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Green Thumb Sunday # 20 - Light to Light Walk - Introduction

We are back from the NSW South Coast Light to Light Walk, which we did over four days, three nights from October 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th. Then, to flesh out the school holidays we put our feet up at a local south coast oyster farm for a few days.

This bushwalk through Ben Boyd National Park is designed to be a point-to-point walk, where you walk from Boyd's tower to the Green Cape Lighthouse, a 30 kilometre trip. Here's a blurb from a website describing south coast walks .

LIGHT TO LIGHT (Ben Boyd National Park) 
30kms ONE WAY       Time: 2-4 DAYS Grade: MEDIUM

Boyd's Tower & Green Cape Lightstation off Edrom Road
A walk for the more adventurous, the Light to Light Walking Track runs from Boyd's Tower to Green Cape Lightstation passing through spectacular coastal scenery. It is dotted with vestiges of European efforts to tame this isolated coast and harvest the wild seas. The entire walk takes 3-4 days, or you may choose sections from numerous points along the way. Whales tend to come in close here to stop & feed their young while they gather energy before they do the dash south during their annual migration in spring and Green Cape is one of the best vantage points.
A park-use fee is applicable.

We had toyed with the idea of arranging someone to do a car shuffle with us but didn't manage to get that organised. So, instead we did a loop walk. We had intended to do a four night, five day walk and as part of that we wanted to make it to Bittangabee Bay on day 2. From there we would have a rest day and then walk to Green Cape and back to Bittangabee with just day packs. We didn't quite make that. Instead we cut a night and day's walking out. We experienced a fair bit of rain, the wind was reasonably chilly, we were cold overnight and we had a few insect skirmishes (ticks) so, given all that, we cut back on a day and instead had a walk very similar in length and achievement to last year's Wilson's Promontory 2010 walk.

Our overall impressions of the walk were very positive. It is quite a varied walk, with beaches, cliffs, rock platforms, lagoons, open heath, and tea tree, and meadows of wildflowers courtesy of a few wet seasons. We also sighted lots of whales, some kangaroos, wallabies, a sea eagle, a few black cockatoos, a nesting rufous flycatcher, a few lace monitors, an echicna, a bandicoot and a possum. As well as lots of bugs and ticks, which were painful and creepy. Ok that last bit wasn't positive at all. If you just discount that last little bit, I can say with conviction that we loved this walk and we would actually like to do it again to finish it off.

Here's the structure of the walk:

Day 1 : Boyd's tower to Saltwater Creek - Start 1:20pm arrived at campsite at 6:20pm (elapsed 5 hrs) - 13k

Day 2 : Saltwater Creek to Hegarty's Bay - start 10:50am arrived at campsite at 1:30pm (elapsed 2hrs 40mins) - 4k

Day 3 : Hegarty's Bay to Mowarry Point - start 11:50am arrived at campsite at 5:15pm (elapsed 5hrs 25mins) - 9.5k

Day 4 : Mowarry Point to Boyd's tower - start 11:10 am arrived at car at 2:45pm (elapsed 3hrs 35mins) - 6.5k

Green thumb Sunday #19 - Wilson's Prom bushwalk - Day 4

So we are on Day 4. We have had an introduction to the whole adventure, walked from Telegraph to Sealers, Sealers to Refuge, Refuge to Waterloo and now its Day 4: Little Waterloo to Telegraph Saddle - start 8:45am arrived at car at 1:15pm (elapsed 4hrs 30mins).Our instructions from the National Park are Day 4: Little Waterloo Bay to Telegraph Saddle. Easy to Moderate, 4 hours, 11.9km. From Little Waterloo Bay Camp, follow the shoreline and then over the sand dunes and swamps with boardwalks to Telegraph Track. From this junction you may choose to extend this hike along tracks to Telegraph Saddle carpark. We do choose. Others could walk down to the most southerly place on the mainland of Australia, or alternatively to walk to the West coast of the Prom and then on to Tidal River.

The loop will be closed. The day will end and we will be happy. But first, we have to wake up in the damp, drippy, forested glade where we had slept the night through rainy, rainy, rain. As the universe was smiling on us, the day dawned without any more rain and though many bits of equipment were wet, we were not. So we packed up, pulled down tents for the last time, congratulated each other on the wonderful adventure we'd had and while sad to be saying goodbye to our bit of paradise, away from phones and computers and responsibilities, we were also looking forwards towards completion and beds and showers. And food not cooked in one small trangia pot. The school children sharing our camping site were cheerful and moving at about the same pace as us. No one was in a screaming hurry to take off, but we were all eating, cleaning, packing, moving out.

