Travel: What it’s like to visit Port Davey aboard the new luxury cruise vessel Odalisque III
It’s the newest investment in high-end Tasmanian tourism. Here’s what it’s like to cruise Port Davey in ultimate luxury aboard the Odalisque III. VIDEO, PICTURES >>>
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Ominous clouds shroud Mt Rugby and Mt Mackenzie like a heavy winter coat. Brief shafts of sunlight briefly break through and turn the waves from slate grey to silver.
Showers sweep across the channel. Stinging rain blows into our faces. It’s exhilarating.
We are standing on Balmoral Beach and a ferocious north-westerly is still building.
Here the rugged beauty of Tasmania’s Southwest National Park is on full display. From the weather-worn rocks and coarse white quartzite beach to a shallow rockpool in the ‘marsupial lawn’ which lines the point like an unlikely putting green.
“I like that saying: ‘Let the storms give you energy’,” says Peter Marmion.
On a day like today at Port Davey in the state’s remote South West, there’s plenty of energy to be had.
Peter has been guiding in the World Heritage area for the past 35 years. He has seen and absorbed the wild beauty, rich history and untamed elements countless times over the decades and he never tires of it.
It’s his 51st year of coming to Port Davey – he first walked in as a 16-year-old in 1973.
“Every rock and beach and hill has a story. The land speaks to me of my experiences and things that I’ve read. I just love sharing it.”
Earlier, we’d climbed Balmoral Hill – a steep 25-minute walk rewarded with sweeping views of Bathurst Channel. There was no doubt the weather was closing in.
The ride back to our luxury cruise vessel heads directly into the wind. The channel has been whipped into a 1.5-2m chop and squalls of rain lash the dinghy.
Skipper Pieter van der Woude expertly controls the tinny’s trim to make the trip as comfortable as possible but we still get wet. It’s a wild ride.
After a 20 -minute roller coaster, we pull up alongside the 24m Tasmanian-built catamaran Odalisque III and we are greeted by pre-warmed towels. Our wet gear is whisked away. After a shower and change of clothes, we settle into the lounge where our host asks us what we’d like to drink. We snack on freshly baked scones whipped up by the onboard chef, still warm from the oven. We feel pampered. We feel special.
Like a pebble polished by the relentless wild weather of Port Davey I’d held earlier on the beach, this luxury cruise experience is very cool, very smooth.
But the remote waterway with its brooding clouds, drenching squalls and wind-whipped white caps isn’t always so. The wild weather is in stark contrast to the sight which greeted us two days earlier. Our seaplane from Hobart had touched down on Bathurst Harbour to start a five-day, four-night cruise in conditions so still that the impressive blue-hulled vessel was reflected perfectly in the water.
The $7m Odalisque III was launched in January by tourism company On Board. A new seaplane is coming too, making the total investment in high-end adventure about $12m.
Skipper Pieter van der Woude is managing director of On Board. He’s captain laconic. Skilled and quietly spoken, his weathered features carry the marks of a lifetime in Tasmanian waters. The former abalone diver began offering luxury cruises aboard his previous boat Odalisque II about four years ago, taking six guests at a time. The new vessel has doubled capacity with room for 12 guests, plus staff.
He first experienced the wonders of Port Davey and Bathurst Harbour in the early 1990s, sheltering from the weather. When he retired from diving he would bring friends down to the area to show them around and occasionally accept charters. “It then sort of morphed into what it is today,” Pieter says.
“It’s just so untouched and the scenery is just so sensational. I just like to share it.
“But it’s a difficult place to get to.”
The Odalisque III is purpose-built for a luxury experience. Each room features an ensuite and expansive windows offering amazing and ever-changing views. Wherever possible, the bedding and furnishings have used Tasmanian made products.
A lounge area upstairs features handcrafted coffee tables and vases. They reflect a philosophy that is all about locally sourced and sustainable products.
It’s a way of thinking shared by On Board chef Courtney Lowe
Courtney is hardworking and happy – up about 6.30am to cook breakfast and knocking off after the dinner clean up about 9-10pm.
