Travelways

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A walk well worth the trek

NOW here's a beach. New Harbour faces pretty much due south so you suspect it's not always this warm and welcoming. It's February and we've escaped a heat wave in the city to take a three-day, three-night bushwalk to beaches west of the better known South Coast Track. I'm keen to remove the backpacks and pitch the tent but it turns out to be worth our while to wander the beach and inspect potential camp sites. The area has seen campers before. I suspect some would arrive by boat, given the first settlements to the east are about 60 kilometres away. We pick a spot, throw the tent up and start boiling the billy on our gas stove. It's about then that we notice our visitor. A spotted quoll is circling our camp, as if deciding whether to grant sleeping rights to his domain. I suspect the quoll's stocks have lifted with the tragic decline of the devil but they look an unlikely carnivore. Spotty is determined to show that he's unafraid and wanders within a few metres of where we sit, sniffing the base of our tent during a thorough landlord's inspection. We watch the quoll for about 10 minutes in the twilight until I bring out the camera to catch one unsatisfactory image before he scarpers. The tent holds out all creatures and the elements and we pack up next morning to seek bays further west. My walking companion, Dane Flynn, is keen to inspect the surf. He had walked the South Coast Track once with a bloke who carried a surfboard under his arm. Many of the world's remote beaches were "discovered" for recreational use by pioneering surfers. The track to Kerchem Bay has had recent work and is in good condition. It is as if walkers who show themselves serious enough to go past Hidden Bay are to be rewarded with solid gravel underfoot. It makes little difference to me. The second day of a bushwalk is always hell. The human body seems to rally for a one-off challenge but those muscles don't like being asked to back up the next day. Flynny describes it as being like a tin man, with nuts and bolts for joints and sinews. It's with this creaking and scraping of joints that we spend two hours walking from New Harbour to the next splendid revelation, Hidden Bay. The swell in Hidden Bay is about the best surf we see on the trip. I'm itching to don mask and snorkel and inspect the waters but we push on, the track winding up and over wooded headlands. It's after 1pm when we arrive to discover a Boys Own scene at the western end of one spectacular beach. A creek runs through sand and nudges cliffs to isolate what must be the best camping site in the world, on dry sand above the tide line. The creek is like a moat to our soon-to-be-erected castle. On the seaward side, the creek has an offshoot ducking into a sea cave that screams out for exploration. On the eastern flank, you can crawl into another cave with a sandy floor and dodge some mosquitoes to look for Aboriginal carvings. This dry cave would have sheltered many a straggler during wild weather. Someone has dragged some light brush into the back of the cave, where it's possible to stand. Back outside at the wonderful campsite, steep wooded areas sweep down on earth and rock. There's shelter on three sides and a moat at the front, so we pitch our tent facing the formidable southern ocean, gaze out at the lights of Maatsuyker Island and thank our lucky stars that we came here.