After you walk out of the campsite you rise above the beach at Little Waterloo, walk through the bush, until you descend again for the last time onto a beach, probably Big Waterloo (without the big attached to its name). At the back of the beach the fresh water collects in a lagoon and we'll be walking in this direction but off on the left hand side. Sixteen years ago, when Tim and I walked the prom together, we stopped here and off in the scrub I found a bower bird nest, complete with a lovely collection of blue objects. No such luck this time around. But it is still beautiful.

There are a lot of dead T trees and we are about to walk back into burnt scrub. We had the scarred landscape at the beginning of the walk and then it was mercifully absent until now. We are also at the beginning of the exposed section of the walk. There is no bush to surround us as we walk across the sandy dunes which are covered in boardwalks for much of it.

After awhile the boardwalk gives way to a hard packed but still sandy track.

We enjoyed the rock formations and spent some time discussing if the face was put there on purpose - and if so, by whom.

We are walking through an exposed, wide valley, slightly to the left-hand side of the valley and raised up above the lowest level of the valley floor. We have lots of open views, grasses, coastal banksias, and burnt out landscapes. We will walk almost to the end of this valley and then take a 90 degree right hand turn and walk up to the top of the ridge - to Telegraph saddle. So our destination is roughly the top right-hand view of the photo above.

Once we make it down to the wide open fire trail that is to be our final track we meet a bunch of school teachers who explain that an entire year 9 group of children from a private school in Doncaster, Vic are walking around the prom - 250 school children and teachers. No wonder we saw so many of them on our walk.I am very impressed with the commitment teachers make to giving young people these extra-curricular experiences.

For the final stretch of the walk, I want timed rest stops to break up the walk because there are no landmarks, it is boring walking along a road with no trees, no views, and we are tired. A large part of the fire trail is flat, then gently sloping and then finally becomes quite a steep incline towards the top. Tim and Nick could just keep pressing on but they agree to the 45 on/15 off pattern that I want to establish as we trudge up the fire trail. Tessy thinks briefly of talking Tim into carrying her pack up the hill but we discuss the sense of achievement she'll feel if she makes it all the way to the end carrying her own pack! What a triumph for an 8 year old.

We stop twice on the way up on my timed schedule and then all of a sudden we are at the top, just short of the third rest break. High fives - pleasure, happiness, settled and proud that we did it. We all enjoyed ourselves, each other, the bush, the challenge. We were lucky with the weather and remained injury and accident free. We had packed well, missed nothing (except my camera's memory filled up too quickly - note to self - delete photos before you start a family adventure). Success.

We were dirty, sticky, tired and my muscles were a bit sore - and we were all hungry. We took the car down to Tidal River and talked all the way down the hill about what we would eat.

 

We had also decided we'd stay in a cabin if they had one and, if not, we were a bit sick of sleeping on the ground so we'd probably head off to a motel. As it was, we stayed in fantastic, modern, comfortable eco-tourist accommodation for two nights. If you ever want to see the Prom but don't want to walk and sleep on the ground - I highly recommend the cabins.We noticed wombats, possums and wallabies on the path to our cabin.

We were visited by Crimson Rosellas.

We hung around for a couple of days and explored Tidal River, played cricket, and visited the beaches, washed and cleaned our clothes, aired the tents and felt happy. We still had a puzzle that we wanted resolved. Tim went into the National Parks office and asked about the track - had it changed over the years? And apparantly yes. They didn't have a copy of the map from 16 years ago but they confirmed that the track had changed. When we got home I managed to find our old map and sure enough, the track did go up and over Kersops and into a steep descent straight down to the beach. I think the new track is much easier. And I was relieved to know my memory still worked, that I hadn't imagined the past, and that the unsettling feeling on day 3 was now explained.

As a final finish to our story, I didn't know the kids had taken this photo until I got home and downloaded into the computer. I had a bit of a laugh. Here's me doing my yoga out on the deck of the cabin. I had been very good and practiced every evening and every morning and it helped a lot to handle the soreness that comes from moving from suburbia to walking every day.

Green thumb Sunday #18 - Wilson's Prom bushwalk - Day 3

As mentioned in the introduction to this walk, Today is Day 3 : Refuge Cove to Little Waterloo Bay. According to the National Parks this day should be Moderate to Hard, 2.5 hours, 7km - according to us this day should be: start 9:40am arrived at campsite at 2:10pm (elapsed 4hrs 30mins).

