The Kara Trail: tarkine

The Tarkine coastline. I've been lazy and not written about it, but that isn't because I wasn't absolutely blown away by it.

In my travels around the world, I've always had to bite down a feeling of guilt when I've visited some "amazing" beach. The iridescent blue of the Greek islands? Try Rottnest. The Cinque Terre? Try Mosman Park when the wind is blowing in the direction that makes it kind of smelly. Spain? Try Scarbs. Wineglass Bay? Try Injidup.

But the Tarkine coast? Nothing I've ever seen compares.

On the second part of our Tarkine Trails tour, we spent two nights in the lovely village of Corinna. It has been almost entirely reconstructed in the style of a miner's village, but the cottages are large and salubrious (Lonely Planet uses that word a lot and now I'm using it too!). We took the ferry, skippered by the lovely Dale, to the mouth of the Pieman River. There we were taken in a tender to a rocky beach, from where our walk began. We walked north, to a place that I have forgotten the name of, but will hopefully remember to look up before I post this (if you're reading this, I either forgot or was too lazy).

We took a 4WD track (bless the rednecks - they have scarred the landscape but they left us a nice path) through several large, slippery, muddy, leech-infested puddles. It was great fun! I very nearly slipped over twice but managed to save myself in time thanks to the hiking pole kindly lent to me by David (yes mum, we laughed at the people using hiking poles on the concreted pathways of the Cinque Terre, but in Tarkine's mud puddles they are nothing less than essential!)

Finally we were through the puddles, and we rounded a corner to the coast. And oh! What a coastline! We were treated to the otherworldy experience of watching huge waves pound the rocks without making a sound, due to an offshore wind. It was like a silent movie and had an incredibly strange, goosebumps-inspiring surreality about it. It was like turning the volume down on the world.

The Tarkine coast is full of movement, both present and past. The waves are constant, rising in white bursts as they batter themselves to spray on the rocks, the ocean in complete turmoil as rips and currents tear each other to pieces over the sand. But it's the stillness that makes you feel as though you are caught in a freeze-frame of time, a moment away from the next earthquake. Even if you don't spend half your time with geologists like I do, the rock formations still speak of centuries of upheaval. The rocks are folded in on themselves in ways that defy logic, twisting and turning in unfathomable complexity. They spike into the air, jutting out of the ground in different directions, as though they were freeze-framed moments after the Big Bang. And in the foreground there is grass, bright purple flowers, orange-lichened rocks, many ancient shell middens left behind by the Tarkineer - the indigenous people who once lived here.

So it's not just the physical attributes of the land that make time seem frozen still, it's the history too. The shell middens are thousands of years old. Many are buried underwater now, but those that remain are dotted all along the coastline. They are made up of empty shells that once housed the food the Tarkineer ate. They were heaped into piles to ensure that empty shells were not confused with edible creatures. They are the last remnants of a people who were entirely massacred. The Tarkineer were rounded up by the army and moved to a small island prison, where they died slowly of starvation of disease. The reason? To make way for white settlement in the area.... take a look at a map of the area to gain an idea of the extent to which that is disgusting.

After our walk and the tour ended, I found myself drawn back to the coast. I drove to Arthur River to visit the "Edge of the World". If there is anywhere on this planet a place that could make you believe the earth is indeed flat, and we are all in danger of falling off if we venture too far, the Edge of the World is it.

The waves rush across each other to clash at the mouth of the Arthur River, black tannin-stained water meeting blue ocean waves in a constant struggle for supremacy. I have been told in a storm, the tannins in the water create a huge, engulfing foam that can smother the beach right up to the dunes. It looks peaceful from the surface, but the currents rage underneath so that if you ventured in there, you would never return.

I chased birds, photographed lizards, ran from a big black snake that blocked my path to Church Rock, and returned to the decptive stillness of the river that turns into raging turmoil just past the bridge where it meets the ocean.

I have sought wildness like this all over the world; I should have known I'd find it in Australia.

Birds braving the wind and waves at the Edge of the World

Colours of the Tarkine Coastline

Silica Mine in the Tarkine - looks healthy, no?

At the Edge of the World

day 1
The Tarkine! I am sitting in the Longhouse at Tiger Ridge, a purpose built camp base for the Tarkine Trails tours. It's 8am, cold and quite dark. So cold, in fact, that my fingers are struggling to type. It's raining a little, but here the rain isn't a nuisance; without it there would be no rainforest to visit so one can hardly begrudge it its presence.

I was collected from Launceston yesterday morning by our guides Trevor and Jane. There are eight of us in the group and it's a wonderful group - everyone shares a sense of humour and nobody has complained about anything. Perhaps a bushwalking tour attracts the more intrepid of the population. First on the bus was Michael, a Sydneysider who has travelled from Hobart. He is cheerful and very easy to talk to. He is one of those people who is always smiling, and he is easy company. Next on the bus was Mary. I had seen Mary briefly the day before,as we both returned from a walk to Cataract Gorge. She was sitting under a tree on the lawn and writing, and she struck me because she seemed very much at peace. She has beautiful, curly white hair and is gentle, with a quietly confident intelligence and sense of calm.

