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.

Day 6 - Great Ocean Walk

Date: 15/12

Melbourne was a bit of a break from the countryside, involving a lot of eating and drinking and trying not to get washed away in the rains. Yesterday I made my way to Apollo Bay and organized myself for the walk. All of that is to say that you didn't miss much.

This morning I finally set out on the Great Ocean Walk. The forecast was for a lot of rainy weather, clearing a bit in the afternoon.

Rain meant I didn't want to take my camera out so it was a (largely) camera free day, which is too bad since the first few kms produced a seal on the beaches around Marengo. I've seen seals before, but I've never been 20m from one just lounging on a rock. After that the walk entered the forests, which were pretty, but in the unphotogenic way that characterizes grey wet days in the forest. I met a few hikers, including a large, supported tour group that is camping with me for the first three nights.

This guy hung out eating in the trees on our campground.

But the highlight of the day, no doubt, was seeing my very first, second, third, fourth, and fifth koalas in the wild! This included one misty silhouette of a koala high in the trees grunting at the other koalas around, and one mother with her joey on her back.

I can finally check koala off the list of Australian wildlife to see.

I had to do 22km today, and wasn't sure how long that would take. Between that and the rains, it was a pretty business-like day of hiking and I found myself at camp around 1pm. This was way too much time to spend at camp, so from now on I'll be taking it much easier. Fortunately there were a number of koala around to stare at for ridiculous amounts of time, much to the amusement of the Aussies who are used to them.

Anyone know what this is? Angler fish? Puffer fish?

Camp was nice and near a beach (which produced this puffer? angler? fish), but pretty foggy. An earlier campsite had not had any suitable trees for hanging a hammock, so I was a bit worried that I had set myself up for a very uncomfortable few nights. Fortunately, this campground had lots of spots for hammocks and so it was all good.

Since I'd decided to carry my heavier camera gear, I had also decided not to bring a stove or pots in order to save space and weight. This means that all of my dinners will consist of wraps with cheese and sausage*, or peanut butter and granola. Under normal circumstances, this would be fine, but tonight it seemed a bit underwhelming next to the tour group's catered dinner of sausage curry stew.

But even a boring meal can't ruin the feeling of sitting on a beach watching the surf come in while I write this.

* I would really have preferred tuna, but it's hard to find the soft foil packets of tuna in Australia. This also means I won't be revisiting Blueberry Crisp's preferred meal of a tuna and peanut butter wrap. Stop making that face. It's much tastier than you think.

Day 2 - Sapphire Coast and Victoria

Grabbed breakfast in Batemans Bay and settled on getting to Binn Beach campground in the northern part of the Victoria coast. Was just about to leave when I noticed that there might be some good shots of the bridge available so off I went to the foreshore. Before turning my eye to the bridge though, I saw a bunch of pelicans and below them in the water, stingrays!! Huge stingrays, and these are the first I've seen in the wild. Took piles of photos, and then headed out.

Did not take pictures of the bridge.

Wild stingray!

Most of the rest of the day was just driving, but I did pop into a nostalgic favourite, Eden. I rang in New Year's 2014 with friends in this little town, and it's still one of my best memories of my time in Sydney.

Farmland

On the way to Victoria I jetted out to Green Cape to see the lighthouse. Lighthouses always make me think of the aunt who once hosted me and 7 of my friends on our way into and out of a canoe trip in Northern Ontario. My friends still talk about the full turkey dinner we arrived to after a long week of canoeing.

Green Cape Lighthouse

My campsite tonight is much more what I had in mind. It's a little spot near the ocean, and I can hear the surf battering the beach across the dunes. I spent a few minutes on the beach near sunset, but the wind has the sand whipping around a little too much for my liking. Still, it'll be nice to have a quiet night lulled to sleep by ocean sounds.

I guess this is why they make those machines.

Sunset/Moonrise at Binn Beach

Keeping Calm and Carrying On

The first sign that you're starting to panic is you hear yourself say:
"OK, man, don't panic." 

One of my favourite things to do in the woods is to visit places no one else does. Places where there are no mapped tracks, and where most people don't even consider going.

But sometimes things don't go to plan.

The Hike (Planned)

The Megalong Valley is a gorgeous area of the Blue Mountains near Sydney that has the shallow meandering Coxs River flowing through it, lots of grazing farms, and hills and mountains on all sides. It's very peaceful, and teeming with interesting wildlife - lyrebirds and goannas in particular.

Years ago, I'd done a short hike in part of it with the Sydney Bushwalkers Club, which involved some off-track walking and some stunning views. We also passed through part of the valley while doing the Six Foot Track last year.

This weekend I thought I'd go back again and look at a different section - the plan was to follow a track part way up to Ironpot Mountain, then pick my way down a spur into a little-known track along a waterway called Breakfast Creek. Follow that to Coxs River for lunch, wander the river a bit, then climb back up over Goolara Peak to Tinpot Mountain and take the ridges back to my car (Clockwise around the blue track, roughly).

