Monday January 5

Walk notes:

7 hours elapsed over the day.

Osmiridium Beach notes:

Camp is a bare 3-5 minutes away from main trail.  The turn off is not signposted, it is just a small boot-wide track turning south where you can hear the surf and see some white sand dunes.  This is atop one of the small hills in button grass, the trail runs by a small copse where the trees have bare trunks shown above the undergrowth.

Journal:

Setting off up the lagoon was eerie and exciting - unlike all the other bushwalks, this felt 'wild' - no signs, no trail... nothing.  If I wasn't sure where I was, I would have thought I could have been anywhere at all in Tasmania.  The silence and loneliness was striking, even oppressive.  The very occasional bootprint in the mud became a godsend, an acknowledgement that humans had indeed been here before, and I was on the right path, not walking blindly into oblivion. 

It wasn't hard wading the lagoon, most of it was shin-to-ankle deep, with good footing.  I was expecting lots of sunken trees and branches, but there wasn't very many at all.  In several spots you could walk along on the shore if you wanted to.  The worst part was not seeing where you were going, with the sun in the right position the glare off the water blinds you.  In a couple of places, as you round a point into an exposed bay, the wave action means you can't see anything either, same for kicking water ahead of you and making splashes...

The trickiest part was negotiating the deep creeks - especially McKays Creek, which cannot be forded; you have to go upstream and cross tree fallen over the creek.  Although tagged, I lost the path due to a treefall.  I crossed the creek on the left, then followed it.  It meandered back and forth with me bashing a path alongside and intercepting it on corners.  I was getting tired, when suddenly I noticed that the water was running left-to-right, the wrong way, it should have been running right-to-left.  Getting frustrated and bit flummoxed, I pulled out the compass.  I felt a real chill, I was headed DUE EAST.  OH MY GOD!    Completely the wrong direction!

So here I was, lost.  The sun was too low and behind cloud cover, and I realised that I could no longer hear the waves or wind from the lagoon, and I had lost the tagged path long ago.  I was totally lost and disorientated.  Although presumably I would eventually have realised to follow the creek downstream, not up, I was panicking and not really thinking rationally.  I believe that without the compass I might have gotten totally lost, even died out there.  I can now attest that the phrase 'cold sweat of fear' is firmly grounded in truth.  I followed the faithful compass west and was filled with infinite (and I mean infinite) relief to see the bright sky again as I broke out onto the lagoon.

Next time bring Precipitous map! Although I had the 1:100K topo map of the area, this excluded the Bluff itself.  At the planning stage I had dismissed it as I thought it would not be necessary, as I was not planning to climb the Bluff itself.  Also, the camp is not marked, and there are a number of creeks - trying to match the actual terrain to the mapped would be too difficult, I thought.  This became a concern however, what with the strange rumours I had heard about the distance involved.  Towards the end I was becoming fatigued and hypothermic, and really wanted to shoot a bearing on the bluff, but couldn't because it wasn't on the map.  I ended up using the West peak 435m spot height as a bearing to find out where I was.  The 1:25K map would have been a lot more useful in determining the shape of the lagoon, and where the camp was.

Was nearly bitten by a snake when I foolishly approached a snake-like object, only to realise it looked a bit like a snake because it was a snake!  When it came at me, I retreated to the water. Thankfully it gave up the chase after a moment.  I blame hypothermia for that bit of idiocy.

The lagoon is extremely exposed - wading in water up to the knees, in cold or windy weather, hypothermia is inevitable. There are very few camping spots or drinkable water (the lagoon is salty) - the entire trip is best done in one go.

Contrary to public opinion, it took me only 3 hours to wade the lagoon, including time getting lost. I thought the tide was low-medium based on observations throughout the trip.

Camp notes:

The campsite is well sheltered, with good water.  There's room for six tents in three main areas, with smaller areas outlying.  Imagine my surprise to find it nearly full!  About half-a-dozen people had just come down from PB and were camping right here.  On chatting to them, I found that they were doing the exact trip I had been planning all along (Lune River - Moonlight Ridge - PB - South Coast - Cockle Creek).  I didn't spend much time with them as it was getting a bit darkified, and I was tired and hypothermic.  I made the best meal I could, then got into bed and played "how warm can I get".

Opposite shoulder peak is at 269 degrees magnetic (practically due West). 
PB is at 43 degrees magnetic.

Maps: