Saturday January 3

Summary: 3 hours car travel, 3 hours walk to camp.

After a lot of discussion with the Doctor (Hi Matthew!), I ended up putting the Fortesque Bay walk with him on the back-burner (sometime in February, maybe) and delaying the PB walk until I could start it on a weekend, so Dr Fasnacht could come, as he only had weekends free.

I used the time instead to make a start on the Shed, Paul Lan's hideaway on the hill, up at Feilton, Moogara.  Did quite a bit of renovation.  More on this subject later, Paul.  Heh heh.

A bit of late start to the day, but didn't really matter, as we knew it was a very easy leg to South Cape Rivulet.  On the way down we picked up a fellow bushwalker, as it turned out, he was a mad keen walker/climber from the mainland.  He'd just flown in, and was hitching down to Dover (I think) to start a walk to Federation and meet up with a relative on the way.

Matthew and I locked eyes and shrugged - why anyone would pay airfare to Tasmania, then go cheap and not pay $40 for a bus trip seemed a bit weird.  Ah well, he was very friendly and we passed a bit of time chatting about walking lore and what Tasmania was like compared to his usual haunts, the Blue Mountains.

The road to Cockle Creek seems to have got worse (confirmed this later with the bus driver) it seems that the yokels with 4WD and trailers have been gouging up the dirt roads.  The sandy road right at the end is quite bad.  Even though Matthew's car has 4WD and decent clearance (for a wagon) he had to drive carefully to avoid the pothole, at bottomed out at least once.  I hope the road is fixed soon, if it keeps up like this, normal cars won't be able to get to Cockle Creek.

Jumping out of the car at Cockle Creek, I felt immediately superior to the casual day walkers (feh!) and assorted ill-equipped bushwalkers - I was already getting that 'competitive edge'.  Matthew was ogling some lissom young things wandering about, until he realised that their mother was actually a peer in his and Paul's trade.  Tassie, eh?  Small place indeed! 

We pushed on to South cape Rivulet, passing the time discussing comparative religion, ethics and philosophy.  There's nothing like a captive audience ,eh Matthew?