The planned track (in blue), and the actual track detours (in red)

The Hike (Reality)

Everything went smoothly until lunch. The descent was steep but largely manageable. Breakfast Creek was mostly dry but a nice place to walk and seems to be where all the lyrebirds go. I think I counted eight, which is seven more than I had seen in my entire life to that point (no photos - the little buggers are very shy). Shortly after lunch I startled a good size Lace Monitor up a tree, and got a nice pic of it camouflaged while it hissed and growled at me in irritation.

This creature was very hissy about me
mucking about with my camera

Danger, Will Robinson

Then came time to go back off-track and explore Goolara Peak and the saddle to Tinpot. After doing the very hard climb from Coxs River, I discovered that Goolara Peak is not so much a mountain as it is a pile of extremely large rocks on top of a hill surrounded on all sides by cliff face. From where I was sitting, I couldn't see a way up or around without some very risky exposure. Worse, I had no idea what the peak looked like on the other side. Even if I could pick my way up to the top, I might not be able to get down.

The alternative wasn't much better. It's always less scary to go up than down, and as I looked back over my route I did not relish climbing back down this incredibly steep hill full of loose dirt and rock. On the other hand, I at least knew that there was an alternate route back to my car that was passable since it was the one we'd used in 2014 (Red track in the image).

Besides the difficult descent, also arguing against that option was that the day was getting on and sunset was coming. Since I would be well off-track for my backup option, this could mean that I would be navigating by map and compass.

Alone.
After dark.

Navigating by map and compass during the day takes a fair amount of brain power, but at least you can see the ground while you walk and make out features of the terrain around you. Doing it in darkness, while exhausted and alone is a bad mix.

In the best case scenario, the wrong decision could lead to a helicopter ride from search and rescue. The worst case scenario is disappearing in the Blue Mountains, never to be seen or heard from again.

So my choices were a) try and climb the rocks and hope there was a way down the other side, or b) race the sun and hope not to get lost in the forest at night.

"OK, man. Don't panic."

My main goal was not to end up like this ex-cow
from the walk several years ago.

Racing the Sun

I figured I'd rather chance a night in the forest than find myself falling off a rock and ending up in a truly bad place. There was still some daylight, so I had a good chance of getting close to the car. I had some extra clothes and food. The river could give me water. It wouldn't be pleasant, but I could get through the night if it came to that. So I started the climb downhill. Or the slide down the hill. It was just as hard as I expected it would be. For the last few hundred metres I was clinging to trees to lower myself without tumbling.

When I finally hit the river, my adrenaline was pumping and I race-hiked to the entry point for my alternate climb to Tinpot Mountain. Before setting out on the climb, I filtered a litre of water into my Camelbak and packed out another 3/4L of dirty water in case I needed it later. At this point, between the mental stress and the massive amount of off-track climbing and descending I'd already done, my body was exhausted.

Every moment of the climb to Tinpot was accompanied by an inner monologue of "Just get to the top of the mountain before sunset, so that we're only navigating ridges." The reply from my body with every step: "You will pay for this."  The bribe came next: "We'll eat the leftover tomato from lunch when we get to the top. I promise."

I made the mountain top with daylight to spare. This was when my brain reneged on the deal.

Brain: "I know I said we'd rest now, but we can't waste daylight. Keep walking until dark, then we'll eat and rest."
Body: "I hate you. So much."
Brain: "I hear you, and I acknowledge your feelings. Shut up and walk."

Each hill was excruciating, and I would decide I had to rest at the top. Then the terrain would ease up and I'd check my bearing for the next saddle and walk on until I hit the next climb. It would be excruciating. It felt like I repeated this a thousand times, but my map tells me it couldn't have been more than two or three.

Then I couldn't anymore. I just couldn't.

The Mind Body Dichotomy

I don't think there was a single one of the 140 days of hiking the AT where I was this tired. As I was climbing the peak to Ironpot Mountain I hit a small track. A small track that was contouring around the peak instead of climbing up to it. My legs stayed on the track. No matter what my brain said, I could not get my body to do what was clearly the smarter choice.

Brain: "We need to climb. This track may not be going to the right place."
Body: "This is flat. It may be going to the right place."
Brain: "It's getting dark, we don't have a choice, we have to climb and be sure."
Body: "If you make me climb now, I am going to kill you."
Brain: "I hear you, and I acknow..."
Body: "#!?$@ you."

We - my brain and body are separate entities now - contoured until we hit what looked like it might be a saddle! Or a spur. But maybe a saddle?

Brain: "I think that's a spur. Turn back and climb to the peak."
Body: "It might be the saddle!"
Brain: "I really think that's a spur. Stop so we don't go too far!"
Body: "Did you say Stop?!?! Done."

