Day 9 - Wreck Beach

Date: 18/12

Well they weren't kidding. The trail did get a lot more challenging today, and I did some damage to my Snickers supply at dinner.

As usual, my early start meant a lot of kangaroos:

Roos in the Mist

How many roos can you see?

At one point, I felt like I was back in Tennessee on the AT.

Déjà vu

The original roos.

Most of the walking was steep descents and then steep ascents. The rewards were non-stop though. Every point I climbed over offered stunning coastal views, and every descent yielded beautiful rainforest like growth and beaches.

Some of the wildlife was exciting, in the sense that I almost stepped on what appeared to be a mulga snake, which is odd because they aren't typical this far south. Just another Queenslander escaping the humidity for a holiday on the south coast I guess. Still, nothing gets your heart pumping faster than one of Australia's native people-killers rearing up into a strike position. I looked into its eyes and there was nothing but darkness there. I guess I backed off far enough to make it happy though, since it eventually just slithered its little soul-less self across the path and out of (my) harm's way.

"Please don't kill me please don't kill me please don't kill me"
(looking closer, I think it's an Eastern Brown)

There were also some more benign encounters.

The rest of the day was less eventful. I managed to hit Wreck Beach just after low tide which meant I could explore it a bit. The ruined anchors and machinery from destroyed ships are a nice reminder of why I don't fuck with the ocean. I made sure to get past any narrow bits long before the tides rolled in and made camp around 5pm.

Pretty sure this one didn't actually land like this.

I swear I'm not just downloading Google Images.

Devil's Kitchen Campground should be renamed Dunnyview, because the toilet block has an absolutely stunning view. If there had been a decent sunset, this is where I would have come to see it. Sadly the clouds ruined my sunset once again, but not before I snapped some beautiful shots of Wreck Beach in the golden light.

'Waiter, could you seat me near a window?"

"Will this do?"

Once again, looking away from the sunset paid off.

Final day tomorrow, which means both the 12 Apostles, and a meal that isn't made of wraps or ramen. To the finish!

Day 8 - Johanna Beach

Date: 17/12

As usual, I'd planned to get up for sunrise. Luckily (?) I woke to the sound of rain drops on the tarp over my tent, which told me there was no sunrise to see. Combined with a short hiking day, there was no reason to get up.

Even with a bit of a lie-in, I headed out around 8 under misty rains. This meant keeping the camera hidden for the most part which means I didn't get a lot of shots. It was a beautiful walking day nonetheless, and I still managed to take more than a few pictures. One of the advantages of leaving earlier than everyone else is that I usually get dibs on the wildlife along the track, like these dark black kangaroos I'd never seen before.

The early bird catches the roo. The early bird also gets to walk
into all of the spider webs that have been made across the track.

The highlight of the day, though, was 2 kms of beach walking to get to our campsite. Just as I finished the beach, the clouds were lifting and the rain stopped. The result has been a really nice afternoon at by far the most beautiful campground on the walk. Johanna campground overlooks Johanna beach and the Johanna River. The name isn't hard to remember.

Hard to beat this view for a campsite.

Not far from the campground is a hang gliding launch site and from there, more views of the coast but also views of the farmland that is on the other side of the dunes and ridges.

Farm valleys behind Johanna Campground

Not a bad way to end a relaxing day. This is definitely the campground of choice of you're planning to spend a few days on the walk. A bit of a hill to get between the beaches and the camping, but well worth the effort.

Tomorrow is my longest day of hiking: 27km to Devil's Kitchen. Everyone keeps warning me that this section is much more difficult than what I've done to date so I guess I'll be earning my Snickers tomorrow.

Day 7 - Cape Otway Lighthouse

Date: 16/12

Today was finally the warm, beautiful sunny day I'd been hoping for. After arriving at camp so early yesterday, I set out planning to take my time and maybe steal a hot lunch at the Cape Otway Lighthouse. On my way to the promised café I was treated to beautiful beaches, and tempted by the crystal clear flat waters of Crayfish Bay for a swim, but decided it was too early in the day yet.

You can see Cape Otway Lighthouse in the distance.

Crayfish Bay looks great for snorkelling

I also came across a tiger snake, one of Australia's more deadly critters. I snapped a few shots and then crept around it while trying to telepathically send the most unthreatening thoughts I could imagine.

"I'm just a friendly wind, breezing past you quietly and unthreateningly."

When I finally made it to the lighthouse, unbathed but also unbitten, it turned out the café was only accessible if you paid the $20 fee to see the lighthouse grounds. I know it's Australia's Most Significant Lighthouse (whatever that's supposed to mean*), but I wasn't paying for the privilege to pay for an overpriced coffee.

Instead I headed to the nearby campsite for a 20 minute nap. 90mins later, I woke up and continued my way to the next campsite. I opted for a somewhat longer route that would include Rainbow Beach, and even added the 2 extra kms of beach walking to get to rainbow falls. Not sure it was worth it, but it wasn't not worth it.

There are falls in there somewhere.

Camp was on the banks of the Aire River, a murky brown river teeming with bird life finding meals among the reeds and fish. I had a quick dip there to rinse the hiker off (really should have made the trek down to Crayfish Beach) and spent a delightful evening watching the birds.

There were also more koala about and while the sunset was marred by incoming rain clouds, there were some stunning landscapes to shoot. Sometimes the best sunset shots are behind you.

Aire River at sunset

Koala in golden light

Tomorrow is a short day to Johanna campground which is supposed to be stunning. We also have a 2km beach walk. Here's hoping for good weather.

*Apparently it was Australia's first lighthouse, and also was the first one European ships would see when coming around from the west.