In the morning, before we leave, we walked down onto the flat area where tidal river meets the beach to check on how the sandcastle from the previous day fared. Its fine.

As the tide has come in and then receded we notice some animal tracks and talk about who could have made these prints. You can see big feet and little feet - far apart, close together - wallaby probably.

After saying our goodbyes to this lovely place we head out of Refuge and as in the previous day it is a climb up from the campsite to a headland and then a stop to look at the views.

This is the Refuge Bay - protected from the rough storms of the East Coast of Australia. We had walked along this beach yesterday. At the back of the beach is a series of signs that boaties had put up. It looked like a tradition that had been going on for years and years - they were the names of the boaties' yachts. And it was nice to think of the steady stream of visitors enjoying this wonderful place, whether they've come in by foot like us, or by tour on a large motorised boat, or by yacht.

We all note that our packs are getting lighter each day as we eat the supplies. Nick and Tess are fantastic. Nick carries a steady load every day as we redistribute weight each day. Tessy has an inadequate pack and still manages well. We've been so impressed and pleased.

Everyone is walking well. Nick particularly is keen to start early and keep moving. Kersop's Peak is coming and, at the beginning of the walk, I was dreading this day, anticipating that it would be my hardest day. I remember it being a hard climb with lots of huffy puffy stops - and it was 16 years ago that Tim and I did the loop walk together.Given how hard I had found the previous day, I was mildly anxious about facing Kersop's Peak. As it turned out, by the time I finished the whole walk, and reflected on each of the days, Day 2 remained the hardest day for me.

We get to the top of the walk and Kersops is actually a signposted detour. It appears we aren't going up and over Kersops after all. So we drop bags at the signpost, then walk up. This isn't as I remember it and yet the track seems so solid, so meant to be. The view from the top down the coast to the lighthouse is wonderful - rain and grey clouds roll in but not too heavy. We've been so lucky on this trip.

The beach in the distance is Waterloo bay, Little Waterloo is to the right of it behind the headland. We pick up our packs, descend off the peak and back into the bush. Again, I remember the descent being sharp and hard. It isn't. We pass a school group who are going the opposite way and we hear them tell each other to stop complaining once they see our young ones carrying packs - our children are certainly the youngest on the trip - yet it isn't Victorian school holidays so we aren't probably really comparing properly. This is our third group of high school kids that we see on the walk. We saw one group at Windy saddle and let them go ahead of us. We then saw another group at Refuge who were walking around the loop walk in the opposite direction. Now this group.

The walk down off the peak is long, slow, gentle. We walk through tall forests, mushrooms everywhere in the forest litter, one wallaby sighted. We finally finish the descent and arrive at a beach for lunch and down packs, pull out mats to lie on, shoes off - kids play and explore. I rest. We spend maybe 40 minutes resting. Lunch supplies are beginning to run low and its just a few dry biscuits and some tuna. After the break, we walk along the beach and climb back up into the bush. We seem to be much higher above the coast than I remember - again, this part of the walk seems so different. It is stunning and beautiful, twists and turns, ups and downs.

As in previous days, Tessy keeps me company and is easy to walk with as she is happy to babble along in her steam of consciousness, requiring only minimal but encouraging contributions from me. Nick wants to have much more of a real give and take conversation, which I struggle with as so much of my concentration is about putting myself into the methodical walking zone where the exertion, the weight of the pack and the roughness of the track are all coped with but ignored. I want to concentrate on the rhythmic thud thud of my feet, of my heart, to also think about what should happen next in the novel that Nick has decided to write seems to require a whole new level of thought. He doesn't really like lapsing into silence or babble so he heads off to walk with Tim. Over the course of the walk we were happy to talk to Nick about his novel, the development of plots and characters. It is going to be a fantasy novel in the grand tradition of Tolkein and Garth Nix. We had all just finished reading Sabriel and Nick had long ago read the Hobbit. As we sat and looked out at views Nick would talk about what was happening in the Promelan wars - he developed types of people who lived in trees (Twelums), or on the ground in rocky areas.

We stop again on a rocky outcrop to watch birds head out to what looks like a school of fish way out to sea.

Little Waterloo Bay is the beach to the right.

