By road and track…
On foot to the cape
Here’s how it started. Why don’t we walk over to Park Beach, I asked Fiona. That’s a local walk. Why don’t we instead go check out the Cape Pillar campsite, she replied.
So, we parked at Fortescue Bay camp, walked along the gravel road about 100 meters from the ranger station, and set off on the Old Cape Pillar Track, heading to Bare Knoll camp. The trail is mostly uphill but nothing too tough — just a moderate slope with a few steeper bits but no long ascents. It passes through eucalyptus bushland, then flattens out into heathland before climbing again to meet the Three Capes Track. Bare Knoll is just a bit further along.
Nearing the top of one of the uphills we hards voices somewhere behind us. Seems like some people make bushwalking a social exercise, I said. They soon came into view — a couple of rangers and a park maintenance worker carrying large and heavy packs for their eight-day stint at one of the fancy huts used by fee-paying hikers doing the Three Capes Track.
Later, we caught up with them again where they met the crew walking out after finishing their eight-day stay at one of the huts. These huts aren’t your typical rough bush huts — bushwalkers have called them luxurious. Interestingly, the hut crews were all young women.
The attraction
Cape Pillar has attracted bushwalkers over the decades and completion of the Three Capes Track with its boardwalks and stone steps has increased the cape’s accessibility, and numbers have increased. There are two ways to reach Cape Pillar. One is the 48km, four day, three night hut-stay Three Capes Track and the other is as independent bushwalkers.
Parks Tasmania make a substantial charge for the four-day self-guided walk, and walkers follow a hut to hut itinerary, their route being restricted to a south-to-north direction to reduce the spread of Phytophthora, a fungus-like plant pathogen that causes root rot, stem base decay and foliar blights. Accommodation is in the huts where fee-paying walkers have reservations for each night. Restricting the number starting the fee-paying walk to 48 limits the number on the track per day. The Tasmanian Walking Company offers a four-day walking tour using its private lodges.
Independent bushwalkers start where the Old Cape Pillar Track — the original route followed by bushwalkers — leaves Fortescue Bay and can be combined with the Three Capes Track. There are no limits on independent bushwalkers who can follow the Three Capes Track from the Bare Knoll camp, out to Cape Pillar and return, then follow the Track out or return to Fortescue Bay along the Old Cape Pillar Track by which they reached Bare Knoll camp.
From the second day hut for walkers following the official itinerary, or from Bare Knoll camp for independent bushwalkers, Cape Pillar is an in-and-out day walk. The attraction is the sense of wildness and remoteness and the cape’s 300m high cliffs, among the highest in Australia. From the cape, the view is to Tasman Island with its steep cliffs rising vertically from the sea and its lighthouse just offshore, and over the Tasman Sea beyond.
The camp
With Waghalee Falls camp permanently closed because a big storm knocked down trees at the camp, the rangers told us that Bare Knoll is being expanded to better accommodate the increased number of independent bushwalkers heading to Cape Pillar. Passing the track that descends into the gully in which Waghalee Falls camp was located was blocked with branches placed across it, and whatever sign had pointed the way down was no more. It had a reputation as a leech and mosquito infested location, anyway. Bare Knoll is a lot better.
Reaching the turnoff to Bare Knoll, we saw what the rangers meant: a raised walkway through the forest with tent platforms on either side, each fitting three small two-person tents. There’s a composting toilet, and with the expansion we speculated that another one might soon be needed. Sheltered by the surrounding forest, Bare Knoll is a lot drier than Waghalee Falls camp was reputed to have been. I imagine that this is a well-populated campsite during the summer holiday season. Today, though, there was only one tent pitched on the platforms. There are no fireplaces as the park is a fuel-stove-only area, necessitating walkers bringing a small and lightweight bushwalking stove. Overall, the camp is well set up.
The parks service has been building hardwood tent platforms at popular campsites to reduce camper impact on the land, and on these campers attach their tent guy lines to retractable chains for a taut pitch. The service is also installing composting toilets, a public health measure necessitated by the increased number of bushwalkers making use of popular campsites.
We were over half way through April, the first month of the southern autumn. The weather was cooler but not yet cold, and pleasant for bushwalking although the days are becoming shorter with the ending of daylight saving time. There are fewer numbers on the tracks compared to summer. We walked on a weekday and other than the rangers heading out to Munro Hut we saw no other independent walkers. All those we encountered were people on the fee-paying Three Capes Walk making their way to their second night’s accommodation at Munro.
We weren’t planning to walk all the way to Cape Pillar this time — I’d done that decades ago when the track was rougher, and had camped near the cliffs close to the tip of the Cape. This was just a day trip to scout the area so we could come back for a more relaxed three-day walk.
