Trekking the Three Capes Track - Day 4
Retakunna Hut to Fortescue Bay via Cape Hauy – 14 km
‘You may seek, but you will not necessarily find!’
And suddenly, it was day 4, our last day on this magnificent
adventure.
We were awake early and watched the sunrise from the deck of
the camp kitchen with our coffees in hand. We then breakfasted and packed and were on our
way by 7:30am, despite being booked on the latest bus out of Fortescue Bay, we wanted
to savour every minute of this final day on the track.
The day promised sunshine and no rain. We had ample time to
walk the 14kms up and over Mt. Fortescue, out to the end of Cape Hauy and back,
and reach Fortescue Bay in time for a swim before our 4pm bus back to Hobart
via Port Arthur. No rushing involved; a perfect plan!
As we had done previously, our intention was to stop at each
of the sculptural seats along the way and read their accompanying stories from
the guidebook. But even with the best intentions, although we sought to locate
all of them, we did not always succeed. Somehow, to our horror, we realised we
had missed a seat somewhere along the track over the mount. We thought about turning back (yes, seriously!),
but resisted the urge and managed to locate all the other seats and symbols
along the way.
We walked through lichen-covered forest, seemingly straight
from the set of The Lord of the Rings, before encountering open woodland and
stringy-barks on the descent from Mount Fortescue. Then there were steps,
hundreds of stone steps, up and down through the fragrant heathlands that led
to the tip of Cape Hauy. Everyone of them, although my calves complained, was worth
it for the stunning views of the Monument, the Totem Pole, the Lanterns – more incredible
dolerite formations – not to mention the ability to peer over the only man-made
barrier on the track, to look directly down at the swirling ocean below.
As rain threatened (but didn’t eventuate) we marched our way
back over all those steps to the junction of the tracks, where we had been able
to leave our backpacks, taking only a daypack with our lunch, water and
waterproofs (just in case!) with us. As we walked, we pondered not only all the
marvellous things we had seen, but all those things we had sought and not found
on this trip. Whales, for example, were high on our list of ‘must-sees’, but
despite four days of walking with the ocean in view for most of that time, we
had failed to see any. We had taken a long lunch break at the end of Cape Hauy
in a last-ditch hope of catching sight of passing whales, surely an apt reward
for walking so far? But it was not to be.
Seals were also something we sought but failed to find,
although some of our hiking buddies were convinced they had seen some from the
end of Cape Pillar, a look through Sophie’s binoculars confirmed that the brown
blobs in the water were in fact clusters of seaweed. We kept that information
to ourselves, not wishing to deflate their excitement. Tess had also hoped to
see Albatross, but realistically we know that all those albatross-like seabirds
we saw, were actually Sea Gulls. The Southern Aurora, also remained hidden from
our view this week, another hope shattered
To balance out these slight disappointments however, there
was an abundance of wildlife that we encountered without deliberately seeking
them, from the blond echidna and wedge-tailed eagles of day one, to the numerous
wallabies along the way, including one who was quite interested in Tessa’s
shoes at Fortescue Bay, and another that seemed quite intent on catching the
bus back to Port Arthur with us.
The girls partook of a quick dip in the crystal clear and clean
waters of Fortescue Bay. Garlanded as it is by pristine white sands, it
certainly looked like an appealing place to swim, however the temperature of
the water is less inviting in mid-September, so I only waded in to relieve my calves
briefly before we regrouped, the girls had a ‘warm’ shower and we waited for
our bus.
Pies and coffee were the order of the day when we stopped to
collect our left-luggage from Port Arthur and we positioned ourselves at a
discreet distance from other passengers at the back of the bus for the trip to
Hobart. Fortunately the only comment anyone made about smell, was the tempting
smell of our pies, rather than the fetid smell emanating from our socks.
After luxuriously hot showers we had an amazing celebratory
dinner at the Astor Grill back in Hobart to toast our success and then packed ready
for the next step of our journey. We were all enthusiastic about crawling into
clean sheets and warm beds with proper pillows, but that is not to take
anything away from the amazing experience that is hiking the Three Capes Track.
We sought nature and camaraderie, fun and spectacular sights,
and the Three Capes Track delivered in spades. The question that remains is,
where to next year girls?
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