A hiker in heaven on earth

HARVEY CLARK explores the land God made for trampers.

God made the world in six days, and on the seventh, according to popular belief, he had a nice lie-down. Wrong. God was as fit as fifty buckrats after his labours and he didn't need to take a breather.

Sure, he needed to relax, but in a setting fit for a god. He needed to feel the wind and snow on his face and the mountains flowing through his veins, refreshing and invigorating like sunshine through forest leaves. He needed to go tramping. So he pulled on his woolly socks and heavy-duty boots and Gore-Tex jacket and built a wilderness out of mountains and ice-ages, carved it up with glaciers into vast valleys, gorges and alpine plains and called it Tasmania.

He then sat on the highest point and had a good gander about. And mate, he could see that he had made something special, an awesome, true-blue dinkum wilderness.

Worried about the bad habits of the coming Age of Man, he set forth The Word for all trekkers: "Let not the hand of man defile this land, nor wreaketh desecrations upon it, nor wringeth exploitations from its natural bounties. Those who disobey The Word, then may the cold Tasmanian leeches feast upon their sweating flesh, and may the venom of the lightning-fast tiger snake strike through their ankles and poison them to the very marrow of their bones."

Now, Tasmanians have done a pretty good job of keeping The Word and looking after their wilderness - with the exception of a few ravaging forest fires in the past 150 years, and consigning their tigers to extinction when they should have known better.

In an 80km trek over seven days on the Overland Track from Cradle Mountain to Lake St Clair in the central northwest, I met only two "aliens". One was a cigarette cork tip, the other a discarded band-aid. The band-aid would have taken several years to break down, the cork tip never.

More than 8000 trampers had walked the track in the previous season. Try putting 8000 New Zealanders on a week-long 80km bush walk and see if they can leave it that clean. No way. They'd trash the place.

Tasmania's trekkers have more respect. There's none of that, "She'll be right mate, just stuff it behind that fern, chuck it in that creek, hide it behind that rock and have another beer".

Out of sight, out of mind, out of brains.

New Zealand might be greener, but we're not cleaner. Apart from being almost completely free of human litter, the 132,000ha Tasmanian park is free of invasive weeds and vermin such as stoats, weasels and rats that decimate wildlife.

The possums don't gobble up the forests and are considered an attraction rather than a pest, and even the mosquitoes and sandflies are a kindly bunch - the little pests hardly ever bite.

And that bog from hell, the Kiwi-style bush longdrop, has been banished forever, replaced with modern non-smelling, environmentally attractive, wooden-framed composting loos, clean and comfortable so you can sit in peace, free at last from damnation in the swarming forms of black, fat and buzzin' dunny budgies. Blessed be the Tasmanian wilderness bog.

Tasmanian Expeditions, based in Launceston, takes guided parties of up to 10 on week-long hikes across the mountains, wetlands and high plains, and they give you the real thing.

They don't carry all your gear for you, they don't put you up in comfortable huts with lovely views, they don't offer any hot water or soap, they don't give any armchair rides, they don't offer gondolas clanking over landscapes with cages full of potbellied tourists belching at the views.

They offer dirt, mud, sweat, body odour, exhaustion, blisters and pain.

When you go out with Tasmanian Expeditions, you do the hard yards. And only when you have completed them do you find exhilaration, achievement and a quiet sense of peace. On top of that, you'll be bloody fit, mate.

The undulating trek, ranging around 1200m and up to 1700m at the highest, is rated as moderate and a reasonably good level of fitness is required. Experienced trampers will take it in their stride. Beginners will find it a good test of their mettle.

The pace is as fast as the slowest trekker, and you'll cover 10km-17km a day in tramps lasting between four hours and seven hours, depending on your speed and the number of side-trips up mountains or down gorges to lakes and waterfalls. You'll get a rest day halfway through when side-trips are optional.

