Day 1: Hobart to Melaleuca
Breathtaking aerial views followed by a relaxed stroll to enjoy forest, buttongrass plains, lagoons, streams, and a historic museum and hut.
On the Needwonnee day walk, looking across Melaleuca Lagoon.
If you've decided to follow our leisurely itinerary, you'll be hiking west to east (see Planning and Tips for detailed logistics), so today's trip comprises a marvellously scenic 45-minute flight from Hobart to Melaleuca with vast views across Tasmania's Southwest Wilderness, followed by a relaxed stroll around the settlement to see the historic museum, Melaleuca Lagoon, plus Melaleuca and Moth Creeks.
Although many hikers begin their walk the moment they arrive in Melaleuca, you will spend the afternoon exploring the sights around Melaleuca. Yes, it's an extra dinner and breakfast to carry, but the huts are only 400m/437yd from the airstrip: easy-peasy! Once you've set up in one of the huts or in the campsite under the melaleucas, grab your day pack and head off on the easy 1.6 km/1mi Needwonnee circuit walk.
Walk (and Fly!) with Us:
When you hop out of your taxi at Cambridge Airport NE of Hobart for your 45 minute charter flight to Melaleuca, check in your luggage. You'll pay for your fuel now too, because of course you can't take flammables on the aircraft; you'll instead collect it from a little shed at the Melaleuca airstrip.
Multiple flights operate daily during peak season. Flights often change due to weather, leaving earlier or later on the same day, but are also delayed for a full day or longer, so it's definitely worth adding a few contingency days to the start of your trip. When you include contingency days in your itinerary, you can potentially also leave earlier than scheduled to beat a deteriorating forecast: tell them your availability when booking your flight, and they'll let you know if there is a glitch in the flight horizon.
If your start date changes and you've booked a track transfer bus from Cockle Creek to Hobart, you'll need to change that too, but they are amenable if you do this with plenty of notice. Last minute changes are understandably unwelcome and there may not be a seat for you in the bus.
Over the Huon River near Franklin and Woodstock. The twin engine planes are small and fly low, operating under Visual Flight Rules: it's fantastic fun. In good weather, they fly direct to Melaleuca over land but, with low cloud or stronger winds, the flight path is over the sea to avoid the turbulent mountainous terrain. Either way, you'll get views because they'll be flying under cloud.
I think we're about 3,500-4,000' amsl here! You'll fly over Hartz Mountain National Park before entering the Southwest National Park. On the way, you're surrounded by spectacular peaks...
... and mountain lakes and tarns. Here are Federation Peak and Lake Geeves, wilderness as far as the eye can see. Just wow. The flight is as much fun as a day on the track!
All too soon you're descending over Melaleuca, here looking SSW along Moth Creek. The museum's circular roof is lower centre above the patch of trees, with tin mining scars visible centre. The campsite, huts and Melaleuca Lagoon are out of sight bottom right.
After decanting alcohol into fuel containers at the shed (others pick up gas canisters; liquid fuel like Shellite is available too), it's time to scrub boots at the cleaning station in the second shed. Don't miss this step because introduced diseases have the potential to decimate the park's fragile ecosystem.
Next, head for the huts. Many day trippers visit Melaleuca too, it's not just multiday hikers and researchers. We flew with a second plane filled with scientists and volunteers monitoring the endangered Orange-Bellied Parrot population.
The Charles King Memorial Hut was built in 1959-'61 by Deny King and the Hobart Walking Club; Nissen Huts are famously robust and easy to erect in remote locations. You can glimpse the Ranger accommodation behind vegetation on the right.
The original stone fireplace in Charles King Hut. No fire today or any; solid fuels aren't permitted in the park, but it doesn't matter: today the plywood-lined hut is like an oven in the summer sunshine.
So we decamp to the cooler Second Hut, also built by Deny King in 1975-’76 with help from the Launceston and Hobart Walking Clubs. Both huts are only for hikers, not day trippers. Even in peak season, we have the hut to ourselves because the hikers with whom we shared the plane all started the SCT straight from the airstrip.
The original central fireplace in the Second Hut is gone but a bright kitchen is welcoming, with a sleeping area at the opposite end.
After dropping your gear in the hut, take a daypack and go for a walk. The campground is delightful, well-sheltered amongst the melaleucas. These tents belong to parrot researchers.
Heading to Moth Creek.
Lovely old boardwalk...
... and a small private boat landing.
Backtrack and head onto the 1.6km (1mi) Needwonnee circuit walk. It's flat and manicured, easy walking.
Melaleuca Lagoon with Mt Rugby in the distance.
Plenty of wildflowers. Here, Stylidium graminifolium (Trigger Plant)
... and one of my favourites, Bladderworts (Utricularia uniflora).
Continuing anticlockwise to a second boat landing on Melaleuca Creek, nice for a dip on a hot day, with Pandora Hill as the backdrop.
On past the airstrip and to the museum. It is well worth visiting...
... with many interesting artifacts and interpretive signage. In one room, a volunteer with binoculars is recording orange-bellied parrots arriving at the feeder outside the window. If you're a twitcher and keen to see one or any of the other rare species (Ground Parrot, Southern Emu wren and more), early morning and late afternoon are good times. Day trippers miss out but, for those hiking a leisurely SCT, you will have an evening and a morning to try your luck!
Outside again, and the blazing white blossom of Woolly Teatree (Leptospermum lanigerum) lights up the plain.
And, thrillingly for Orchid enthusiasts like me, as daylight fades, a tiny leek orchid, Prasophyllum concinnum. Also seen on the walk are finished sun orchids (Thelymitra) and Beard Orchids (Calochilus).
Back to the Second Hut for a cuppa and dinner.
A Grey Shrike-thrush (Colluricincla harmonica) snaps at insects on the window screen outside, its beak tapping the glass. The place is teeming with birdlife, flitting and chattering in the trees and grasses outside.
A cosy nest for the night. No sign of rodents, but note that we've hung our food bag using a thin spectra fishing line and a mini biner anyway: you can bet that the first time we don't bother, something will find our food.
Tomorrow, without any rush or pressure, it will be time for leisurely hikers to start the South Coast Track!
We acknowledge the Tasmanian Aboriginal people and their enduring custodianship of lutruwita (Tasmania).