Back on the track we are almost at Little Waterloo Bay and we pass another school group who at 2pm and walking in the opposite direction are a long way off a campsite. Refuge is about 4 hours back at our pace - granted our pace, so probably nothing to worry about for young teenagers. When we arrive at Little Waterloo campsite we note it is heavily treed and the blue sky seems absent as there is no view past the canopy of trees. Clouds are rolling in and we wonder how long the weather will hold off. Instead of resting, like we did at Refuge, we pitch tents and set up the campsite while the children play on the beach.

It is our last night - we have had a wonderful time, everyone has behaved well and no injuries have occurred. We have seen beautiful landscapes and gorgeous views of this wonderful part of the world. We finish pitching tents just before dark - then the rain starts. At first it is a light rain and we manage to cook and eat in the drizzle but eventually it begins to feel a bit determined so we pull everything into tents, under cover and leave the dirty dishes in the rain. After a game of cards, I go out into the rain to wash up and tidy away dinner. The school groups (another 2 or 3 arrived in the campsite after us) are all tucked up in their tents and it feels like we'll all be having early nights. We decide that given the children's tent is not particularly waterproof and that I'm the smallest adult, it makes sense for me to sleep in that tent - not touching the sides. Tim and the children are in the bigger tent. It rains through most of the night, on and off. We all hold up well and though my tent gets damp its not too bad and the others stay completely dry. The rain stops just before the dawn and so we can have breakfast and break up camp without getting wet. Too easy. The weather has been so very kind to us. Us fledgling adventurers. I am very aware of how fortunate we are to have strong children and good weather. Camping and walking, in the rain and the cold can be very miserable.

Green thumb Sunday #17 - Wilson's Prom bushwalk - Day 2

This was to be the shortest walking day of the trip, shortest in kilometres and in elapsed time. According to the National Park it is "Easy to Moderate, 2 hours, 6.4km. This section of track offers many great views. The campsite is on the southern end of Refuge cove." As noted in my opening post on this Wilson's Prom walk the vitals stats were: Day 2 : Sealer's Cove to Refuge Cove - start 9.45am arrived at campsite at 1:00pm (elapsed 3hrs 15mins). While it might have been the shortest day, for me I think it was the hardest. On day one you have so much excitement and adrenaline. The packs feel really heavy but your body isn't yet battered from walking. It takes a while to hit a rhythm and get used to the load but you aren't yet tired. On day 2, I was stiff and sore and a bit tired. Still, it was a lovely morning, soft and peaceful while Tim made breakfast for us all.

There is no particular rush to get out of the campsite so we took our time and wandered down to the beach and the children explored the local area. Then we packed up and did a little bit of redistribution of pack weight. Tim had packed each day's scroggin into individual bags and Tess was responsible for carrying the day's treats. Our scroggin on this trip was a bit too sweet for me. Usually its a mix of dried fruit, nuts and some chocolate bits (say chocolate covered nuts or chocolate covered raisins or just plain cadburys broken up into squares). This time around the children had coaxed Tim into putting lollies into it. I found it hard to just grab a handful and shove it in my mouth - I know - who would have thought? Instead I had to stop and pick out the lollies and pass them on to a young person.

The day's walk begins by heading uphill from the campsite up onto a ridge where you have views back towards Sealer's cove and back towards Telegraph saddle (where the walk had started). After climbing up the path to these views we stopped for a little while and took photographs.

This is the beach from the day before. The campsite is down at beach level and off to the left in this photo.

It is an overcast day and the clouds are hanging low on the hills. Yesterday's walk began up in those clouds up at Telegraph saddle. The first day was a short climb to Windy saddle and then it was all down hill. The second day is up and down all day. There aren't very many long stretches of flat walking and some of the tracks are up rocky paths and then down again. Got it. Up and down. Knees and thighs. Huffy puffy.

So what you see in the three photos is a panaroma of Sealer's cove. It is a wide, open bay with a long beach arcing around between the two headlands. Apparently it is named after the activity that used to take place here in its pre-National park history. There was a wharf built along the beach and boats would have moored in this bay to pick up the bodies of the seals from the Sealers and transport them to Sydney or Melbourne. When it became a National Park they decided to leave the historical remnants of previous colonial activity but big storms in the 1950s demolished the wharf and now there's no evidence of our past environmental actions.

