A major purpose of VS’s trip to Tasmania (Tassie in the local vernacular) was to go walking and camping in the mountains. Tasmania has declared about 40% of its land area to be National Park, much of it true wilderness (the strictest level of protection internationally), and its mountain scenery is unlike any other part of Australia.

The first planned trip was a three day event. Walk 10km with packs to the Walls of Jerusalem, camp two nights then walk out on the third day having conquered two peaks during the intermediate day. The hiking party was the VS crew plus John & Heather Turgeon of ‘Evergreen’.

This is the ‘Walls’, with King David’s Peak (1499m) in the distance, taken from Mount Jerusalem (1459m):

 

The walk in:

The camp site, with Ali before the ‘incident’:

The trees here are Pencil Pines, Athrotaxis cupressoides, endemic to Tasmania where it grows at 700-1300m altitude. This stand comprises some of the oldest trees in the world at up to 3000 years. And they harbour unwelcome guests.

Your correspondent pumping water to drink using Jon’s filter – the expensive UV steriliser purchased for the VS crew having failed due to the buyer not noticing that fancy lithium batteries were specified but not purchased. I may live it down someday :

Happy (cold) campers:

Access to Solomon’s Throne (1470m):

On top of the world:

Note in the photo above that the overweight older guy on the right is wearing sandals. This is because his expensive Italian hiking boots fell apart 100m into the trail on Day 1. The soles disintegrated; things like this are a sadly common experience amongst cruisers. It’s something in the air at sea, we guess.

And the happy team, mission accomplished, walking out on Day 3 in the rain:

 

Life in Tasmania at 1200m or so where we camped is harsh. It was freezing cold and wet, but there were lots of animals around the campsite: wallabies, pademelons, an Eastern Spotted Quoll (now extinct on the mainland), wombats and others...

The first night was somewhat disturbed by assertive Brushtail Possums looking for food. One got right into Heather’s rucksac and had to be hit with a boot to discourage it. Our tent also got attacked by possums, ripping a small but very annoying hole in the side. And they drank all our orange juice. Not much sleep that night.

Ali celebrated her birthday after the first night in the tent by eating a Mars Bar in secret and refusing to get up until 1000hrs - and then the true nature of the night’s events became clear. On eventually rising Ali discovered her right leg covered in blood, but no wound immediately apparent and a large wet bloodstain in her brand new extremely expensive sleeping bag. Investigations then uncovered the cause – she’d gone to bed with a leech on her. It was found peacefully asleep in the bottom of the bag, digesting its lovely meal (they take six months to digest one meal). A birthday to remember, but as leeches secrete not only an anticoagulent but also an anaesthetic and an antibiotic no lasting harm was done (except to the bag).

Otherwise, a good time was had by all.