TasWeekend: Take a walk on the wild side

ALICE HANSEN: The action-packed Wild Pedder experience takes visitors on a four-day bushwalking and kayaking tour of Tasmania’s stunningly beautiful and rugged South West.

Wild Pedder is hosted by Lou Balcombe, centre.

LISTEN, it’s a Tasmanian froglet,” Lou Balcombe whispers. We stand motionless next to a glassy alpine tarn. All I can hear is a farm animal. “You hear it? These froglets sound like sheep.” Lou quietly replies with his own “baaaa”.

This is Wild Pedder, Tasmania’s latest four-day walking and adventure experience. Co-owners Lou Balcombe and Cody McCracken do things a little differently. Not every day is walking. One is devoted to kayaking 16km on Australia’s largest freshwater lake. Oh, and these young men like to wear short shorts.

The pair are experienced guides and know the landscape intimately, useful when peering beside a picnic rug at small, scrawling plant life and being able to say it dates back 180 million years.

Our expedition is Lou and Cody’s maiden full-blown trip as Wild Pedder and they make us feel like the only people on earth trekking through Tasmania’s wild South West.

Walkers on the Wild Pedder experience enjoy a lunch breat at Mt Eliza.

The lodge-based experience begins in Hobart, where small groups (eight is the maximum number) head for Mt Field National Park. Our mission for day one is wandering 16km through the Tarn Shelf and Twisted Lakes circuit. It begins in the gnarled eucalyptus valleys, rising up to glacial tarns carved tens of thousands of years before our boots stand on the shores. Lunch is spent on a picnic rug in the midst of ancient landscape, beside a swift-flowing creek servicing our water bottle refills.

We then venture deep into Southwest National Park, which at 600,000ha is Tasmania’s largest. This is where Pedder Wilderness Lodge, our base for the next three nights, awaits. In a private lodge room, an open fire is already crackling as the Frankland Ranges perform their nightly spectacle. This evening, Lake Pedder is still and topped with the day’s final shimmering rays. As dusk sets in, our three-course set meal arrives. Tonight, it is Cape Grim beef cheeks resting on smooth mash, matched with a local pinot.

It’s an early rise for day two and the toughest quest, Mt Eliza. This beauty towers 1289m, and although all mountain walks are generally “up”, conquering Mt Eliza is “all up”. Steps lead to hills that lead to boulder-hopping to the pinnacle. When Lou and Cody begin doing a strange upright dance using hands and feet to indicate the boulder-climbing section, I consider it their gentle humour kicking in. It’s not until I see my first boulder that I realise that, indeed, all four limbs are required to meet this mountain’s highest point.

Lou describes the boulders as “leopard print” and undeniably the lichen resembles just that as we rise in elevation quickly. We reach a windswept summit with views that stretch from Precipitous Bluff to Federation Peak, across the Western Arthurs and round to The Thumbs and Frenchman’s Cap with Lake Pedder sprawling below. Even as a local accustomed to our landscape, it’s breathtaking, complete with the Southern Ocean in the distance.

We’re rewarded with Tasmanian ocean trout, part of a three-course meal, for dinner. We’re tired but happy and are treated to live music for the evening.

The four-day tour of Tasmania’s South West includes kayaking on Lake Pedder.

Next day, we get to sleep in. Apparently, this is the cruisy day. It’s also the day I’m baptised by Lake Pedder. My kayaking mate upfront wants to catch a small wave and wallops me with a paddleful of Lake Pedder. He catches me by surprise, mouth open, and I discover the tannin-stained water tastes like nothing else. Plus, we catch the wave.

Come lunchtime we arrive at a quartzite beach where Cody has prepared an impressive picnic, complete with a visiting freshwater crayfish fascinated by the kayaks. It’s Wilmot Island, with rather fair views of the Wilmot Ranges. As mini-waves of tannin waters lap the shores, they are the soundtrack to our lunching. We return to another hearty meal as maps are spread to talk through our final day.

The Upper Florentine Valley, day four, is a calming 9km meander past some of the tallest trees on earth. Old bridges and huts, some reclaimed by the temperate rainforest, tell stories of early European activity.

We lunch at one hut where the last wild Tasmanian tiger was captured. The stories beneath 85m towering eucalypts are many and varied.

Cody and Lou know that modern civilisation might be jarring, so gently reacquaint us with life outside Wild Pedder with a stop at Lake Meadowbank for wine and cheese. On arrival I find a leech on my wrist, a final reminder of the wilderness departed.

MAKE A NOTE

WILD PEDDER

Four days of bush walking and kayaking, all-inclusive, $2200 a person. For an exclusive deal, TasWeekend readers can visit wildpedder.com.au/tas-weekend

PEDDER WILDERNESS LODGE

Gordon River Rd, Strathgordon, phone [phone], pedderwildernesslodge.com.au. The lodge has 70 guest rooms, ranging from backpacker-style twin-share or double rooms, to Lake View rooms and self-contained apartments. Accommodation is included in the Wild Pedder package price.