Bay of Fires RescueMED Retreat
Photo credits: Rescue Med & Wilkography
14 - 19 May, 2027
21 - 26 May, 2027
$5,850 per person. Single Supplement is an additional $500pp (maximum 4 available per departure).
Over five days in Launceston and on the remote Bay of Fires coast of Tasmania, broaden and refine your wilderness Rescue Medicine skills - a CPD course for medical practitioners, medical students & outdoor professionals in remote and austere settings.
RescueMED's ACEM, ACRRM, RACGP, RNZCGP & WMS accredited course “Wilderness Rescue Medicine” is specifically designed for medical professionals seeking to broaden their skill base and build confidence in providing cutting-edge medical care in wilderness, remote, rural and austere settings. This course has been developed right here in Australia for local conditions and has a particular emphasis on the medical presentations likely to be encountered in the Australasian environment.
Wilderness Rescue Medicine is approved for the following CPD points: ACRRM - 31.75; ACEM - 34.25 hours, RACGP - 31 hours, RNZCGP - 62 CPD Points.
RescueMED: Expert Training at the Edge of Medicine
RescueMED was born from a simple observation: the further you get from definitive care, the more important good decision-making becomes.
After more than two decades working in ground and air ambulance services across Australia and New Zealand, our founder, Kerryn Wratt, saw firsthand the unique challenges of providing medical care in remote, wilderness, and austere environments. While emergency medicine is well established in urban settings, delivering the same standard of care when you're hours - or even days - from help requires a different skill set, a different mindset, and specialised training.
Driven by a passion for wilderness medicine, education, and the outdoors, Kerryn founded RescueMED to bridge that gap. The vision was simple: provide practical, evidence-based education delivered by clinicians and rescue professionals with genuine operational experience-not just theoretical knowledge.
Today, RescueMED delivers internationally recognised courses such as Advanced Wilderness Life Support (AWLS), develops bespoke wilderness medicine programs for Australasia, and supports international organisations and government agencies operating in some of the world's most challenging environments.
We're proud to have grown into a community of experienced instructors, healthcare professionals, rescuers, and outdoor enthusiasts who all share one goal - to help people stay prepared, think clearly under pressure, and deliver the best possible care wherever the adventure, expedition, or mission takes them.
After all, wilderness medicine isn't just about treating patients - it's about adapting, overcoming, and being ready when the unexpected happens.
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Based in Queenstown, New Zealand, Kerryn Wratt is a Critical Care Flight Paramedic with Helicopters Otago and a Wilderness Paramedic with more than 25 years of experience delivering advanced prehospital and retrieval medicine across Australasia, Papua New Guinea, and the Pacific. His career has encompassed frontline ambulance operations, critical care retrieval, remote area medicine, clinical leadership, education, and expedition medicine.
Kerryn is the Founding President of the Australasian Wilderness & Expedition Medicine Society (AWEMS) and Managing Director of RescueMED, an organisation dedicated to the delivery of wilderness, rescue, remote, and austere medicine education. He has taught wilderness and remote medicine internationally and has extensive operational experience in alpine, marine, tropical, desert, expedition, and aeromedical environments.
His passion for wilderness medicine began while assisting in the management of an injured climber on New Zealand's Franz Josef Glacier.
That experience combined his lifelong love of the outdoors with his professional calling, shaping a career focused on bringing high-quality medical care to some of the world's most challenging environments.Kerryn holds fellowships with the Academy of Wilderness Medicine, the Australasian College of Paramedicine, the Academy of Extreme Environment Medicine, and the Faculty of Rural, Remote and Humanitarian Healthcare of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He remains actively involved in advancing wilderness, remote, expedition, and retrieval medicine through education, research, advocacy, and international collaboration.
Bay of Fires RescueMED Retreat (5-days)
This course will provide a contemporary overview of medical care in the wilderness, remote and rural environments and will be facilitated by internationally recognised experts in remote & wilderness medicine. We will introduce the essential components of medical care in these settings and develop individuals' skills, knowledge and medical confidence through group discussions, workshops and increasingly challenging scenario-based simulation. This will all be occurring in the tremendously beautiful and luxurious setting of the Bay of Fires Lodge.
This is a rare opportunity to bathe in the beauty of this remote coastal environment whilst pushing yourself to develop your clinical practice in a wilderness setting.
