8. Walking to Duck Reach

Technically, if you have a spare 90 minutes, you can do this return walk from The Gorge.

The guidebooks tell you this; but surely that’s only if you walk it without a camera, and possibly with your eyes closed for the entire trek.

The track follows the course of the South Esk River from the First Basin area to the historic site of the Duck Reach power station.  There’s a sign close to the suspension bridge in The Gorge, indicating the way.  When we used to do this walk, there were few signs or safety fences, and no viewing platforms from where you could see the water meandering across the rock strewn curves of the riverbed.

The disused buildings and old pipeline of the power station are now the site of a modest museum, and after crossing the suspension bridge, I only had a short climb to the spot above the station, from where there is an incredible panorama.

One (of the many) things I love about Tasmania is the opportunity for solitude.  There are places here where you can feel at one with the earth, where you can stand alone in the sunshine, under a vaulting blue sky, and listen to the cicadas thrumming their resonant casings like tiny instruments.  You can feel each of your senses individually, marvelling at the richness of the colours around you; listening to the soft layers of sound formed by the white noise of tumbling waters, the turning page of soft wind surges, the bird calls and humming bees;  the heat held in the air, pressing down on you, the dampness of perspiration in your shirt, the scourge of thirst at the back of your throat.

It’s transcendent; a reminder of the slightness of our being, measured against the perpetuity and determination of nature’s germination, pollination and proliferation.

It will outlast all of us.