Her warmth and generosity is reflected in the delicious meals and snacks which add so much to the Odalisque experience.
Every meal is a restaurant quality, full of flavour. Courtney uses fresh Tasmanian produce. She can tell you where her food comes from.
That eye fillet beef is from King Island, those veggies from a friend’s garden. The crayfish are locally caught. Bread is baked on board. The wines are all Tasmanian.
She whips up a fresh batch of muffins before we head out on a showery morning excursion. We enjoy the still-warm blueberry and chocolate treats after a drenching shower in the boat.
When she gets the opportunity, Courtney sits down to share meals with guests.
One says it is nice to see the cook eating their own food.
“Never trust a thin chef,” she smiles.
Host Chrissie Materia recently retired from a caring profession working in the challenging area of family violence, suicide and mental health. She gets people.
Her quiet and intuitive care makes her perfect for the job. She listens and observes.
Your drink is filled just as you think about it
There are towels ready for us as we step off the dinghy.
Wet clothes are laundered and returned to your room without fuss.
She recognises the need for people to reconnect with the natural world.
“Out there there’s this busy world and people think that two seconds is too long to wait for something to download,” she says.
“We really, really need to reconnect with nature … this is a place you can do that.”
“I’m not religious at all but I have had times here I have been awe-struck.
“It’s a deep, deep connection with something.”
In such wilderness you are fully immersed.
We are reminded of that connection which draws people back to this place at Stephens Bay – a 9km steady, but easy return walk from Spain Bay at the entrance to Port Davey.
The roaring ocean drowns out conversation as swells formed thousands of kilometres away, finally reach a shore.
At the far end of the beach the rich history of indigenous culture is on show with huge middens built up over 35,000 years by the needwonnee people – the original inhabitants who would keep coming back to the area. They would travel up and down the coast between Port Davey and Bruny Island and Recherche Bay.
As we stand and consider the massive piles of shells partly buried in the sand, there is something spiritual about the place.
The following day there is a rare opportunity to get up close to the Shanks and Breaksea Islands – amazing outcrops of quartzite which cop the worst of the south westerly weather which regularly arrives in storms.
The islands are teaming with birdlife – little penguin colonies and short-tailed shearwater burrows occupy almost every centimetre of the fragile soils and low vegetation which clings to the islands. The jagged rocks emerge from the sea like sharp teeth of a sea monster.
Many ships have succumbed to such rocks in the monstrous seas which pound
Port Davey.
One such wreck was the Lourah, an 80-tonne three-masted schooner on her maiden voyage, bound for Strahan with a load of timber at the turn of the 18th Century. The ship, with five crew on board, ran into rocks during a wild storm at Mud Island in Port Davey on January 3, 1900.
The quick thinking of a young cabin boy Harry Risby helped the crew survive. The teenager wrapped a loaf of bread and bag of oats in a blanket during their dramatic departure from the wreck in a small boat.
They found shelter in a cave which had been excavated for ochre by the needwonnee just inside Bathurst Channel. There they huddled for four days until they were rescued by fishermen. Young Harry, whose descendants still live in Tasmania, was hailed a hero.
From the top of Mt Milner at the entrance to Bathurst Channel, you can see how the aptly named Break Sea Islands protect the unique waters of Bathurst Harbour which forms part of the Port Davey Marine Reserve.
The big Southern Ocean swells smash into the islands and stop the waters in the channel from becoming too churned up.
As a result a rare collection of plants and animals thrive beneath the surface. The tannin-stained freshwater leached through the peaty soils of the surrounding land overlays salt water carried in from the ocean, creating an extremely dark environment. This allows for a colourful variety of plants and animals, normally found in the deepest and darkest parts of the ocean, to grow.
Delicate invertebrates, including sea fans, sea pens and sea whips, live alongside soft corals.
The sheltered sanctuary of Bathurst Harbour is where we are headed.
The forecast isn’t friendly. A weatherman over the radio that morning warns of gale-force winds, 8m swells offshore and there will be showers, including the chance of thunderstorms with hail.