You can take your own pack and gear or hire what you need. Tasmanian Expeditions supply your tent as part of the deal - a brilliantly designed New Zealand-made MacPac that can be pitched in two minutes - and an American Thermo-rest roll-up mattress.

Tasmania lies in the path of the Roaring Forties, and the island's climate can range from heatwave to blizzard inside an hour, even in high summer, so it is essential that winter and summer clothing be carried at all times.

The region is one of only three World Heritage sites in the Southern Hemisphere, and it is wonderful hiking country - less spectacular than New Zealand's best, but with primordial vistas unlike anything here.

Mountain peaks, which once poked above the icecap, while glaciers smoothed and hollowed out the land below, remain unchanged today: craggy, prehistoric sentinels of time, rock fortresses thrusting skyward, guarding the ghosts and gods of old Gondwanaland, who come out to shriek and howl with the winter storms in the vast amphitheatres below.

From one high vantage point you can count 11 lakes and 60 tarns in the panorama. In the eucalypt, pine and beech forests, ancient trunks lie like fallen Goliaths, slain by wind, age and fire.

You'll see tame wallabies loping around campsites, yellow and grey wattle birds swooping low to show off their big dangling gold earrings, and mini-grizzlies (wombats) munching their way alongside boardwalks, waving their big, lumbering, hairy bums in the breeze behind them.

The alpine gardens on the high plains are now putting on their soft spring watercolours and the scarlet warratahs are just opening. There are ecosystems here as fragile as the butterflies that float among them, particularly the cushion plant, which can be set back 30 years by one careless footfall, its delicate water-catchment root system shattered.

Guides from Tasmanian Expeditions make special trips into the region to drop food caches for the trampers, ensuring a regular supply of fresh vegetables and salads, porridge and muesli, fruit, breads, dried foods, rice, pastas, cheeses, crackers, dips, salamis, tuna, and so on.

The trek guides - a special breed of people with a love of the wilderness - are godsends. They will cook all your food, do all your washing up, and even make lemon cheesecake and chocolate mousse on a camp stove for desserts.

And you'll find they are lifesavers at the most unexpected times.

For when the going gets real tough - when the muscles and tendons are stretched past their limits, when your sticky polypropylene hiking vest becomes your second skin, when your backpack carries the weight of the world, your mortal coil is winding tightly and total exhaustion is about to overcome - your guide will suddenly crack open a kingsize block of Cadbury's.

Case notes

* Getting there: Air NZ-Melbourne return base rates $789 (high season), $689 (low season). Virgin Blue Melbourne-Launceston return about $200.

* Accommodation: A wide range of prices is available in Launceston. The Prince Albert boutique hotel (non-smoking) is recommended at $123 a night, breakfast extra.

* The trek: It costs $1460 for the seven-day hike, which includes transport to and from the start and finish by Tasmanian Expeditions' shuttle; all food; your tent and sleeping mattress.

* Equipment: Most trampers bring their own, but you can hire most of what you need from Tasmanian Expeditions. Total hire would amount to $91 for the week. Examples: A sleeping bag and inner sheet would cost $28, a backpack $28, a pair of gaiters $13.

* Essentials: Quality boots; winter alpine gear, even in summer - cotton is out, fleece, polypropylene and Gore-Tex is in; overtrousers and gaiters; rain/windproof lightweight jacket; lightweight fleece walking trousers and cardigan; sunhat and shorts for fine weather; sneakers/sandals for around camp.

* When to go: Tasmanian Expeditions takes trekking groups from November 1 to April 18.

* Beware of: Nothing. Tasmanians are friendly and laidback - they won't rip you off. Leeches are not a problem and any rarely seen snakes will rapidly go the other way. If one does have a go, your gaiter will protect you.

* Contact: World Expeditions

phone (09) 3684161

Email enquiries@worldexpeditions.co.nz

* Harvey Clark visited Tasmania as a guest of Tourism Tasmania and Tasmanian Expeditions.

Discover Tasmania