TasWeekend: Take a walk on the wild side

PHOTOGRAPHER Richard Bennett returns to his roots as a bushwalker to capture the raw beauty of Tasmania’s rugged South Coast Track.

Thick scrub near Mt Wylly, in the Southern Ranges. Picture: RICHARD BENNETT

RICHARD Bennett was 15 and living with his family at Geeveston, in southern Tasmania, when he joined a bushwalk at nearby Hartz Mountains as part of a youth group.

“I’d never been there,” the 71-year-old photographer says. “The local people were apple orchardists, farmers and in forestry. It was an enclosed community. They had everything they needed. It was a great community, but they weren’t bushwalkers.

“They looked up at Hartz but didn’t go there. I accepted that until I went up to Hartz. I was absolutely mesmerised. You could sense the weather, and the cool, crispness of the air.”

It was a defining moment for Bennett, whose ambitions changed after experiencing Tasmania’s remote alpine environment for the first time. As the son of an apple orchardist, Bennett was destined to work on the family farm – and did in his late teens and early 20s while pursuing his growing passion for bushwalking and, later, photography, “because all bushwalkers had cameras and I found I had an aptitude for it”.

Tasmanian photographer Richard Bennett has just launched his new book, From Cape to Cape – Tasmania’s South Coast Track. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

Decades later, Bennett’s name is almost synonymous with yachting photography in Tasmania. He has photographed the Sydney-to-Hobart yacht race every year since 1974, while also working as a commercial photographer and documenting his adventures for newspapers and books.

His charming face, partly hidden by a bushy silver beard, is expressive when we meet at Kingston Beach to talk about his latest hardcover book From Cape to Cape – a personal illustrated story which returns the photographer to his roots as a bushwalker deeply in love with Tasmania’s remote places.

The new book contains 192 pages of images and stories about his experiences walking and camping between South West Cape and South East Cape on Tasmania’s South Coast Track. “It’s my most personal book, of the 12 I’ve published, in that I’ve written the text, too,” Bennett says.

Alongside many captivating images of the South West region’s wild surf beaches, isolated harbours and rivers, and vast rugged landscapes are more intimate, candid shots of friends, two of his three daughters, and the photographer himself, camping and walking on the 85km South Coast Track.

“I’ve walked the track about 40 times. It’s easier to walk than some of the alpine walks. It’s a coastal environment, which has the moderating influence of the sea,” he says.

“I love camping on the South Coast Track behind those wild ocean beaches. You hear the surf and get that lovely symphony at night when you get into your tent, and can hear the wind in the trees. It’s just wonderful. And sometimes you get wild storms, and I love being there then.”

Bruce Cole, second from left, leading the Hobart Walking Club party to Precipitous Bluff in 1964. Picture: RICHARD BENNETT.

A photograph in the book captures Bennett’s first experience of the track, in 1964, with Hobart Walking Club members. The group’s approach via the Southern Ranges involved a challenging east-to-west traverse of Precipitous Bluff.

“The track wasn’t marked, it was very scrubby and it rained. It was a really tough trip,” Bennett says. “But I just loved the wild beauty, the remoteness. It gives you a great sense of adventure. I love the whole thing about being in the mountains, and the camping. It exercises your emotions and you form lasting friendships.

“There are no distractions, no phones, no jobs. Your circadian rhythm adjusts. You go to bed when it’s dark and get up when it’s light. I couldn’t [live permanently in the wilderness], but the longer the trip, the more you get out of being there.”

Bennett says he’s never had any mishaps while walking in remote areas, but he learnt how to stay safe early on by doing a bush skills camp near Dover, and attending mountaineering school at Mt Cook on the Tasman Glacier in New Zealand in 1965.

There, he learnt rope work, crevasse rescue and how to use an ice axe and crampons. By 1969, he’d gained a place in the first Australian mountaineering expedition to Peru. “In the wilderness you do things deliberately. You have that little computer in your head analysing the terrain in front of you and making a decision about where to put each foot,” he says.

Freney Lagoon on the South Coast Track. Picture: RICHARD BENNETT

Richard Bennett on a beach on the South Coast Track. Picture: LUCY BENNETT

By honing his photography skills, Bennett was able to document and share his remote-area bushwalking experiences, and later, after completing a course by correspondence with a New York-based photography school, eschew a life as an orchardist and become a landscape, portrait and wedding photographer at Geeveston.

From Bruny Island home, where he lives with wife Sue, Bennett works as a commercial photographer and is currently in Iran photographing world heritage sites for a future publishing project.

He still likes to do at least one major walk each year – though he ensures his backpack weighs no more than 16kg, including camera gear. “Walking has helped me maintain my fitness,” he says.

“At home I can feel a little bit flat sometimes and lacking in energy and as soon as I pick up a pack, I simply lock into the old step and it’s just the way it’s always been.”

From Cape to Cape – Tasmania’s South Coast Track, by Richard Bennett, $69.95, is available at select bookshops or visit richardbennett.com.au. For information on walking the South Coast Track, visit parks.tas.gov.au