It wasn't long before the overcast weather really rolled in and it became quite grey. This is further along on the walk and as was to be the pattern of the next two days, my husband and two children had surged ahead and reached this view point where they waited for me to catch up. While they waited they saw a pod of dolphins swimming out in the ocean near where the boat is in this photograph. The dolphins were long gone by the time I got there. We later met the people from the boat at our destination for the day - Refuge Cove. The boat was a tour that started outside the National Park and it spends the day travelling along the east coast of Wilson's Prom stopping at coves and refuges, looking out for dolphins and seals and birds. Sounds nice. When we can no longer lump packs along rocky up and down trails, we'll probably do things like that. Most of the people on the boat were in the generation that would be called "seniors".

A rocky track. I guess its probably some kind of volcanic rock, like granite. Its quite beautiful but you know, hard and rocky and you have to watch where you put your feet when you're lugging your house around on your back. A fall would be painful.

At various times in the walk, my husband would send one of the children back to walk with me. I think they took it in turns but actually the littlest one was the easier of the two to have with me. She asked nothing of me conversation-wise and was happy to just babble along with her thoughts. I really enjoyed listening to the flow of her ideas and imagination. And with her chatter, I could stay in my zone of tromp tromp and not need to speak. Whereas my son, who was anxious that I wasn't having any fun because I was so slow, would try and strike up a conversation that was much more give and take, question and answer and underneath it the need for reassurance that I was OK. I found that more demanding of my concentration and harder to just get into the zen of walk.

Here's the little one waiting for me at a bend in the track. There are still a few tree ferns in the gullys along this walk but it is not the deep, dark rainforest of the day before. Instead it moves from the rocky with grass trees into Eucalypts with the occasional understory of ferns.

As with the day before, just before you get to Refuge cove campsite you come down onto a beach. At this site you can actually walk along the beach as you approach the campsite. It is a lovely cove and is, as it sounds, a refuge against stormy weather on the East coast of Australia. We arrive at the campsite around lunch time and I am very grateful that we are doing the gentle version of this loop walk. Some people, in fact a lot of people, would actually press on to the next campsite. It is only lunchtime after all and a fit, strong person could easily make it to the Waterloo Bay campsite. Me on the other hand - nah. Its lying down on the camp mat and looking at the trees, birds, sky and listening to the sounds of the bush. The kids went off with Tim and explored the cove and the creek and the beach. They built sandcastles and talked to the people from the boat.

Later in the afternoon we pitched the tents and went through the evening routine of making dinner, washing up etc. Each night we slept in different arrangements. On the first night it was Tim and I in a tent and the kids in one tent. There were lots of disputes between these young people so we decided to do a child/parent arrangement. So at Refuge, I got to share a tent with Nick, and Tim shared with Tess. Nick had an interesting night and did a fair bit of talking in his sleep. I woke a number of times to calm him. Tim and Tess slept well that night though.

 

Green thumb Sunday #16 - Wilson's Prom bushwalk - Day 1

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.

 

Green thumb Sunday #15 - Wilson's Prom bushwalk - intro

Our intrepid family did the Wilson's Prom bush walk in 2010 during the April school holidays (April 19, 20, 21, 22 to be exact). Yes, a four day, three night bushwalk. We took a lot of photos and I wrote up notes, expecting to record it for posterity on my blog, but life happened and I'm only now filing it away in the electronic memory of the internet.

As a family, we have been slowly but surely working towards a goal of doing a long walk with our children. Eventually, we'd like to be able to do the Tasmanian overland walk or something of that order, maybe even bigger. But for now, we are just trying to extend them. In 2007, when they were 5 and 9, we did the Bingi Dreaming Track. In 2009, when they were 7 and 11, we walked the Namadji National Park . Then, in 2010, when they were 8 and 12, we did the loop walk at Wilson's Promentory in Victoria. I can't speak too highly about this walk. Really. It is nothing like the dry open sclerophyll  of much of the Australian bush. Nothing like the Namadji walk. It is stunning and beautiful, with diverse plant communities, diverse landscapes, lots of beaches and headlands and coastal vegetation. The beauty really helped.

For me, this walk was kind of 'make or break' for the family bushwalking dream. The Namadji walk had involved a lot of cajoling, a lot of talking up the benefits, a lot of resting along the way because spirits were low...that kind of thing. So, here we were taking on a whole order of magnitude bigger. We were a long way from home. It was the kind of walk where there would be a point of no return - once we were a fair way in it would be just as hard to turn back as to press on - that kind of thing. We needed to carry food for four days, two tents, bedding, clothing for warmth/wet/hot, first aid equipment, cameras, notebooks - the whole shebang.

