hiking backwards on the South Coast Track, Tasmania.

I had heard about the track for years. My Dad and my brother joined a party of men to complete it in December a decade ago, returning with images of Dad submerged in waist-deep mud, and purporting that summiting the ironbound range with horizontal sleet had made them the coldest they’d ever been in their lives (cold enough to be unable to open a ziplock bag for food). Contrastingly, a Tasmanian ex-boyfriend of mine had done the track about 10 times and claimed it was “easy”. With no research, my only trail preparation was a digital map downloaded on my phone, hard copy maps and guidebook in a waterproof case, a borrowed long trench coat for the potentially-torrential rain, and a water filter packed in response to warnings of gastro. I was feeling pretty blind about what we were going to encounter.