A quick check of the GPS coordinates confirmed that Brain was right. It was a spur. I was moments from darkness and instead of heading to the car I had circled around to a track that was heading downhill back to the valley. I'd gone out of my way at a bad time, but there was a silver lining: I was done with map and compass! In the uphill direction, this track is easily followed back over Ironpot mountain and leads directly to my car where a large bottle of sparkling water and two apples were sitting in a cooler. I was still going to be hiking out by headlamp in darkness, but at least I wouldn't need to navigate while I did it.

Other than startling a few kangaroos with my headlamp, I finished my hike with no other excitement.  I gleefully dumped the extra dirty water I'd packed out and drank a litre of cold sparkling mineral water. My plan for around 18-20km in a relatively leisurely 6-8hours, ended up as 29km in a much less relaxed 9.5 hrs.

Some things I learned.

1. Don't panic, even if you're panicking.
2. Exhaustion really does lead to bad decision-making.
3. Even when your brain is making good decisions, you need your body on the same team.
4. Always pack a jumper and rain jacket for warmth. No matter how nice the day is. Just in case.
5. A compass that allows you to fix the correction for declination and saves you having to do arithmetic is worth every extra penny.

In the end, I didn't need search and rescue (or worse). One day I'll head to Goolara Peak from the Tinpot Mountain side, and see what it looks like just for fun. Also I'm really happy to finally get a good shot of a goanna, so it was worth it.

And I discovered a neat "Make Your Own Gear" trick:

I made a tripod out of my
(adapted) poles and a stick

New Camera and New Friends

The new DSLR makes selfies harder.

After the sad death of my camera on my last outdoors adventure, I went out and bought myself my very first real exchangeable lens DSLR (Canon EOS Rebel T6i/750D for camera gearheads).

Last weekend, the camera made its first trip into the bush as I hiked the 45km long Six Foot Track over a couple of days with a group of new friends.

The Cast

I was invited along by Anna, a good friend who is also an outdoor adventurer. She had a trip planned with two Brits and a couple of New Zealanders - making us a pretty eclectic mix of ex-pats. Most of the group were new to trail names, but the girls all found themselves with one by the end.  You can see from this group photo that I'm still getting used to the camera.

Anna (Gollum), Nigel, Krissy (Necky), Kirsten (Gnomey), and Mack

The Hike

For those not into the local bushwalking scene, the Six Foot Track is a 45 km "trail" that is probably most famous for the annual Six Foot Track Marathon race. It's one of those trails that everyone does at some point, and so this was our turn. As it turns out, the Six Foot Track really ought to be called the Never Ending Dirt Road. It felt like we spent half a day hiking in the woods, and a day and a half walking along a dirt fire trail - shared with trucks, cars, and dirt bikes. I wouldn't rate it highly for the walking.

On the plus side we did end up with some good wildlife. In addition to the usual array of kangaroos, wallabies, and lorikeets, we saw two echidna, a wombat, a lyrebird, and a large goanna. Sadly, I have still not ticked koala off of my list of Australian fauna seen in the wild. Next time, I guess.

Goanna gettin' hisself some eggs

Kangaroo. Tree. Harmony.

There is also a long suspension bridge at around the midway point which made for a bit of fun.

Necky did not hate the suspension bridge.

Trail Philosophy

Every hiker has their own approach to being on trail. After doing the AT, my style now leans heavily towards "minimalist self-deprivation." I also lean towards "camp is the place you stay while you wait to walk again." This is not a common hiking philosophy. The 6' Track crew was keen to get to camp early to have lots of time there. They also had a very different meal philosophy - where I happily dine on a diet of cliff bars and peanut butter wraps for a few days, our meal plan for this weekend included:

• fresh wraps with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, avocado, cheese, and deli meats for lunches; 
• mushroom risotto, banana custard, and a bit of port for dinner; 
• and coffee, tea, eggs, bacon, and toast for breakfast.

All of that was made with fresh ingredients, from scratch. Mack is a killer trail cook. Mack also made me carry a lot of food. I have mixed feelings about Mack. (But then, I've made a conscious decision to carry rocks for nothing in the past, so I suppose I won't hold this grudge.)

Trail cook extraordinaire.
Also an all around delightful guy.

Besides the gourmet food, it was rather nice to have some real time hanging out at camp. I even managed to redeem myself as a fire builder after the fiasco of my last attempt in Australia. I didn't even have to resort to accelerants.

Nigel takes a moment out from wombat spotting
to look very British on some logs.

Most of the highlights of the trip involved a lot of conversation, laughter and inside jokes. Unfortunately, those are difficult to convey here. Here's a picture of Necky trying to explain to Gollum what a meerkat is, for a flavour of the sort of thing:

If only the Italian word for meerkat was "meerkat",
this would have been much easier.

All in all, the hike was a great time. The trail itself was forgettable, but as is often the case in these things, the people made all the difference. I guess that's a good general life lesson: visit beautiful places, but most importantly, bring beautiful people.

Gnomey proves that even walking on a dirt road
can be fun with the right companions

Happy Trails!

(More photos taken with my shiny new toy here)