Tim weighed everything and we had so much to take with us it wasn't really possible to shield the children too much. They needed to carry their proportional weight. Tim had done some research and worked out what is the comfortable weight to carry for distance bushwalking - at this stage I can't remember what it is - but let's say it's 15% of your body weight. Anyway, he spent many nights with backpacks and gear out on the lounge room floor packing and repacking so that everyone, even the littlest one was carrying their share.

We made it but more than that, we, all four of us, loved it and everyone left the adventure excited about what we would do next and feeling that 12 months was a long time to wait to do it all again.

Here's the structure of the walk.

Day 1 : Telegraph Saddle to Sealer's Cove -Start Noon arrived at campsite at 5pm (elapsed 5 hrs)

Day 2 : Sealer's Cove to Refuge Cove - start 9.45am arrived at campsite at 1:00pm (elapsed 3hrs 15mins)

Day 3 : Refuge Cove to Little Waterloo - start 9:40am arrived at campsite at 2:10pm (elapsed 4hrs 30mins)

Day 4 : Little Waterloo to Telegraph Saddle - start 8:45am arrived at car at 1:15pm (elapsed 4hrs 30mins)

Green thumb Sunday # 14 - Namadji National Park

While this story isn't about gardening and I'm probably not even on the Green thumb blogroll anymore due to my self-imposed exile from blogging, I do want to record our fantastic effort last week bushwalking in Namadji National Park. When we were planning this walk, I looked back at the record from our last family bushwalk, Bingi dreaming track walk 2007, and it helped get us all enthusiastic about this one. See there is a point to blogging.

We were hoping to do a 2 night walk this time. In fact, I had some grand plan of each year adding one extra night, so that by the time the littlest one is 10-11 years old we'll be trained up and ready to walk a week. Cradle Mountain in Tassie here we come.

So, here's adventure number two in the grand plan. If you check the dates you'll notice we missed a year. Somehow the bushwalk in 2008 didn't happen so, this year, in 2009 we need to do the two night and the three night bushwalk. But actually, I have a little secret - we still need to do the two night bushwalk, cause we mismanaged our planning on two fronts - we left too late (ie. Saturday instead of Friday) and second, we didn't take enough methylated spirits to cook on the second night. Lessons learnt.

  
We had a very similar start to last time. Early into the walk the children felt they had done their bit and were over the hard work and could we stop please and take photos of the ever present Kangaroos, and then do we really need to put those packs back on, and couldn't we really just get distracted climbing on rock forms and looking at things but no actual trudging along in the open valley.

I had to get all Sargeant Major-ish to get everyone back on the track. After about an hour's walk, we had settled into the rhythm and Nick and I discussed how, on the first day you start out all soft and flacid and have to toughen up - and well that's kind of hard - and then you hit a flow where you are tough but you haven't yet gotten tired - and that's the good part of the day - then sometime before you reach the campsite you start to tire and the whole thing gets hard again. This became a bit of a theme for the weekend, with the kids and I nominating where we were in the cycle. Tim didn't need to play this game. He rides to work 4 days a week. He probably didn't even know what we were rambling on about.

Well, sometime during the good bit, we needed to cross Middle creek. The walk we were doing doesn't have a trail or track. It is through open valleys. We were heading up to Rendezvous Creek to try and find the Aboriginal Rock Shelter to look at the Rock Paintings - some of which are thousands of years old, and some of which was done after European settlement because there are horses and people riding horses. Many, many years ago (14), in a life long long ago, Tim and I had done a three day walk from Nursery Swamp, to Rendezvous Creek and on to Yankee Hat. We had designed the walk around visiting each of the three Aboriginal Rock art sites. We had three friends with us and we camped the first night high up on Rendezvous creek, the second night we camped at a cattleman's hut, and on the third day we walked out to Yankee Hat. The night we spent at the cattleman's hut was Easter and in the morning coloured eggs were found under trees outside the hut. How did that bunny know we were there? It was a fantastic walk, with good friends, one of whom was 3 months pregnant - though we didn't know. I still remember one of her friends picking up her pack and saying "Is your husband carrying everything - this feels like a handbag". It's become one of those family expressions.

I found crossing Middle creek a bit of a stretch. Tim jumped our packs, and the littlest one, across the creek, one at a time. Then he demonstrated and Nick and I followed. I got him to recreate the run up for the camera and for posterity. Focus. No one got wet.

The swamp adjacent to the creek is quite wide at this point. And the grass is high. The kids are pretending to shoot us with objects found along the walk (animal bones - probably kangaroo, some rabbit). There are a lot of bleached bones & skulls lying about in the valley.