We settle on Ila Bay nestled beneath the impressive Mt Rugby for a night before retreating further to the Odalisque’s anchorage at Kings Point below Mt Beattie for the rest of the trip.
Guide Peter Marmion is not used to being cooped up and has plans. We put on wet weather gear for a trip into Melaleuca, the former tin mining settlement made famous by Deny King and his family.
Deny lived at Melaleuca for 55 years and etched out a life in this harshest environment until his death in 1991.
He raised a family with wife Margaret and while the tough life of a tin miner didn’t bring him riches, it was the raw beauty and love for Port Davey which sustained him.
Peter was lucky enough to meet Deny and spent time with him and his family.
He says it was such a privilege to meet such a special person whose generosity and knowledge of the area he freely shared.
Peter recalls visiting Deny and sharing a cuppa. “You had to be careful where you put your feet, because there would be wrens and other small birds gathered around Deny as he sat at the table,” he says.
Deny was an enthusiastic naturalist and spent many years studying Port Davey’s plants, birds and animals. He is credited with identifying one of the world’s oldest and rarest plants — Lomatia tasmanica or King’s lomatia, also known as Kings holly. It only grows in South West Tasmania with 300 plants growing in a 1.2km stretch of wilderness from rootstock dating back 43,000 years.
We visit the house built by Deny to withstand the wild South West weather and his daughter Janet Fenton, who is down for a few days, is happy for us to tour the garden. Janet is beaming at the rain. It’s been such a dry summer. The land needs it.
The weather doesn’t seem to bother other special residents at Melaleuca either as we view dozens of orange-bellied parrots feeding on a seed mix put out by Wildcare volunteers outside a little museum which tells the history of the area.
Numbers of the critically endangered bird are slowly increasing with the help of a captive breeding program used to bolster the wild population of 74 – the largest number of OBPs to return to Melaleuca in more than 15 years. Most of the adult birds have already begun their mighty winter migration north. The juveniles feed as they prepare to make the same perilous journey up through Tassie and across Bass Strait to the southern coast of the mainland.
We return to the boat to learn that all flights to Melaleuca have been cancelled for the following day – the date of our scheduled departure, so we put off climbing Mt Beattie until the following morning.
Time is of little consequence at a place like Port Davey. So much so that the crew struggle to remember the day of the week.
As a former resident and fisherman Clyde Clayton said: “There is no time at Port Davey, only seasons.”
It feels like a new season has arrived on Mt Beattie the next morning. I choose not to shave. It feels like a bristly wild South West Coast kind of day.
Three of us climb to the 267m summit to be rewarded with sweeping 180-degree views out to Port Davey and across to Mt Rugby and east into Bathurst Harbour. The north-westerly front is in full force as 40-knot gusts roar across the top.
Partway down a 50-knot squall hits and with it stinging hail rattles into our hooded jackets.
I can’t wipe the smile from my face.
That energy Peter talked about, soaks into my soul.
This is Port Davey at its wildest, magnificent best.
There’s no other place like it on Earth.
The author was a guest of On Board - Tasmanian Expedition Cruises
BOOK IT NOW
The experience: On Board – Tasmanian Expedition Cruises offers luxury 4-night or 6-night Port Davey escapes into the wilds of Tasmania’s South West National Park and aboard Odalisque III, a 24m catamaran.
Boat: The Odalisque III caters for a maximum of 12 guests in six double suites.
Food: The trip includes all meals cooked by a chef and feature fine Tasmanian cuisine and top class Tasmanian wine and beer.
Transfers: Access is by a scenic flight over Tasmanian wilderness landing on Bathurst Harbour via float plane or at Melaleuca airstrip. Flight times and flight paths are weather dependent. The trip starts and ends in Hobart
Tours: The cruise features guided excursions in the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Wilderness to explore the rare landscapes and waterways of Port Davey and Bathurst Harbour.
The trips are tailored to most fitness levels and interests as well as weather conditions.
Itineraries include hiking, historic sites, bird watching, photography, exploring the waterways and wandering on beaches.
Cost: Trips start at $11,000 per person
Travel insurance is recommended to cover trips extended by wild weather.
More: www.onboardexpeditions.com.au
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