Old Camera and Old Friends

This post is a bit delayed, since the trip took place shortly before I had to pack up my life and move it around the world again. Now that I'm settled in, I have a few minutes to recap it.

The trip

Some of you will recall that around a year ago I had some friends visit me on the AT and take me to NYC. Well those same friends are also fans of the camping life, so while I was in Canada for the summer we decided to squeeze a four day canoe trip on Lake Opeongo in Algonquin Park into our schedules. (My schedule was easily squeezed - the others have jobs.)

The plan was to canoe 10-12kms out to a campsite on an island, set up there, camp/paddle and eat for a few days before paddling back to the cars. A little like creating our own version of Upper Goose Pond in Massachusetts.

The best part was that only half of us were paddling to the campsite - the rest were taking an outfitter's ferry. Such luxuries meant that we could bring a lot more gear and food, and have a bit more of a glamping experience. Which we did. In spades.

Day 1 - Getting to camp

Maple paddles like a champ.

Maple was new to backcountry canoeing, so we headed off to learn a little about shoulder strength. It was a fun, challenging paddle, including a moment when we discovered that we'd set off without a map of the lake, so had to rely on my memory for navigation.

I'm not really great at navigation with a compass and a map in hand, let alone having both of those things only in my brain. Fortunately for us, my memory worked really well when assisted (read, supplanted) by the Google maps I'd downloaded to my phone, so we still found our way to the campsite. On the way we were harassed by a large group of seagulls who thought we were being a bit cheeky paddling so close to their chicks in the water. In our defense, we didn't even notice the chicks until we were practically on top of them. The seagulls did not seem particularly interested in our excuses.

We arrived just in time to make camp, and begin what ended up as an epic multi-course meal prepped by Mike and Nettie. There really are some times when glamping is the way to go.

Day 2 - Goodnight sweet prints.

Friday morning it was clear that the forecasted rains were not going to pass us by. Most of the crew decided this was a perfect excuse to do not much of anything at all except sit at camp, read, nap, and otherwise just be happy not to be at the office.

Yours truly is not that wise.

I decided I'd grab a canoe and go for a paddle. Bundled up in waterproof wear I headed off into the light mist on a serene lake to enjoy the quiet (not many make their way out in this weather), and generally just be glad to be on a lake again. I took a few shots, some of which even turned out reasonably nicely and was feeling pretty good about myself.

Then I happened on an island where the water was so calm and still that it made for a nearly perfect mirror so I decided to find a good spot to turn the canoe sideways and take a picture that in my head would end up something like this:

Just as I turned myself into position to take the shot, and without any warning, I found myself in the lake frantically trying to get back to the surface.  I'm still not sure exactly how it happened - I mean, in the image to the right, you can see how glassy and calm the water is. It's unlikely that a sudden swell pushed me over. 

As I floated at the surface trying to don my PFD, I thought I must have leaned out too far to take the picture. That made a lot of sense until I realised that my camera was still in my zipped pocket which meant I hadn't gotten anywhere near that point in the process. Fortunately it also meant that I hadn't dropped the camera to the bottom of the lake, so I might still salvage photos from the memory card - though the camera was clearly now an ex-camera.

I didn't have a lot of time to think about these things though, while floating alone in the middle of a large lake. My thoughts turned to getting back into the canoe somehow. It was a long two-person canoe, so self-rescuing was going to be a tall task. Instead of burning a lot of energy that way, I swam it to the shore of the island. There a couple of young guys camping took time out of updating their instagram accounts with photos of this idiot who'd tipped his canoe on the calmest day in history to help me right the canoe and set out again.

In the background of this shot of our accompanying pupper (taken by Chantelle), you can see me returning to our camp as a drowned rat.

Hershey looks at the camera, probably wondering why I'm so wet.

Day 3 - Short excursion

Day 3 was relatively uneventful. Maple and I took a canoe ride out a few kms to a trailhead, hiked in to find the small deer pond that definitely wasn't worth the mosquitoes, and then headed back for camp. The rest of the day was just chilling out at the campsite now that the rains had passed.

Day 4 - Hershey starts to make sense.

Immediately on Day 1, Colin and Chantelle's dog had developed a couple of peculiar behaviours at the campsite. The first was a desperate dislike of the area near the fire pit. Hershey hated this place so much that when playing fetch she would run across the tent-flies around the outside of it rather than through the wide open space. Even if we placed the ball in the area, and tried to entice her with food, she'd look at us like we must be insane to be standing in what was so clearly the world's most terrifying 3 m².

She would also get uncharacteristically upset if anyone left the campsite, particularly as it got darker. And particularly if that person was Maple, who happened to be the smallest of the party.

On Day 4, Mike figured out why. While using the thunder box early in the morning, he saw something like a large cat scurry up a tree. He didn't get enough of a look to identify it (lynx or bobcat?), but now we reckon that it had sprayed near the fire and that Hershey could hear it going about at night so knew that the forest held dangers of which we were unaware.

The lesson here is, when your accompanying dog tells you a place is unsafe, don't ignore the pupper.

Luckily for us, this was our departure day allowing us to escape without any more dangerous big cat encounters. Maple had decided that she was done with canoeing so Colin agreed to paddle back with me while Maple would ride with Dave and Rebecca as a third in their canoe.

Epilogue

If I summarize the trip for people, I say "we accidentally camped on a lynx's home turf, and I lost my camera in a near drowning incident. So it was a pretty awesome weekend."

And on the way home I had an email confirming that my Australian work visa had come through, so it was now official: Wallaby was going home.