The walk out of the swamp was a bit long and slippery and a tad freaky for my taste. Animals have made some trails to and from the water, so we used one of these to work our way out. It involved walking on these bumps of grass, which are fairly small and slippery. The fall off one of these clumps isn't far, maybe to mid-calf on a short lady, but it had me nervous while I walked imagining sprained ankles, muddy wet feet and falling with a heavy pack. I didn't say anything at the time, but resolved to talk to Tim about finding a different way back.

At one of the many stops, we had a bit of a lesson in reading the map. I wasn't that interested, something I'd regret later when we had a lot of trouble reading the map to find the Aboriginal Rock Art Site. You see the National Parks' signage, and the viewing platform had all burnt down in the 2003 bushfires. In fact, so had the cattleman's hut. We knew all this before we headed out and I was glad I knew in advance.

Nonetheless, it was still sad to see the remains of the hut. Not sure if it is Rolly's hut or Rowley's hut or someone elses altogether. These huts were all through the high country - the Australian Alps, Namadji, probably bits of Victoria as well. Recent bushfires have destroyed many of these historic remnants of our pioneering history. I remember being thrilled all those years ago when we walked over the hill and saw that shabby wooden hut. We were tired on the second long day of walking and it meant not having to pitch the tent, and that night we slept on the wooden floor of the hut next to what I remembered as an enormous fire place. The weeds are very tall but you can just see the burnt out stumps that supported the floor and one burnt out log that would have supported the fireplace and roof. The European trees that were growing around the hut have pretty much been destroyed. Unlike the Eucalypts, they didn't regenerate after the fires. In the photo, you can see one has survived but the others (more off camera) are all dead.

This was pretty much our destination for the day. It was a little over 7 kilometres in from the car park and we were about 2 kilometres from the Rock art, according to our map. It was 4pm in the afternoon and it had taken us 4 hours to walk this far. Nick and Tim had set a good pace for most of the walk, with Tess and I bringing up the rear. On that first day, I did have to do lots of cajoling to keep the littlest one walking. Mostly cheerful but not always. We dropped our packs at this spot and while the boys scouted for water down at Rendezvous creek, Tess and I sat in the shade of a Banksia tree. Bees and ants were enjoying the nectar.

Tim and Nick found a spot on the other side of the creek that was more sheltered and prettier than camping out in the open valley next to the ruined hut. We donned our packs one more time and tramped down to the creek, jumped it at a very narrow spot, and pitched tents under the Black Sallees.
Notes from this website> Eucalyptus stellulata Sieber ex DC. (See 'Hardy Eucs' website) Tree to 15m high. Bark dark grey, grey-black or olive green in colour. Adult leaves elliptic to broadly lanceolate, 5 - 9cm long and 1.5 - 2.5cm wide. It occurs from near Wallangarra, New South Wales, through the Australian Capital Territory to near Melbourne, Victoria where it usually grows in open flat areas of the tablelands and mountains. Commonly known as Black Sallee.

This time around the kids pitched their own tent and we can use the experience towards their Guides and Scouts camping badges. So everyone was pleased!

It was Earth Hour on the Saturday night so we didn't use any of the torches we hadn't brought with us (more lessons learnt) and we all lay on the ground under the stars and did that amazing thing you always do when you get away from a cities' bright lights - wonder at the brightness and vastness of the starry sky. In the morning, we were on the cold and shady side of the valley. I sat outside the tent in my sleeping bag and shivered while we waited for the sun to creep down the valley and come up to our side.

Nick's toes were really cold so the boys eventually got up and walked up to the slowly moving shadow to warm up. Here they are returning to the camp site, warmer for their walking.

After breakfast we bumped into a troop of Duke of Edinburgh award kids, who were doing the walk we had done all those years ago, Nursery Swamp/Rendezvous/Yankee Hat. They had found the Nursery swamp art site but not the Rendezvous creek. And as it turned out, despite having a map, marked with the site from last time, we didn't find it either. We spent hours wandering up and down the valley looking for it, but the treeline had all changed because of the fires, perhaps the drought had dried up some of the marked creeks, there were no official markers, the kids got tired and bored with our failed attempts, I led us on a couple of wild goose chases (note to self - learn to read a map, note to husband - stop being so patient, I can't read a map). Sometime after lunch we gave up and began the tramp back to the car. We had worked out that without metho and given our very slow progress breaking up the tents, we couldn't possibly spend another night out and still get Tim to work on time on the Monday morning. Our plan had been to walk back to Yankee Hat, look at that rock art, pitch the tent close to the car and then early in the morning, break up camp, deliver Tim to work and the kids to school. Wasn't going to happen.With somewhat of an empty feeling on my part, we left without seeing any rock art. Maybe next time.

