Australian-Geographic-Magazine-September-Octobe..

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AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC thanks Matt Gee, Mark Johnston, Island

Workshop; Ben Clark, Phil Duggan, Wanita Wells, Liz Wren, PWS; Rob

Pennicott, Tasman Island Cruises; and all those mentioned in the story.

SP5 carries around Tornado Ridge to rejoin the inland route

to Fortescue Bay. Until now, there’s been no track to the west

from here where the coast curls around to Surveyors Cove, on

Port Arthur. Now, among the forest and peaks, the Three Capes

Track is appearing.

S

OME OF THE NEW TRACK is still a canvas to be imagined,

guided by tape markers – blue for track, orange for huts,

yellow for helicopter drop zone – attached to plants arching

over a flattened survey line that’s barely more than a lick and

a promise. But although the section of track joining Surveyors

Cove to the Mt Fortescue junction via Arthurs Peak isn’t due

to open for more than a year, parts are complete, with glinting

stone stairs and duckboards with non-slip chook wire too new

to have dulled.

Actually, the idea for the Three Capes Track is nearly

10 years old in Stuart Lennox’s book. Stuart is PWS’s Director of

Visitor Services, but worked at Tourism Tasmania when former

state premier Paul Lennon walked New Zealand’s Milford

Track and returned enthusiastic about creating a similar

experience in Tasmania.

“So I said, rather than us all just throwing a dart at the

Unique resident. Branchlets of a Cape Pillar she-oak

(below); the little brown scales are fresh leaves.

Tasmanian pademelons (below left) do well in the

park’s relatively isolated habitats and feed at dusk

and dawn beside the tracks.

map, why don’t we try to understand what people are looking

for?” Stuart says. “We were interested in the things that make

something iconic. Why is the Milford iconic? Why has the

Overland become iconic?”

Climbing to Arthurs Peak, Stuart reflects on the long process

of surveying and research that brought them here.

“There were so many things...one being that it’s an hour from

Hobart airport,” he says. “But that’s not the only one: in terms

of building an iconic experience this met more of the criteria

than anywhere else.

“If you’re going to put a walk in for lots of people, the land-

scape needs to be robust. And there’s nowhere else you can get

a view like this.”

As we stand on the peak catching our breath, trying to take

in a horizon that seems to curve with the Earth, another south-

ern right whale surfaces 300m below. It spouts, then slides like

a splash of silver beneath the water and resumes its journey

north along the timeworn Tasman coast.AG

THE DISTRIBUTION of the Cape Pillar

she-oak (Allocasuarina crassa) is lim-

ited to Cape Pillar and Tasman Island

and it’s classified as ‘rare’ under the

state’s Threatened Species Act. But it’s

relatively secure as there are about

100,000 mature individuals, some in

pure stands, unaffected by bushfire.

It is also a common cross-breeder and

large numbers of hybrids of Cape

Pillar she-oak and a related species

A. monilifera can be found. The Cape

Pillar she-oak tolerates a wide variety

of soil types and aspects in its small

range and appears in forms from a

small tree (in ideal conditions) to a

ground-hugging plant in wind-prone

areas such as Hurricane Heath.

DURABLE CUSTOMER

Although the Cape Pillar she-oak has a small range, it is present in large

numbers, and will hopefully be around for centuries to come.

Thylogale billardieri

i; Allocasuarina crassa

; O

PP

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TE: WOLFG

ANG GLOWAC

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