- Accreditation
Backed by top-tier accreditation and proudly endorsed by the Wilderness Medicine Society - FAWM accreditation, ACCRM, ACEM, RNZCGP & RACGP, our curriculum blends globally relevant skills with the unique demands of working where help is not just down the hall.
Your RescueMED Wilderness Rescue Medicine course certification lasts 2 years from the date of course completion; after that, refresh your skills and renew your knowledge and certification to keep practising with confidence in the wilderness.
Wilderness Rescue Medicine courses provide 31.75 ACRRM CPD hours, 34.25 ACEM CPD hours, 62 RNZCGP CPD Points and 31 RACGP CPD hours in 2026, for participants seeking to expand their expertise in remote, rural, austere and wilderness medical care.
Wilderness Rescue Medicine courses are eligible for ACRRM & RACGP Rural Procedural Grants Programmes.
- Testimonials
The hike, guides, and food were fantastic. The accommodation was spectacular. - Treena Q., (June 2023).
Highlights - location, swimming in the icy waves. great integration with the rescuemed course location, swimming in the icy waves. - Emma W., (June 2023).
Well organised with incredibly knowledgable, personable and hard-working guides. Fantastic accommodation and set up at the Bay of Fires. The team with RescueMED were also very knowledgeable and catered the course to the group - I would highly recommend them. Luke D., (June 2023).
Day One: Arrive at Red Feather Inn
Preparation evening.
Preparing for your walk and course activities is crucial; that's why we start our experience the night before at our walker base at the quaint Red Feather Inn.
Spend the afternoon exploring the grounds, taking in the historic sandstone architecture or simply relaxing in your room with a long bath. Later on, you will meet your guides and Kerryn as they take you through what to expect from the next few days and conduct a gear check. After our short briefing, the night of celebration begins - your Bay of Fires adventure is finally here! Get to know your fellow walkers over a dinner of local fare, cooked for you in-house, served in the formal dining room and paired with local wines.
Day Two: Workshop Day at Red Feather Inn
Day two is devoted to units that require the use of audiovisual aids and connection to the internet. Morning tea, lunch and dinner are included.
- Workshop elements
- 9:00 am - For those staying in Launceston CBD, we offer a complimentary shuttle service from Chalmers Church (5A Frederick St, Launceston)
- 9:45 am Meet at Red Feather Inn and store luggage.
- 10:00 am Introduction and Welcome to Course.
- 10:30 am Safety Considerations.
- 11:30 am DRSMARCH Overview.
- 12.30 pm Lunch.
- 1:30 pm Haemorrhage Control Workshop.
- 2:30 pm Airway Workshop.
- 3:00 pm Spinal Cord Protection.
- 3:30 pm Afternoon Tea.
- 4:00 pm Hypothermia.
- 5:00 pm Scenario 1 — Putting it all Together.
- 6:00 pm Dinner.
- 7.30 pm Review of the day and briefing for tomorrow.
Day Three: Launceston to the Bay of Fires Lodge
Approximately 4 hours of walking
After our morning journey from Launceston, we arrive at the Bay of Fires, to be greeted by the azure blue waters, white sandy beaches and iconic orange lichen-covered granite boulders.
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Our lunch spot today is nestled in the dunes near Eddystone Point Lighthouse. We’ll have time to explore the lighthouse and its long-standing story before it's time to get our walking boots sandy as we trek far-stretching beaches that lead to the celebrated Bay of Fires Lodge.
Afternoon tea will be waiting. Come evening, venture into the library or have your hosts deliver a cold drop while you dip toes into a foot spa on the back deck. Dinner is a Tasmanian long-table affair, featuring produce from the island matched with fine local beer and wine. - Workshop elements
- 9:15 am Depart Red Feather Inn
- 9:15 pm Arrive at Eddystone to commence walk
- 5:30 pm Arrive at the Bay of Fires Lodge (Scenario)
- 6:30 pm Dinner
- 7:30 pm Review and day briefing for tomorrow
Day Four: RescueMED Retreat
Following a relaxed breakfast, our workshop takes place in the stunning Bay of Fires Lodge with scenarios at nearby locations. Dinner is a Tasmanian long-table affair, featuring produce from the island matched with fine local beer and wine.
- Workshop elements
- 7:15 am Breakfast.