About half way back to the car, we stopped for lunch up on a high, rocky spot. We could see miles up both sides of the valley. Suddenly a pack of wild dogs broke from the tree line and started hunting the kangaroos. It was like watching a David Attenborough, except much more exciting and kind of scary. They hunted as a pack and although you understand the nature of these things, I was pleased when they didn't catch anything. We watched them for about half an hour, work their way up the valley, progressively spooking mobs and mobs of kangaroos. They were bright white dogs. Very surprising. We had heard the dogs howling in the very early hours of the morning. It sounded like a number of packs, howling back and forth to each other. They really shouldn't be there - feral pests that they are. Perhaps that explained so many of the bleached bones all through the valley.

On the way back across Middle Creek, I got my wish and we crossed at an easier part of the creek. It doesn't necessarily look easier as I'm standing forward of where we crossed. Trust me. It was a lot easier and there was no swamp. In the background is Yankee Hat. See the shape -a yankee hat. Flat at the top and sloping right and left.

Well just to finish off, we were all enormously proud of our efforts. Tim and I reconnected with a part of our life we  had left behind us on the journey to becoming parents. My son particularly earned his stripes on this trip. My daughter has a bit more seasoning to do, but even at her worst she was still fairly good company. Finally, this was my view for much of the walk. Two boys out in front, bringing up the rear with the princess, open views, a wide brown land, grassy plains and trees on the hills. I love it. Winter is coming now and we'll have to wait till Spring for the next trip - I think we'll need to have another crack at the two nighter.

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Green thumb Sunday # 13 - Saint Nick in the Manchurian Pear

This is the Manchurian Pear tree in our front driveway. My 10 year old son has climbed up to wait for his sister and surprise her on her return from her after school activity. He did  have the beard up and seemed taken aback when she called out "What are you doing in the tree Nick?" We did have a laugh though.

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Green thumb Sunday #12 - little girl flowers

Over the past year, I've started a little family practice of us all writing down our goals for the school term. My husband, son and I have all had fitness related goals this last term of 2007. My 5 year old daughter has 3 goals. One is to do well in the ice cream, Paddle Pop "Lick a Prize" competition. One is to eat more "strong food", particularly foods that are green and are grown in mum's garden, and the final one is to "pick flowers for mummy". So, this week I'll share with you a photo I took as I was settling down for bed and turning off any stray lights that were still on in the house.

This is my daughter's bedside table; four lamps and a vase of flowers. She hates falling asleep in the dark - obviously! And she's picking so many flowers at the moment there are vases on my bedside table, hers, the kitchen table and the lounge room table. Some of the flowers in this picture come from our garden, particularly the rose petals in the vase. The rest come from the neighbour's front garden. The neighbours have a 4 year old girl who also loves to pick flowers and they were in cahoots when they picked this bunch.

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Green thumb Sunday #11 - Rambling rose

This pink climbing rose is growing along our pool fence. Our backyard is higher at the back than the front and I've taken this photo from our outdoor seating area. In front of the rose is the most amazing collection of rosemary plants. I'm not sure how many are planted there - whether it is one or many - but it certainly loves that spot and we've never had to water it, even through the long, hard drought. It is fabulous when it comes out in tiny purple flowers and wonderful in lamb roasts and with potatoes and pumpkin.

I love the colours of this rose. So many shades of pink. As with all roses in Canberra this year, it has bloomed magnificiently. I have a theory that all the roses in Canberra thought they were going to die last year and so this spring, despite only fairly minimal rain up until now, they have gone overboard in flowering.

Here is a side view of the rose. And another one.

I have no idea what this rose is named. It was already in existence when we bought the house. I also have to admit, I've never pruned, watered or fertilised it in the the 5 years we have been here. I've looked at it a few times and thought, I must give you some attention. I have some vague understanding that climbing roses are different in their flowering habit than hybrid Tea roses. I also inherited roses in the garden of my old house but they were the standard hybrid Tea rose and I spent some time learning how to care for them: treating the black spot, pruning, water, organic fertilisers - that kind of thing. But this rambling rose gets nothing from me. Very kind of her to put on such a fabulous show!

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