South Coast Track - Day 4

Deadman's Bay to Osmiridium Beach

Day 4 was supposed to be an easy and fun day after the effort of crossing the Ironbound Range the day before. As it turned out, it was harder than expected and we were pretty glad to get to Osmiridium Beach campsite at the end of the day.

The fun part of today was always going to be the boat crossing of Prion Bay. At Prion bay Tassie Parks Service leaves a boat on either side of the bay and you have to row across to the other side grab the boat from the other side of the bay and bring it back to the start and then row across again to once again leave a boat on either side.

I did the initial row across the bay then David took over and rowed both boats back for the next leg (pictured above).
While waiting for David, et al, to complete the crossing I explored Prion Bay Campsite where I managed to photograph some Pademelons having their lunch. I got some great shots because they seemed relatively unconcerned by my presence.

Conventionally, Prion Bay campsite is the end of the day’s walk but since it was only lunch time we decided to extend the day by walking to Osmiridium Beach, some 5-6 kms away. I think we all regretted moving on from Prion Bay Campsite because the walk behind Prion Bay beach was quite difficult for tired legs, since the track wound up and down and generally in every direction except for a straight line.

When we did eventually make Osmiridium Beach we were disappointed by two things:

Despite being less than 100m from the beach there was no practical way to get to the beach without swimming through the slightly stagnant and dark tannin filled water.
The water here was very stained with tannin and only moving very slowly. It looked pretty swampy and this was the only place we filtered water before drinking it.

When John and I did the walk in 2002 we had a late lunch at Osmiridium Beach and kept going, but we had an earlier start to the day, which gave us more options.

Day 4 - Hill Profile

I was expecting this day to be relatively flat and easy going, but you can see the morning started with a couple of climbs and then followed by a gentle 4-5 km walk along Prion Bay beach. You can see after the 11km mark we were unexpectedly going up and down a lot and this caused the afternoon to wear on us.

View over Little Deadman's Bay

View over Little Deadman's Bay from our campsite.

Kelp in Little Deadman's Bay

Walking along Deadman's Bay

This photo is looking along Deadman's Bay back towards our campsite and the Ironbound Range in the background.

This is John and Paul walking along Deadman's Bay.

Menzies Bluff separates Deadman's bay from Prion Beach.

View of Ile du Golfe

There are a dozen or so islands off the coast where we walked, This is one of the bigger ones.

I thought this might be a viburnam like we have in our front garden, but I have since made two discoveries. One, this is not a viburnam and two viburnam's are not native to Australia, I will find out what this is and make an update. Suffice to say, I saw tens of thousands of these plants.

Menzies Bluff with the Ironbound Range in the background

This is the start of Prion Beach. We walked along Prion Beach for about 4kms before crossing into New River Lagoon which needs to be crossed by boat.

Prion Beach, looking forward over the South Cape Range. The prominent mountain in the background on the left is Pindar's Peak which sits at the top of the South Cape Range..

This is John Walking along Prion Beach. Behind John you can see the Ironbound Range we had crossed the day before.

This collection of flotsam denotes the point at which bushwalkers cross over from Prion Beach into New Harbour Lagoon. Tinnies are provdided to facilitate crossing the lagoon.

Paul leaving Prion Beach

Ile du Golfe is in the background.

It is not every bushwalk that you need to do a boat crossing. Here we are getting reeady to make the first crossing. Three crossings were required to complete our trip across New Harbour Lagoon.

David and I took the packs and ourselves on the first trip.

On the other side

It's not far to row across New Harbour Lagoon but I imagine it would be quite a challenge in a strong wind.

David making the second crossing

David is making the second crossing and is taking one boat back to the start for others coming behind us to use.

David making the second crossing

David making the second crossing

At this stage a bit of a wind kicked up and complicated David's crossing.

Prion Beach campsite

Prion Beach Campsite is just in the tree line behind the paddles. Once we had completed the crossing we needed to drag the boat up the beach and tie it off which was a bit of a challenge. I wouldn't like to be doing the crossing by myself.

New Harbour Lagoon looking back towards the Ironbound Range

New Harbour Lagoon

While the others were completing the boat crossing I was exploring the campground and came across a group of three pademelons. This one didn't mind having its photo taken at close range.

This is a newish bridge that spans McKay's Creek. The bridge was a bit of a surpirse. 22 years ealier we just walked upstream to find a place shallow enough to cross.

This channel is where New Harbour Lagoon meets the ocean. South Coast track walkers do a lot of walking and some rowing to avoid having to cross the entrace to the lagoon. We could have easily walked across the channel opening and svaed ourselves a couple of hours of hard work.

Chris's Leg Deep in Mud

I was walking along when my right leg slipped off a button grass. I put my pole down to stop myself falling over but to no avail. My pole sunk in the mud for its entire length and my leg went in almost up to my groin.

View over the Coast and Osmiridium Beach.

As we approached Osmiridium Beach, the bush got shorter and we had coastal views. Osmiridiun Beach is in the creek line you can see in the mid-ground.

David and Paul at the turn off to Osmiridium Beach

Apparently, Osmiridium is a popular name for a naturally occurring alloy of the metals iridium and osmium, which is presumably where this beach got its name.

By the time we got to Osmiridium Campsite, I stunk (and I was not alone). This was an opportune time to wash the body and some clothes. Unfortunately there was no bresze through the trees so I had to put on wet clothes and carry the rest of the washing wet to the next camspite which had a betetr breeze.

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