Week 8- Wilson's Promentory

This weekend I went backpacking (or bushwalking as they call it here) in Wilson’s Promontory. It’s about three hours South East of Melbourne and is a large nature reserve on a peninsula. We left from the trail head Telegraph Hill at about 11 am on Saturday morning. We climbed up large hills, through forrest and tropical forrest, marshes and fields. Wombats are probably the cutest creature ever. We arrived at the first beach, Sealers Cove (pictured above), around 1 pm. Unfortunately we had to get across a “creek” which was at high tide. It was up to our chest and freezing cold so we decided to wait around until it was a little lower. We ate lunch with a few other groups who were also waiting for the tide to go down. Around 4 pm it was decided that the water was “lower” although no one knew exactly how much lower. Everyone took off their pants and shoes and waded through the creek (which by the way was red from being stained with tea tree oil) which at this point was mid thigh level. We all went on our merry ways to several different camp sites. Two hours later I arrived at Refuge Cove. The most spectacular part of this cove was that there was a whale in it. At first sight it looked like an underwater rock that occasionally peaked out but then a fin came out. The whale started flapping its tail and put on quite a show. It was incredible. I’ve never seen a wild whale before! It was getting dark so we eventually had to stop paying attention to the show and set up camp. This was a 16.6 kilometer hike (equivalent to 10.3 miles). 

The next day we hiked to the next cove over (7 km), Waterloo Cove, where we ran into two more whales which graced us with a show. The beach had bright white sand and the water was so blue and clear it looked photoshopped; I could have been in the Caribbean. The birds at this beach can open backpacks. They managed to undo a zipper, spread the contents of the pocket around the site, and sampled various objects including a deck of cards and a cliff bar (which they stole). That night it rained ridiculously hard and our packs got completely soaked.  

The next morning we ate breakfast and broke camp in the rain but almost as soon as we started walking it stopped raining and cleared up. It was gorgeous. We crossed overland to Oberon Bay where we encountered high winds and the strangest wave formations I’ve seen. At a single time there were 7-12 sets of waves crashing. There was never a lull in the water. It would have been impossible to get out into the water because you would expend so much energy recovering from getting knocked down. It was very picturesque. We were crossing on the beach and the tide was rising. I was too lazy to take off my shoes so I had to avoid the water. At one point in time I had to scramble up an embankment, face plant into it, and raise my feet as high as i possibly could. I missed the water by about two inches. At this point we sped up to avoid any other similar instances. We walked across Norman Bay Beach which was similarly picturesque. Eventually we got back to the base camp, Tidal River. The total days trip was 16.8 km. It was an amazing trip.