Introduction
Like the Camino de Santiago, the Inca Trail, the Appalachian Trail, the Transcaucasian Trail, the Milford Track, the Sunshine Coast Trail, The Red Sea Trail, and so many others, we want this walking journey to be a space for exchange between people and a source of storytelling. But most importantly, we want this to be an opportunity for you to immerse yourself in a wild and remote wilderness.
They say walking can be transformative.
Look up, look out, look within.
Tasmania’s Three Capes Walk is a 29-mile 3-night 4-day immersion into the cliff-hugging wildness of Australia’s far south-east. The next stop is Antarctica. It’s all about the journey here. Few places on Earth remain that feel so remote, so raw, so removed from the ordinary, yet Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service’s ambitious timber track – an artwork rivalled only by the landscape – is so meticulously crafted that you’re free to enjoy your experience rather than watching every step.
World Heritage-listed Port Arthur Historic Site is the start and end point of your journey, but travel begins with a boat ride to the trail head. Any migratory whales, dolphins or fur seals are complimentary on the sail across to Denman’s Cove.
Over the course of the four days you will walk along ancient, plunging sea cliffs, climb Arthur’s Peak, move through the shadows of tall and fragrant eucalypt forest, and across colorful coastal heath and the broad, windswept Ellarwey Valley. The Tasman Sea, crashing against the cliff-girt coast and extending as far as they eye can see, is your constant companion.
Exclusive Accommodation –use of the private Lodge accommodation along the Three Capes Track. Each Lodge is discreetly placed along the trail, offering hot showers, shared facilities, relaxation and lounge areas and twin share accommodation for the ultimate in wilderness comfort
Logistics
The total trip distance is 29 miles covered over the course of 3 nights and 4 days:
Day 1: 2.5 miles/2 hours
Day 2: 11 miles/4.5 hours
Day 3: 11.8 miles/6 hours
Day 4: 8.7 miles/6-7 hours
If you exercise regularly and are capable of walking 4 hours a day over the course of 4 days, you should be fine. The dry track is well-formed and the steeper sections have well-built steps.
Your Guide
Heath Garratt, General Manager of the Tasmanian Walking Company. In September 2018 Tasmanian Walking Company had the incredible privilege to become the first and only guided walking company authorised by the Tasmanian Parks & Wildlife Service to offer the full Three Capes Track experience.
When to go
Spring (September – November): coastal heath in flower, migrating whales.
Summer (Dec – Feb): Rolex Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, summer music and food/wine festivals including the Falls Festival, MONA FOMA and Taste of Tasmania.
Autumn(March – May): migrating whales, short-tailed shearwaters annual migration, orchids flowering.
Winter (June – August): Night skies, acacia trees in bloom, winter swells crashing into towering cliffs, winter music and food/wine festivals including the Festival of Voices and Dark MOFO.
If the expert, Drew Kluska, had to pick a month, he would opt for either March or November
The Promise
Perhaps the most enriching part of walking on a trail is to experience a great leveling of minds and to have the time to look for the beauty within yourself as well as in the world around you.
And After?
I would travel to Tasmania just to go to the MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art, which I have now visited twice but still need more of. I would spend a few nights at Saffire Freycinet, a Luxury Lodge of Australia, eating oysters in Freycinet Bay, hiking to the secluded white sand crescent beach of Wineglass Bay and, on the way home, taking a day out to visit some of Tassie’s passionate craft whiskey brewers..
Spend some time with Craig “Bushie” Williams who runs arguably Australia’s best wildlife tour, the “Quoll Patrol” in the NE of Tasmania. Craig is one of the best wildlife and nature guides in Australia. He will show you the Tyne Valley where he has a cabin in a clearing in the forest. Here he cooks a magic dinner over the campfire and, as darkness falls, all the wildlife comes out to play in the clearing. There are up to 6 different species and they are not normally seen in one place – possums, bandicoots, pademelons, wallabies, wombats and the elusive quoll. Magic!