- 8:30 am Water purification (MC).
- 9:30 am Communications in the wilderness.
- 10:00 am Navigation in the wilderness
- 12:00 pm Lunch.
- 2:00 pm Skill Stations
- Advanced patient packaging for movement
- Shelter and survival
- Expedition Medical Kits
- 3.30 pm Scenario
- 6.30 pm Dinner.
- 7:30 pm Scenario
Day Five: RescueMED Retreat
Following a relaxed breakfast, a second workshop day unfolds at the stunning Bay of Fires Lodge with scenarios at nearby locations.
- Workshop elements
- 8:15-9:30 am Breakfast
- 9:30 am Debrief Night Scenario
- 10:30 am Toxicology in Australasia
- 11:30 am Wound management skill station
- 12:30 pm Lunch
- 2:00 pm Pain management
- 2:30 pm Heat Illness
- 3.00 pm Lightning
- 6:00 pm Dinner
- 7:30-9:30 pm Debrief/Feedback. Cover off specific questions or gaps
Day Six: Return to Launceston rejuvenated
Approximately one hour walking
Following a leisurely breakfast at the lodge, there’s time for independent exploration before we depart the lodge. Unlike our other walking, today we venture through eucalypt forests and coastal heathland. We’ll enjoy a forest lunch to the sound of native birds, including the endemic green rosella.
We travel on to Launceston where you have the option of leaving us from Red Feather Inn around 5:45 pm. We drop off at Launceston Airport at 6pm followed by Launceston CBD at 6:15 pm. If you are staying at Quamby Homestead we will organise a transfer for you.
Upon our return to Red Feather Inne there will be time to raise a glass to your acheivements.
The Bay of Fires Lodge
Set on a hilltop, 40 metres above the pounding of the sea and surrounded by National Park, the Bay of Fires Lodge is the only building on 20km of outstanding coastal wilderness.
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Enjoying views up and down the pristine white sandy beaches in an area of great significance to the Aboriginal community, a truly ecologically aware building has been gently let into the landscape. Two long timber and glass pavilions allow maximum connection to the landscape with minimum impact on the environment: all building materials - Tasmanian hardwood and plantation pine - were lifted in by helicopter or hand carried to the site.
The lodge is autonomous in providing and managing its existence. Here you will experience true communion with nature in an accommodation that combines simplicity of design with comfort and warmth. In the magnificent living area with its large timber deck and open fire, you'll enjoy delicious meals prepared with the freshest local produce, accompanied by fine Tasmanian wines. Solar power provides the lighting, while hot showers and comfortable hotel beds add a touch of luxury at the end of each day's activities.
There is a small library which is comfortable and cosy looking out over the ocean. This is a great place to sit back and relax or look through our selection of books and magazines.
Itinerary Details
Bay of Fires 'RescueMED' Retreat (6-days)
Price - $5,850 per person. Single Supplement is an additional $500pp (maximum 4 available per departure).
- Each trip requires a minimum of 8 guests (Single Share). The maximum is 9.
- Minimum numbers must be confirmed 4 months prior to departure.
Bookings
- Phone: (03) 6392 2211.
- Email: enquiries@taswalkingco.com.au
- or complete the below enquiry form.
- TWC Return Walker discounts do apply.
Special Interest Walks - Terms and Conditions
Our standard booking terms and conditions apply to all bookings. In addition:
- Cancellations
- more than 90 days from the scheduled departure date, a fee of $350 per person will be charged with the balance payment refunded;
- within 90 days of departure, no refund is available. Bookings are transferable.
- Minimum numbers are required four months before departure.
- This walk cannot be booked in conjunction with any other offers and discounts.
Inclusions
- Return transfers between Red Feather Inn and the walk.
- 2 x nights at Red Feather Inn and one workshop day
- Heritage or cottage room.
- Meeting space, tea, coffee, lunch, dinner and breakfast.
- 3 nights at Bay of Fires Lodge twin share.
- All meals and non-alcoholic beverages, plus a limited selection of Tasmanian wines.
- Use of a backpack and Gore-tex jacket for the duration of the walk.
- Two qualified guides for the duration of the walk.
- Two RescueMED instructors.
Need help deciding? Talk to an expert
We're here to help 9am – 5pm Monday to Saturday, otherwise, email us anytime and we'll be in touch.