SW Coast track vs Port davey track

[tim]

Hi all.

A few friends and I are looking into doing a week-long (or there abouts) walk in the SW this September. I live in Canberra now but still get home fairly often, but my friends live up here full time and are making the trip especially, so they really have the decision-making burden, as I will tag along with whatever they decide to do. I was keen to hit up the Western Arthurs, but the coastal walks seem to have caught their attention, so we are mainly tossing up between the two tracks in the thread title.

My question is, what do people recommend? Experience/gear is not an issue, we would just like to see some speccy bits of the state, hopefully without crowds to share it with.

Alternatively, any other suggestions? (Did Frenchman's with the same guys in september last year, and we are all put of by crowding on the OT)

Cheers

[Azza]

South Coast Track? or SW Cape Track?

Port Davey Track is very much a trudge across button grass for 4 to 5 days. Unless you do a side trip into the Western Arthurs etc, you probably won't find it as interesting as the Coastal options.

Alternatively - you could probably walk both Port Davey and South Coast from Scotts Pk through to Cockle Creek in 10-14 days.
As far as I know Port Davey Track doesn't get as much traffic as the South Coast, as a high number of people fly in walk out to Cockle Creek.

[tim]

Would love to do both, but time is a little restrictive. In fact, as I write this it seems that work may have just cancelled all leave for that period. Thats what I get for planning a holiday...

[PeterJ]

As queried by "tim" there is difference between South Coast and South West Coast

South Coast is spectacular but quite muddy in places and gets quite a bit of use, but it is a great area.
South West Coast is a return or circuit walk from Melaleuca and very beautify, but parts need care with navigation (depending on route taken)

Port Davey by itself is not as exciting but is well worth doing. The boat crossing on the Narrows can be a bit trying in difficult weather and is best with 3-4 people (unless your strong and can haul the boats back to the high storage points. The track is hard quartz for stretches and can cause sore feet if care not taken. I would recommend either of the other two for first time visits.

[wello]

Hey Tim,

Sounds like you might be a Tasmanian living on the mainland like me. Any chance to get home and climb some mountains, I'll take it.

The South Coast Track is a great walk, and there's some fantastic coastal and mountain scenery along the way. A couple of us walked it East to West in January a couple of years ago. We're pretty fit, and even with the long days at that time of year, we took 6 days to walk from Cockle Creek to Melaleuca. Trying to fit this walk into a weeks holiday from the mainland would be logistically difficult I think. It takes a good 2-3 hours to get to Cockle Creek from Hobart, and the planes will only fly to Melaleuca in reasonable weather. You could well get to Hobart in bad weather, and miss the chance to do the walk all together due to the planes not going.

I reckon your Western Arthurs plan might be a better one (bravery required weather wise!). At least that way you can drive to the start and end of the walk. Even the Overland track should be fairly quite at that time of the year. We stayed in Waterfall Valley hut in May this year, with no-one else in the hut!

Cheers

Wello

[kantonysen]

Hi Tim
The weather conditions in September can be very changeable especially down the SW. It means that scheduled plane trips may not be able to eventuate due to poor weather conditions. On that basis it would probably best to go from West to East along the South Coast trip, you might be able to have an alternative plan should you not be able to fly down. I've walked down to Melaleuka twice from Scotts Peak, but river and creek crossings could be an issue if the weather comes in. On the last time I walked down to Port davey it took two days from Scotts Peak (summer), part of the party that had intended to fly down were not able to do so due to weather conditions.
The Western Arthurs would also provide a good alternative for a fit and very well equiped party, though the expection should be that you could be weather bound for a couple of days. The weather really being a kind of lottery, it could be fabulous or atrocious.

Last year we went to Pelion East via the Arm River track and found that there were not that many people on the OL track.
Keith

[tim]

Excellent, thanks for all your replies.

Is looking more and more like a definate that I will not be getting any leave at that time of the year, so will probably not be down in tassie again until December, but at least at that time of year our party will not be quite as restrained time-wise.

Cheers.

[tasadam]

Longer daylight hours in December too! Makes a big difference.