Cape Raoul - Part of the Three Capes walk Tasmania

                                                                       By Ian Smith

It was idyllic weather for late January, maybe just a touch on the warm side for a walk but, when you’ve got adventure in your blood, there’s not much will stop you.

I was searching for the start of a trail on the Tasman Peninsula.  Searching for a place called Cape Raoul.  A place few who have visited the peninsula have even heard of.

I had a small book called “Tasmania’s Great Short Walks”, a readily available (and free) font of information about 60 walks you can do in that most southern of states.  I’ve managed 17 so far.

I had been through the settlement of Nubeena and was now searching for the turnoff to Highcroft and Stormlea, located a further 3 kms down the road at Parsons Bay Creek.  Lucky I didn’t blink.

Having found the turn off it’s routine from there because you simply keep going until you can’t go any further.  Here the road broadens out to allow about 6 vehicles to park and, lo and behold, there was a motorhome already in attendance along with a 4WD that had pulled up a couple of minutes earlier.

By the time I had my backpack and camera ready I was all alone and went up to sign the visitors book, a precaution in case you get lost (won’t happen) or fall over a cliff (only if you’re totally stupid).

Initially the walk is through dense fern scrub but that only last 5 minutes before the forest takes over as you ascend and then reach an intersection where you can take a short trail to a lookout on the right or go straight ahead for the 5 hour return walk to Cape Raoul.

It isn’t that much further before you’re suddenly confronted with your first glorious view along the rugged coastline.  It was here that I caught up with the father and his two daughters from the 4WD and he filled me in with what I could expect from here.

                   

Apparently it was straightforward and so it turned out to be.  Climbing over the only hill you get more glimpses of the stark dramatic beauty of the place and the track is easy to follow.

I had spoken to a ranger at Hartz Peak and he said you saw more of the cliffs here than the other walks on Tasman Peninsula offered and that was why I had chosen this track.

It was over an hour into the walk when I chanced across the couple from the motorhome.  Amazingly, they were from my home town of Newcastle and Graeme and Jennifer Chaston were directly related to someone in the bike club I race at.  We exchanged contact numbers for future reference and continued our separate ways.

They had filled me in with the details of what to expect and I soldiered on to the final fluted cliffs through the heathland scrub that now bordered the path.

                           

  

Let me say right here; if you’re into stunning dolerite ramparts, you won’t be disappointed.  The geometric columns with the echoing sea crashing around their base and the islands beyond are a sight to behold.  Add to that the seals cavorting on the rocks and the updraft carrying the scent of the ocean and you have a magical place.  Mind you, the scent of the ocean might have a bit of seal in it as well!

                                            

I tarried for some time, partaking of my food and drink, while I let it all flow over my soul and regenerate my spirit.

The bad news is you have to return to your vehicle and it’s a genuine 2 hour plus slog but with the views on the way you forget about your aches and pains until you have to ascend the hill again but, what a memory you  will have to cherish.

It was only a couple of days later that I found myself heading to Bruny Island for more of the same.  Bruny’s name comes from Bruni D’Entrecasteaux.

You get there via a vehicular ferry from Kettering and the $40 fare covers you for a return journey.

It runs about hourly depending on what time of day it is and it pays to check out what time the last ferry leaves if you’re planning to return to Tassie proper, as night time ferries are a rarity.

One thing you’ll soon learn about Bruny is that they haven’t quite made up their minds whether to tar the island’s streets or not, so half are dirt and half are sealed.  There’s no set places, you might be on dirt for 5 kms then suddenly you’re back on tar for 6 kms then it’s back to gravel again.

On the way at the much photographed Narrow Neck isthmus from North Bruny it pays to stop and have a geek from the lookout to get the famous shot of the thin band of sand that joins the two islands.

This is also a good place to see penguins and there’s an informative guide to viewing on the billboards present here.

Once across, the road winds through tight bends until you reach Adventure Bay which is the main tourist spot on the island.

Here, if you choose to stay in the caravan park, you will see the albino wallabies come in to feed at evening time.  It’s an interesting story how they found one and brought it to Bruny to avoid predators and the gene has since been passed on and there are now about 60 in total, which totally spoiled my experience of seeing one jumping across the road in front of me and thinking, “Wow, how unique is this!”  As it transpired, not very.

I’d come here to walk the Fluted Cliffs, something I have to admit I did after I took the easy option of the Bruny Island Charters cruise. 

They have a fleet of three vessels that take tourists around to, and often up close and personal to, the very ramparts I was to walk on later.

If you’re into that sort of thing, I’d recommend it as good value.

The cliff top walk is also listed in the Great Short Walks booklet.  It’s rated as a 2.5 hour walk and, at the risk of stating the obvious, it is uphill to get to the apex of the cliffs and I recommend you take some fluid with you as it’s about 45 minutes of ascending and then more ups and downs when you’re actually following the line of cliffs.

However, once there the views are special indeed and as you traverse the cliff top, if you follow the recommended route, they just get better by the minute for the 20 minutes you are at the summit.  It’s so dramatic standing above a sheer drop listening to the constant roar of the ocean below echoing up the ramparts.  It’s something I never tire of.

Once you descend you’ll pass a couple of historical sites, one of which explains how 41 whales were landed there as long ago as 1829 and, at this same property, how escaped convicts from Port Arthur raided the place and made off with a pig.

It was only one of eight whaling station around South Bruny at the time.

A little later on you’ll learn that penguins and shearwaters share Bruny Island which is unusual for they normally are not noted bedfellows.

It was not far from here that Captain Cook landed in 1781 yet it was the French rear admiral Bruny d’Entrecasteaux whose name graces the island for his two ships, Recherche and l’Esperance (writ large upon the maps of W.A.) discovered that Bruny was indeed an island while searching for the lost La Perouse in 1792.

When he first saw this island it was the forests that impressed him most. He wrote of... "...trees of an immense height and proportionate diameter, their branchless trunks covered with evergreen foliage, some looking as old as the world; closely interlacing in an almost impenetrable forest, they served to support others which, crumbling with age, fertilised the soil with their debris; nature in all her vigor, and yet in a state of decay, seems to offer to the imagination something more picturesque and more imposing than the sight of this same nature bedecked by the hand of civilised man. "Wishing only to preserve her beauties we destroy her charm, we rob her of that power which is hers alone, the secret of preserving in eternal age eternal youth."

Isn’t it wonderful that, even today, you can still go and soak up some of that sentiment.