Maria Island Walk

We arrived in Tasmania ready for a fortnight of hiking and, with military planning, had no idea what we were going to do. We were staying with our friends Karen and Malcolm who moved here a year ago from Brisbane. Karen brought out loads of tourist brochures on the first night and suggested the Maria Island walk that she’d read a favourable article about. We called up with the expectation that it would be fully booked, but were pleasantly surprised that there was one place left, leaving the next day. Ian, the owner of the firm, happened to live in the same district of Hobart, Taroona and came over 20 minutes later to show us what the walk involved. It looked fairly easy going and our heels had apparently healed, so we felt fairly confident

We set off the next day and met our fellow hikers and guides in the centre of Hobart, Pam, Jenny, Geoff, Anne, Lawrie, Naomi with our guides Stephan and Rosie. All Aussies and from Sydney except for Noami who lives in Melbourne. Typically, most tourists here are Australian as foreign tourists tend to do Sydney, the reef, and Uluru, and then run out of time.

We piled into our minibus and embarked on a gentle hours drive to the north where we boarded our private boat for the transfer to Maria Island. We were taken to a beautiful deserted beach to start our walk, where we jumped down into the shallows for our first taste of the cool crystal clear Tasmanian waters. Maria island is split into two distinct halves separated by an isthmus, a narrow sand bank that links the north and south parts of the island. We walked the short distance across the isthmus from one beach to the other where we were greeted by the rotting corpse of a seal. At least it kept the flies away from us. After a quick sandwich lunch we hauled our packs a short distance to our camp for the night. Yes, Mags and Gary camping – keep watching for those flying pigs. Each couple had a small, semi-permanent canvas cabin equipped with twin beds with foam mattresses. We slept in sleeping bags with the flap down and zipped to keep the bugs out so it was fairly comfortable. We can’t really claim to have been roughing it too much.

After settling in we trudged off on a hike across the southern part of the island to haunted bay. There’s a well worn path through the bush that takes about an hour at a brisk pace. Naomi charged off in front and we practically had to jog to keep up with her.

The end of the bush walk drops down steeply and clears to a large shelf of orange and green rock overlooking the bay. Stephan produced a few snacks from his backpack and we munched while watching dolphins and seals playing in the bay. Scrambling down the last few hundred metres, we encountered numerous fairly penguin fledglings, peering inquisitively at us from crevasses in the rock, where their parents make their nests. Some are surprisingly high up the cliff and it must be very hard work for the adult penguins to carry the catch up to feed the chicks.

On the way back Mags’ heel started to flare up again which wasn’t great as we had another 3 days of walking ahead of us. Back at base camp, we all made the short walk to the beach for a quick swim before dinner. This was also the only way really to wash as there are no showers at camp, just a composting toilet and some tank water from a small tap. The water was cool, but not cold, very invigorating. We all stuck closely to Jenny who is a life saver at Manley.

Later at camp we sat down to our first gourmet dinner cooked by Stephan, ably supported by the diminutive Rosie. The menu for the walk has been designed by top chefs, with complementary wines specially chosen. Our first meal consisted of scallops with black rice together with superb local Pinot Noir, really wonderful.

Next day we set off for a walk predominately along the coast northwards taking in five different beaches. This was easy walking which was just as well as Mags foot was deteriorating, but she limped along slowly at the back like a trouper. We paused at an old farm house. The island has a rich history, including its most recent use for agriculture. Now the whole island is a nature reserve with only one permanent resident, the park ranger. There are no cars, just a few cycle tracks and plenty of walking trails making hiking a very pleasant and peaceful experience.

We lunched under a tree near an old prison, its remains perched on top of a grassy hill overlooking the sapphire sea. These convicts must have been particularly unlucky to end up here; mainland Australia must have been a remote outpost back then (Well OK, it still is). But not content with that, these poor devils were expelled to the Island to the south, and then to an island off Tasmania. They might as well have been on the moon.

Our second camp was also conveniently located close to a beach where we again washed away the day’s exertions in the ocean. We became very excited at sighting two Cape Barren Geese that were wandering lazily along the beach. These protected animals are quite striking with their large blue, grey bodies and yellow beaks. They are very docile and let all of us get to within 5 metres or so to take pictures. It’s a good job for them that they are protected as they look like they would make a wonderful roast. They are probably roughly the same size as turkeys, but can fly really well. We needn’t have got so excited as we discovered dozens of them later in Darlington.

We had a relatively short walk to Darlington on our third day, although not without some excitement as Pam nearly trod on tiger snake that was sunning itself on the path. She noticed it just in time and it slithered quickly away into the bush. The tiger is one of 3 types of snakes found on Maria, all extremely poisonous. We had time on the way to spend a short time at the ‘painted’ caves. These are rock formations next to the beach with startling shapes and colourful stripes weathered by the sea.

Our base for our last night was an old colonial house beautifully restored to its former glory by Maria Island Walks, complete with a piano in the drawing room. We had a large room with a comfortable double bed and hot showers, sure bliss after our two nights in sleeping bags. Mags headed straight for the bath tub as she was all aches and pains by now and had limped in with gritted teeth. A few of us hardier souls decided to hike up Bishop and Clark, one of two hill walks available from Darlington. Naomi set off at breakneck speed as usual and, before long, the two of us were out of sight as we climbed steadily towards the peak. The more sensible walkers kept up a steady pace further back. The peak is 600 metres high and we inevitably slowed down as we trudged on. There’s a fair bit of clambering over rocks near the top, but we managed it without too much trouble and were joined at the top by Jenny and Rosie, the others having sensibly turned back to base. The views from the top are impressive, perched on the peak over a sheer drop of 600 metres to the sea below. We were feeling fairly pleased with ourselves when we were joined by a small group who were cycling around Tasmania. They had already cycled 70 kms that day and had hiked up here as an ‘extra’.

Darlington was initially established as a penal colony and later in the 19th century by the entrepreneurial Italian immigrant Diego Bernacchi as the centre of the island, and has been carefully preserved with interesting exhibitions in some of the many buildings left over from the previous settlements. One describes the story of William Smith O’Brian, a prominent Irish dissident who was exiled hereby the British for seeking Irish independence. Bernacchi seems to have been a man way ahead of his time. He tried wine making, tourism, and cement making on the island in a vain attempt to establish a prosperous settlement, but was doomed to failure.

On our last day we had the morning at leisure to explore Darlington before catching the ferry back around lunchtime. I spent a few hours strolling around town and decided to visit the nearby fossil cliff that, no surprise, is a cliff face of sedimentary rock containing countless tiny fossils from millions of years ago. It was these rocks that Bernacchi was turning into cement, but thankfully he left enough behind for scientists and tourists to examine.

The walk was a wonderful experience and we were lucky in having terrific guides and a convivial group comprising mostly of slightly more senior, ‘grey’ tourists. We were again the youngest, together with Naomi who is a nurse from Melbourne. She was great fun and a bit of a worry to all of us. At a rock pool near the painted caves she pointed to a Warratah Anemone and said to me, “Touch that Gary, it feels just like a pregnant cervix.” Given that I’m not likely to experience the real thing, or want to for that matter, I delved straight in.