A short day from the Devonport Ferry Terminal to Latrobe kicked off my hike of the Tasmanian Trail.
After two long days of travel, CareFree and I were slow to get up this morning, and a long list of chores before we could actually start our hike weighed on us like lead weights. Also, it was cool outside, which we were not at all accustomed to after three weeks on the quite warm and sunny Walk the Yorke.
Our first order of business was breakfast, which we got at Banjo’s Bakery Cafe, about a ten or fifteen minute walk from the caravan park, in the center of town. The food there was excellent, and we’ll be back again tomorrow.
Compared to last night, when Latrobe felt completely dead, somewhat like Edithburgh, it was now alive and bustling.
Needing fuel for our camp stoves, we also stopped at a hardware store in town, Mitre 10. We don’t expect to have the availability of caravan parks that we did on Walk the Yorke, and we also don’t expect to be able to easily get more fuel until near the end of the trail, so we wanted to start off with enough to make it not a problem. Unfortunately, they only had one can left, forcing a trip to an outfitter in Devonport to get us what we want.
We also picked up a lock for the storage locker we’re renting to store our extra stuff in. (After the poor experience we had in Adelaide on Walk the Yorke, we weren’t willing to leave our extra luggage with a hotel — or in this case, the caravan park — to store.)
As we walked back to the caravan park, we decided to see if we could extend our stay an extra night. Though we could probably get everything we needed done today (that is, go to an outfitter to get more fuel; go to the terminus and walk back to Latrobe to start the trail; get food to resupply; and then take our stuff to the storage locker), the timing would be tight. And I just wasn’t feeling like hiking today.
Fortunately, we were able to extend our booking for a day, which lets us push the resupply and storage to tomorrow.
Back in our tiny cabin, somewhat relieved of pressure for today, I immediately took a nap.
Around 2, we finally started making our way back to Devonport. The same Uber driver we had yesterday dropped us off at the Kathmandu outfitter, where we got the rest of the fuel cans we needed.
From there, we walked about an hour (plus a stop for lunch at a cafe) back to the ferry terminal. Spirit of Tasmania I, the sister ship of the ferry that brought us to Tasmania, was in port.
The Tasmanian Trail starts at the ferry terminal. We looked around for a bit, but unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any kind of terminus sign. We made do with the first trail marker we saw.
A bright, sunny day, the sun didn’t feel quite as intense as it did on Walk the Yorke. Perhaps it’s because we were a little further south, so the sun was a little lower in the sky. It was also cooler, which no doubt helped.
Leaving the ferry terminal, the trail today was entirely on sidewalk. Some road construction and sidewalk closures made it a little unclear where we should go in one place, but a short detour got us where we needed to be.
After snaking through East Devonport, the trail/sidewalk separated from the road slightly, and began following along the Mersey River.
The river was easily more freshwater than we saw on the entire Walk the Yorke, and with plenty of trees, this is already feeling like a much different trail.
Several splits in the river as it carved through some islands caused a tightening of the river channel, and, though it was high tide, there were the barest hints of rapids. Hopefully, the river’s level will be quite lower further upstream. We’ll need to ford it in a couple of days.
As we neared Latrobe, we went through a park, with a large platypus sculpture. We didn’t realize it at the time, but the nearby Warrawee Forest Reserve is dubbed the “Platypus Capital of the World”. We’ll pass near the park on our way out of Latrobe in two days. Hopefully we’ll see one, but the timing doesn’t seem good for it.
From the ferry terminal, it took us less than two hours to walk back to Latrobe. It was an extremely easy walk, especially since we didn’t have our full packs, but the runaround from our chores (and the ones we still have to do tomorrow) left us tired.
I walked to the Latrobe Pizza House to get us a pizza for dinner; it was fantastic, even better than I expected.
Tomorrow, we’ll take it easy and get the remainder of our chores completed, and then we’ll be off to walk across Tasmania!