As mentioned in my earlier post, here are the vital stats we recorded for Day 1 of the Wilson's Prom walk: Telegraph Saddle to Sealer's Cove -Start Noon arrived at campsite at 5pm (elapsed 5 hrs). According to the National Parks' website it is "Moderate, 3 hours, 10.2km. A steady climb to Windy Saddle and then downhill through a beautiful ferny glade and forest to a boardwalk over Sealers Swamp. Check tide times to avoid a deep water crossing of Sealers Creek at high tide. The camp is 50m on the south side of the creek.
We were all excited and nervous. We parked the car at the Telegraph saddle car park, locking everything away and noting that the car park was full. There must be a few people out on the walk. We asked some kindly people to take a photo of all four of us and then the single step of the journey was taken. Up the path we went. The first things to notice were the burnt out bush. We were later to find out it was the remnants of a control burn. The Prom has suffered many extensive and damaging bushfires over the years. This one was done to minimise the leaf litter. I don't want to get into whether this is or isn't a good strategy - though I do have my opinions. It is an important issue for those of us living in such a hot, dry, flammable country.
As we headed /slash/ trudged uphill there is lots of complaining. Everyone says the packs feel superheavy. We still have lots of adrenaline running through our bodies from the excitement, but as a coping mechanism I am turning off the part of my brain that is listening and feeling the complaining from the smallest member. What feels like only a short distance in, and we haven't even finished climbing yet, those in front decide to stop for a break and to have some scroggin. Regret and dread are probably too strong a set of words for what I feel at this point of the walk. No, dammit. That's exactly what I felt. I felt like I was looking down the barrell of four days of complaining and cajoling. Was I really capable of holding up the tail with the littlest one?
On a positive note, look at my new backpack in the photos below. Gorgeous. I haven't had a qood quality, top of the range backpack since I was in my 20s. I just hope the mega bucks was worth it. I hope this isn't the one and only time it gets taken out for a distance family bushwalk. Maybe we are doomed to car camp after all.
After the scroggin rest, we make it to Windy saddle, which lives up to its name. It is exposed and open but kind of soft and grassy. It feels like everyone around has exactly the same idea. Lie down, put your feet up, rest and eat something. So out comes our lunch meal break. Some people around us have even broken out trangias and heated up water for hot drinks. As we observe the crowd - there is probably 20 people lolling around in groups on the grass - we work out there are mostly groups of about 4-6, a few pairs, and one large school group of teenagers with 2 teachers. It seems as we watch people come and go that most are going the other way. It is a loop walk but as I remember it from my young adulthood it is best to go the way we are going. A group of school students take off. I want them ahead of us as I know that with the complainings we'll eventually slow to crawl and we'll just be passed anyway.We stand back and let them take off in front of us.They are cheerful and energetic and youthful and mocking each other. I remember those years.
Then begins the descent into Fangorn. As we make the immediate descent into the rainforest the mood changes. I mean, like, you litteraly step off the exposed grassy Windy saddle straight into the downward path and the deep, dark, dripping, cool rainforest. Happiness and pleasure descends and then magic happens for the rest of the bushwalk. I tell you, friends, it was chalk and cheese. Grumpy, sad, complaining, dawdling gnomes converted instanteously into magic, fairies, imagination, skipping, hopping and running. I now became the trudge at the back only because I was not able to keep up, not because I had someone I was dragging along. This, then, became the norm. The three would walk ahead of me, happy, skipping, talking and I would set a rhythm that suited me - I'm going with the slow and steady 'trum, trum' of the feet. Those three often worried about me but I was not worried. I was in the zone and I too was happy (if somewhat slower than them).
So here's the magic - Tree ferns, Gondwana, Fairy glades, the dripping green foliage, Fangorn, soft, and beautiful.
Way down along the path, before it flattens out there is a small signposted set of caves. Tim had remembered them from his past walks but as he loves a surprise he hadn't mentioned them to me in advance. I am not a cave person. Maybe I was when I was a hundred years younger, but I am not now. So, I feign indifference when we arrive at them. Instead I sit up on the path and wait for them. Tim gets out the headlamps, the kids strap them on, leave me with the packs and then enter a hole under some rocks. Why? What are they thinkign? It is airy up here. There are fairies. Remember?
The cave is sign posted and just before they took off I photographed my daughter, complete with dolphin tattoo on her cheek and I can't remember what the wrist bands and wrist tattoos were about. Some event before we left town, no doubt.
I'm happy to rest. A few people walk past and I nod at the cave sign by way of explanation for my many packs. When my intrepid cavers reappear they are excited but keen to press on. So down we go, continuing our descent to the boardwalk across the swamp. I remember from last time that when you get to the boardwalk you are nearly there. I am wrong. The boardwalk never ends. Tromp, tromp, tromp, uninteresting, uninteresting, heavy pack, tromp, sludge under the boardwalk, dark, never ending, tromp, tromp, heavy pack, was it this hard years ago? tromp, tromp, I think they've left me, nope they are tromping too. No one ever said anything about my complaining. So, I don't think I said any of this out loud.
Eventually you reach a sign that indicates something - a Beach - oh, excitement something has changed - it's not a groundhog day boardwalk over a sludgy swamp, there's actually a beach out there. So, like the great explorers who reached the Gulf of Carpentaria we made our way to the beach. But it is just for a look - then you walk back in and walk along the boardwalk some more. She seems happy, Nick and I look resolute. God knows where she walked.
OK he looks happy too. Maybe its just me. Anyway, the big rock in the distance at the end of the curve of the beach is our destination. Can you hear the drums, Fernando "tromp, tromp" on the boardwalk.
Eventually we get to Sealers Creek and do the words "Check tide times to avoid a deep water crossing of Sealers Creek at high tide" seem familiar? Still what could we do. It is what it is. Wet bums and all. I bet the black swans in the background have seen it all before. A few hours later we came back down to the creek and it was much lower. Then, in the morning, it was a trickle, easily jumped over. Anyway, where's the fun in that? So, it took us 5 hours to do a 3 hour bushwalk and we ended up smack bang in the middle of high tide. Who cares. We were here. We were alive. It was beautiful. We did it. No one did it for us. Tromp tromp yourself.
So. I'm in love. I'm in love. And more importantly they, my favourite people in the world, are in love with the same things I love. Campsite - we are there. 
Then in the next photo you'll see the view looking up from our tents towards the rest of the campsite. There are another 30 tents pitched in the Sealers Cove but we don't see a single one of them from where we are. The kids and Tim explore later on. I lie on my mat and look at the bush. As is the way with these things, dinner cooked in one pot and made out of dehydrated food tastes fantastic. And I sleep really well. Tim, not so well. Kids do fine. No complaints. In fact, it is now a complaining free 4 days.
