Sisters Beach

Sisters Beach and Rocky Cape

A long time ago Tasmania’s North West Coast was joined to Gippsland in Victoria. For those of you who have been to Gippsland you might be familiar with Wilson’s Promotory – a national park that is around 3 to 4 hours out of Melbourne and a great place to go bushwalking. When I was a teenager the Prom (as it was known) was a great place for school camps and an area was set aside for descending hordes of teenagers. The Prom has always been popular but in the last few years it has exploded and now you need to enter a lottery if you want to try and get a camp site over the busier periods.

Whilst the Prom has received an enormous amount of attention, the National Park at Sisters Beach on the NW Coast of Tasmania offers the same experience as the Promotory but with virtually no-one around. It might not be as established as the Prom but you certainly won’t need permits or take your turn in the lottery to explore its wonders. Various walks will take you to either Rocky Cape or to Anniversary Bay – a secluded beach that makes you feel you are at the end of the world. In fact if they were shooting another Pirates of the Caribbean it would be the perfect place for Johnny Depp and Co to find a hidden treasure.

There are indigenous caves that were used as shelters long ago, full of brackish water and the solitary echo of a people long gone. The various walks have a continous ascent before reaching spectacular views of the coast and fuana. Farmland also spreads out below but is only glimpsed every now and then. The place makes you feel like you’re a long way from anywhere when in fact it is only a 30 minute ride back to down. The magic of this national park is that it is unspoilt and that there are few people wandering its paths. Whilst it offers the same scenery and walks as the Promotory it is far more peaceful and feels so much more like unexplored terrain.

The past few Sundays I’ve gone walking for several hours through this National Park and found it peaceful, quiet and good exercise. It is like having Wilson’s Prom on my doorstep but without the three hour drive to get there.

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