David and Shelly joined us next. David sits contentedly in the background and then embarks on the conversation long enough to drop a funny story or a pertinent observation into the mix. He told a hilarious story about their grandson that had Shelly cringing with embarrassment, and the rest of laughing and settling into a camaraderie, with others telling similar stories about young nephews and sons. Shelly tells interesting little anecdotes that run like a stream under the general observations of others, drawing everyone together and sparking off new discussions about the topic of the moment. Virginia was next - bold and witty and fun. And finally, Fergus and Gillian. Fergus is a gentleman with a keen intellect that you can almost see sparking up behind his smiling eyes. He is modest, sensible and has well balanced views. Gillian is similar, independent and clever with a gentle streak.

Our guides, Trevor and Jane are a perfectly synchronous pair; Trevor with the energy and enthusiasm to constantly keep us laughing, moving on time, and well informed, while Jane keeps things going in the background, and keeps Trevor going as well! They are both cheerful, capable, knowledgeable and entertaining. It's a brilliant tour group, with everyone having enough in common to get along well. (Uh oh - there is always one annoying person - perhaps it is me!?)

After some driving, some stories, and some warnings about jack jumpers (angry bullants that have killed more bush walkers than snakes have in Australia since the 60s) we assembled at the foot of our climb into the rainforest. A small gap in the trees, a small stream to wade across, and suddenly we were in the Tarkine.

When you arrive here, you hold your breath. The trees close behind you and the stream marks the boundary of two worlds. It's like walking behind a veil, with the modern world outside, and the ancient world in here. If a group of elves trotted past, or a velociraptor peered through the bushes at you, you would hardly be surprised. The silence here hushes your thoughts into submission, reaches into your lungs and draws out your breath, replacing it with new air and a meditative calm that tastes of eternity. You look up and your gaze is drawn to the towering heights of ancient trees. This place is like a fairytale come to life.

There are so many details to take in. The Tarkine distracts you with little subtleties while its spirit rages like the powerful undercurrent of a river. You see fungi as big as dinner plates as black as polished iron ore. Little green pearls are scattered on the ground underfoot - the seeds of the sassafrass tree. About the size of peas, they shimmer in the light and wouldn't be out of place on a necklace. If you crush the leaves of their tree you are greeted with an olfactory rainbow. The first crush smells of lemon, before it morphs into an orange scent, then briefly becoming peppermint before finally developing notes of aniseed. This manyscented leaf is a hint to understanding the Tarkine itself; at first glance it's just a forest, until you walk within it and realise it is one of the organs that give life to the earth. It sinks into your consciousness and takes root - while you are here you become just one more creature of the forest.

Tarkine typical scene - trees covered in moss

day 2
Our walk through the forest on day two brought us to the Huskisson river for lunch. We had seen giant myrtles, groves of 400 year old ferns, and towering eucalypts that had invaded the forest a few centuries ago when this place was last visited by fire, earning themselves the Tasmanian nickname of "fireweeds". We had admired the many colours of the fungi perched on the branches of trees, passed to each other pieces of lichen, seed pods, and leaves, slipped our way through miles of mud and brushed past leech-ridden palm fronds. When we arrived at our lunch spot the ground under foot was sponge-soft, the bounce a testament to centuries of leaves and bark and moss falling and rotting in layers upon layers, like the rainforest version of a London street. The river sparkled and glinted at us through the trees as Trevor pointed out the locations of wasp nests that must, at all costs, be avoided. Those wasps once chased him for two kilometres...

The lasting image of the Tarkine for me will be the green, endless green. Your eyes are constantly adjusting to new shades. The sun will strike the moss from above and the deep mossy green earns itself a yellowy halo. The sun races behind a cloud and the moss returns to its depths. Trees nestle against each other in a paintbox array of sage, chartreuse, olive and lime - there is more than I can begin to describe. Colour is fickle but constant, so many shades but all of them green, and each hue shifting from one moment to the next. Everything is moving and everything is still; you know there must be a million tiny insects skittering around, there are grubs inside the trees, water is shifting from the ground to the sky and turning into vapour, sinking into the ground to make mud, swirling in the air to become mist, but your mind is quiet and the blood in your veins echoes the water in the trees.

It's been cold, and wet, but water from the sky feels different here. It's the lifeblood of the rainforest and when it rains, it is like being in the lungs of a living creature, listening to the beating pulse that helps it breathe and brings it life. The rain has been gentle and it makes little clicking sounds all around as though you are surrounded by a million dancing beetles that are shaking tiny droplets of water off their wings. The forest is quiet because there are few mammals, and fewer birds than expected, so the only sounds you hear are the clicking ticking drops of rain, the birds calling in the distance, and the wind trying to assert itself far overhead. It is so quiet, so green, so alive, and so completely timeless.

When you leave, you are changed forever.