they were leaving. I was a bit
soaked from rain by this point so I dried off rested before heading off. It was a nice hut but I was glad that I
stayed at Kia Ora instead. I hiked on and made Narsicca Hut by 3:30. I had planned
on having dinner there but it was early so I had a snack and a nap instead.
Just before I left Jim and the brothers on the birthday trip got the coal
heater working so I dried out all of my
clothes before heading out. They were all catching the ferry from
Narcissica to the visitor’s center the next morning. I hiked through the rain
forest to Echo Point. Echo point is a tiny hut for only 4 people. Very few
people stay there because very few people walk around the lake and those who do
typically start from Narcissica and walk all the way to the end in 1 day. So there were only 6 of us there. The 3 boys
from Adelaide and the two older men on the 11 day hike. We had a fun and warm
evening with the coal heater. I had
dreams of mice and bugs in my sleeping bag but woke up to find everything was
fine. 26 km total today.
It was just a pit under a stump.
I really liked Du Cane. The next stops were Ferguson and D'Alton Falls.
Day 5: The last 11km of the hike . It
rained pretty hard the entire time. This part of the trail is not very
maintained so I lost it for a bit and walked along the shore/through the edge of
the lake for about an hour before finding the trail again. I was told that lake
St. Claire is comparable to Lake Louise in Alberta but it was so foggy that I
didn’t really see the comparison. When I was about half way I took my phone out
to take a picture and found that mice had gotten to my waterproof pouch and
chewed a hole so that instead of being dry my phone had sat in water for the
past 2 hours. It was ruined. I tried to fix it. I took it to someone in Hobart,
I took it 3 places in Melbourne. The phone is completely lost. When I got to
the visitor’s center at Lake St. Claire I ate a pizza, had a coffee, and a bowl
of wedges. I rode back to Hobart with
the boys from Adelaide and got all sorts of insider information on Hobart,
Adelaide, and MONA. I checked in to the hostel, showered, went to the store and
got a litre of cookies and cream ice cream and went to sleep.
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