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ranges have left it among Australia's most pristine wildernesses. The park con- tains a dazzling array of wildlife, including echidna, wallaby, quoll, pademelon, platypus and Tasmanian devil, whom I've already met. Mountains and highlands stretch to the horizon in every direction. Except for the dirt road leading to the trailhead several miles back, there is no vis- ible mark of humankind. This was a land crossed for millennia by the Aborigines, and the fact that so little is known about their language and culture makes it all the more haunting: all that remains are the notes taken down by early explorers, a few anthropological descriptions, the throwaway tools the Aborigines left scat- tered across the island as they traveled from food source to food source, a few petroglyphs in ocher here and a single handprint on the wall of a cave ·there. With miles to go and the sun dropping, I make my way off Cradle Mountain, bouldering down to pick up my pack and head to the hut for the first night's sleep. I fall into a rhythm, my body on autopilot, only vaguely aware of being tired or hungry. My eyes and thoughts drift over the landscape that unfolds before me. The sun is shimmering against the monolith of Barn Bluff, a dead ringer for Devil's Tower, as I come through a scented forest of gums to Waterfall Valley. There are about a dozen others camping at the well-equipped hut, which has a gas heater and wooden bunks. Some stay outside in tents, but I've set out on this trek with only a bivy sack and take shelter where I can . After a meal of avocado, tahini and honey on Vitawheats, I go outside and walk around in the darkness, camera in hand, hoping to spot a thylacine - or at least sense one lurking in the heavy darkness. I've been captivated by the idea of the thylacine ever since I first read about the animal years before: a meter-long marsupial with a rear-facing pouch, tiger stripes and a set of jaws that open wider than those of any other mammal (although experts believe that widely reported claims of a 12o-degree gape are exaggerated). The thylacine was demonized by early settlers as a sheep killer (which scientists now agree it likely wasn't), and government boun- ties drove it to the brink of extinction by the early twentieth century. Around 1910, the number of bounties paid out by the regional government dropped sharply, and people began to realize that the thy- lacine, now exceedingly rare, was less valuable dead than alive. Every zoo in the world wanted one, but the popula- tion had fallen below a sustainable level. The thylacine was sad and restless in cages, and all captive-breeding attempts met with failure. The last known thy- lacine, named Ben, died in 1936 in the Hobart Zoo. The next year the govern- ment declared them a protected species, even though in all likelihood, they were already extinct. Now, an Australian scientist wants to clone the thylacine from tiss.ue samples from an 1866 fetus found in a museum's archives. Still, for the last 65 years, purported encounters have been common, with hundreds of thylacine sightings claimed and more than a few from credi- ble sources. Even today, the faithful insist that the thylacine is out there, per· haps hidden away in the vast southwestern wilderness area that is transected by the Overland. Discovering one now, in the 21st century would be like find - ing a new planet. Under the brilliant southern stars and the scent of eucalyptus, the inescapable logic of extinction creeps into my mind, and I think of the thou- sands who have walked this track, and the total lack of hard scientific evidence of thylacine's existence since 1936. It makes the night sounds seem lonely, with the thylacine's cry (described as a deep throaty bark not unlike a heavy cough) now only an echo in the memory of the few people still living who saw one in the Hobart Zoo. I stand out in the darkness for a long, long time. Inside the hut I sleep like a brick. The bleary-eyed few who sleep outside in tents will later relate the horrors of nocturnal marauders: a horde of devils tearing through the walls of their tent for food. The next day is even longer than the one before, 17 miles and eight hours over the vast moorlands of the park's central plateau, through patches of gum forests and button grass, a decidedly Dr Seuss-like plant that covers the flats like tufts of strawberry-blonde hair. Mount Ossa and the Pelions stand out on the far horizon. Walking alone, I imagine myself part of that lost tribe of Tasmanians, moving with wooden spear in hand across the landscape that they once crossed on foot, constructing temporary shelters from bark and telling sto- ries around the fire about Noiheener, the benevolent god of the day, and Wrageowrapper, the malicious spirit that ruled the night. And so I continue on, days of walking through a miraculous land- scape, my pack getting lighter as food is turned to muscle. The weather is unseasonably good except for a day of cold rain on the exposed moors that left

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