Today, I seemed to be caught in some netherworld between Tasmania and Queensland, a world of yawning, of washing load after load of camping laundry, of restocking the kitchen with food, of sifting through receipts and national park pamphlets, and – perhaps most disorienting of all – of  readjusting to city living, with its throngs of people completing their Saturday morning shopping, and where our views are limited by cement walls rather than soaring out over mountains, lakes, and ocean. In the night, I heard the “chuck-chuck-chuck” of house geckos and the squealing squabbles of flying foxes feeding in trees across the street, but no cold wind in tall, straight trees, no waves pounding onto shore, no soft hops of pademelon feet past tent walls, and lno devils snarling into clear night air.

We revelled in vegetables and fruits and meat, weary of our camping diet so high in carbohydrates, which we had nonetheless burned up with hours of hiking each day and trying to stay warm at night. And I, in the spirit of recent glamorous movie award galas – and perhaps still a little light-headed from fatigue – selected Tasmanian bushwalks to receive ‘Tassie Awards,’ which I’ve listed below.

Tassie for Best Mini Bushwalk (30 minutes or less return) – Russell Falls, Mount Field National Park, replete with tree ferns, giant swamp gums, an ethereal waterfall, and a glow-worm grotto wherein glow-worms gleam like stars after dark.

Tassie for Best Short Bushwalk (30 to 60 minutes return) – Donaghy’s Hill Wilderness Lookout, Franklin – Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, a startlingly easy hike for such a spectacular view of wilderness in every direction, from a lookout atop a fairytale ridge that makes you want to camp on the platform and greet the mountains at dawn.

Tassie for Best  Moderate Bushwalk (1 to 3 hours return) – Archer’s Knob, Narawntapu National Park, a deceptively easy walk through a rich diversity of habitats highlighted by sightings of pademelons, wombats (dawn and dusk), waterfowl on a freshwater lake, and ocean and inland views from a gorgeous grass-tree moor atop the knob.

Tassie for Best Half-day Bushwalk (4 to 5 hours return) – Fortescue Bay to Bivouac Bay on Tasman Trail, Tasman National Park, a coastal route that clings to rocky headlands and descends to sheltered bays, with great birdlife and an astounding number of skinks on a sun-baked section of trail above Canoe Bay.

Special Awards:

Hardest on Feet – Cape Hauy Track, above Fortescue Bay, Tasman National Park, with its broken plates of rock jumbled into foot-bruising disorder.

 

Most Intriguing Rock Formations – Wineglass Bay/Hazards Beach Circuit, Freycinet National Park, its pink granite boulders rounded and shoved into position by past glaciers.

Most Impressive Trees – Tolkien Track, Styx Valley, a rough trail through a dark, shaded forest spiked by some of the world’s tallest swamp gums, redolent with time and oozing the ambience of fantasy.

During the evening, we watched geckos hunt moths on our windows, and in the sticky heat of Townsville’s night again laid our bodies onto a mattress fifteen times thicker than our camping mats. We tossed off the covers instead of huddling down beneath them fully clothed, with toques on our heads, as we had in the mountains at Lake St. Clair. No question about it. We were definitely back in the tropics.