After checking out the camp we headed back the way we came up, soon reaching a track junction with a sign pointing down the Old Cape Pillar Track, and the in other direction along the Three Capes Track. We chose the latter, not knowing it would be twice as long at almost 8km and harder than the direct route back. From here the Three Capes Track passes through forest to Retakunna hut, another accommodation building used by fee-paying walkers on day four of their hut-to-hut itinerary.
From the hut, the track took us to the highest point on the trail, Mt Fortescue, 482 meters above sea level with a steep prominence of 235m (height above the surrounding landscape). The climb is not difficult but requires persistence to walk up the steep slope with hundreds, maybe even more steps carved into it as it ascends through tall eucalypt forest until reaching the crest where it changes into a more open coastal forest. From here it descends roughly 300m to the sea cliffs.
To make the ascent easier we adopted the bushwalkers’ rest step and frequent small breaks technique. Short breaks, just a minute or so, were the opportunity to look around and get a feel for the forest. We wondered whether this section of the Three Capes Track might be a bit challenging for less experienced walkers, but even the less experienced could climb the slope with their packs loaded for their four-day journey by taking it slow. Their packs are made lighter with hut accommodation as they do not carry tents. The mild weather meant that we didn’t raise much of a sweat in making our ascent, but Fiona thought it would be different on a windless, humid, hot summer’s day although the shade of the forest would provide some relief.
After the summit the trail undulates close to the high cliffline, passing through low, open forest and moving into and out of taller timber, and in one place into a gully with a stand of tree ferns. The terrain here is variable with flatter stretches and some steeper but short ups and downs most of which have steps. Despite passing by some of Australia’s highest sea cliffs, the vegetation limits views to only a few lookouts. After our walk I asked Fiona what she thought is this return section along the Three Capes Track. It was slog, she replied, by which she meant that the walking was not difficult but it was walking enclosed by the bush with few outlooks over cliff and sea.
The track
The Three Capes Track is engineered as a dry boots walk which experienced Tasmanian bushwalkers will recognise as contrary to the local bushwalking experience. The track is wide enough for two people in most places and consists of smooth gravel and stone steps. This marks it as different to most bushwalks in Tasmania’s wild places where rough tracks and wet feet are expected. While not authentic in comparison to the usual tracks, the Three Capes Walk is a hut-to-hut walk regulated by itinerary and direction, a substantially different experience to that experienced by independent bush walkers.
I’m not a fan of steps on trails and neither are other bushwalkers. They have their place, however they can be tiring to walk up and down and slow you down compared to switchbacks or contour-following tracks. A bushwalker with decades of experience in Tasmania shared my reservation after the walk out to Cape Huay, a side trip on the last day of the Three Capes walk, saying that rebuilding the old track that wound around the landscape and made ascents and descents as a more or less flat surface was easier to walk than the engineered track with its stone steps. It would be interesting to see biomechanical data about steps versus contoured tracks with switchbacks on the steeper sections.
Eventually, the track meets the route out to Cape Hauy, known for its high sea cliffs… and more stone steps. We skipped that side trip since we’d done it before, and, anyway, the sun was getting low. From the intersection the trail descends to Fortescue Bay. About four hours after taking the Three Capes Track route we arrived back at Fortescue Bay just as the sun was setting.
The Old Cape Pillar Track has been the main route to the Cape for a long time and has more-recently been improved with boardwalks over the boggier sections. With the option of the longer walk out via Mt Fortescue, it makes it possible for independent walkers to reach the Cape and follow much of the Three Capes Track without paying the high fees for the track and huts. The Three Capes Track is well-engineered and an easy walk for paying hikers, who are a different category of walker than independent bushwalkers.
What do I think of the Three Capes Track? The few I have spoken with who have walked it say it was a worthwhile experience. I think it has value for people who would never make the hike to Cape Pillar as independent walkers. Would I pay a lot of money to do the official walk? No. I can get much the same thing as an independent bushwalker and on multi-day walks I don’t like the idea of having to keep to an itinerary.
I am not keen on national park services spending millions to built tracks and accommodation and charge big money to use them. In a state with the lowest incomes in the nation there is a social justice issue in that. It caters mostly to interstate tourists wanting a bit of an adventure. Some critics say that it is a commercialisation of our wild places. I don’t begrudge those who do not want to make their own way through the bush as independent walkers. The important thing with walks like the Three Capes Track is that wild country, public lands, be kept accessible to all, not just those with deep enough pockets to pay for the experience. The only part of the official walk that independent bushwalkers miss is the ascent from the ferry wharf to the intersection of the tracks near Bare Knoll.
The Old Cape Pillar Track route offers an authentic bushwalking experience with camping at Bare Knoll, while the official Three Capes Track with its elevation gain of around 1110 metres caters to fee-paying walkers wanting hut accommodation. The walk is graded as moderately challenging (Grade 3), so some bushwalking experience is recommended.
