Wilsons Promontory Trip November 2007

On the past weekend Alana and I set out on an expedition into the Australian wilderness. We traveled down on the southern coast of Victoria for about three hours to Wilsons Prom national park on Friday. Our spirits were high from the prospect of being outside 'civilization' for several days. Once we reached the park itself the drive up to Telegraph saddle carpark took another twenty or so minutes. We then put on our shoes and donned our packs and began the hike towards Sealer's Cove - our first campsite.

The trees still bore a reminder of the bushfires that had passed through the prom and were black from being burnt. Below the blackened trunks was a verdant bed of green spring shoots. The scenery must be quite different at the moment to what it was before the bushfires.

We then slowly descended from the elevated carpark down towards the coast into dense lush subtropical rainforest. Many trees are covered in moss and there are amazing ferns. One thing that perhaps makes The Prom so special is the difference in the types of ecosystems and the variation of flora (and as we were to discover fauna!).

As we walked we came across a beautiful fresh running stream with clear cool water. As clean as you get down at The Prom and cleaner than the water at the campsites. We then stumbled across a wallaby while we were in the depths of the forest. It turned to face us and stopped. It was rather large for a wallaby, but still not big enough to be a grey kangaroo, so I'm guessing it was a male wallaby. We only got a shot of his eyes for some reason which turned out kind of freaky looking.

Late afternoon, after a good three hour hike we reached Sealer's Cove and the beach. Around the coastline low lying cloud hugged the mountainous forest. Sealer's Cove also has a very distinctive rock which I think looks a little like a whale. We then waded across the river to the campsite on the edge of the forest and made camp. I cooked up a gourmet dinner of coq au vinand we had some semi-dodgey cast wine. I slept okay Friday night but Alana could not stretch out and was kept awake by curious snuffling marsupials and giggling school girls at another campsite.

We got up at 7 o'clock Saturday morning and reorganized the tent - after a brief spider attack - and stacked our packs ontop of each other, which gave Alana enough leg room to stretch out and have another 2 hours kip. Should have probably done the rearrange during the night. We then got up and cooked up a big tasty breaky of eggs and bacon. While we cooked the resident camp Rosella turned scavenger investigated our foodstuffs. We did not let him have anything, but I suspect that people have been feeding him nuts and sunflower seeds from their trail mix.

Of course being the tasty person that I am I got badly bitten by mosquitoes on the one exposed area not covered by Aeroguard! I ended up with three mosquito bites on my forehead over the course of the hike. We broke camp a little after 11 o'clock. The hike that day was pretty much straight up to begin with before slowly curving down towards Refugee Cove. It is not too difficult, but is over broken and uneven ground. It might be more tricky if it was raining. We reached a point where we could take a shot of Sealer's cove which shows the blue water and the amazing scenery. We then reached an outlook over the blue southern ocean and felt 'on top of the world!'

We continued our hike to Refugee Cove and walked along the beautiful coast. For future reference this hike has a lot of up and down terrain and a bit of scrabbling over rocks. Before we reached Refugee Cove we came across a beach that we named 'deception bay' as you think you are there already but there is another twenty or so minutes of hiking to the campsites and the next beach. We took our boots off, had lunch and dangled our feet in the water. The sand is quite different on each beach and this beach had large sand grains. We then continued to Refugee Cove which has another amazing beach and arrived there mid afternoon after hiking for two and a half hours, plus our half hour stop for lunch where we ate some of Alana's tasty snakes! Mmmm purple!. I joked that 'I bet these will be the only snakes we see!' We stopped for a quick toilet break and continued on to Little Waterloo Bay where we were due to make camp.

The hike between Refugee Cove and Little Waterloo Bay was the hardest hike of the entire trip. It is rated Moderate-Hard and is 7.0 kilometres over rocky and uneven ground - pretty much all uphill or downhill, with no flat bits. I had to think about what I was doing either going up or down as each bit presents itself a bit like a puzzle in terms of getting up or getting down. We arrived after 5 o'clock and made camp. Our feet and shoulders were pretty sore after this hike. That night we made an amazing pasta sauce with fresh onion, garlic, olive oil, a yellow squash, organic canned tomatoes, Italian herbs, canned corn, TVP and organic pasta. Very tasty and just what we needed after a killer hike. We went to bed early after Alana got a footrub and slept better this night.

The next day we set out again. We are a bit grumpy and I'm not coping well going down hills with my dodgey knee. Heading out of Little Waterloo Bay we got an amazing view of another beach. Who would have thought that such exquisite turquoise waters existed in Victoria! We then hike across flat and burnt scrublands. Very different scenery. The temperature quickly reaches 31 degrees and boy could we feel it on that hike! As all the shade from the tea trees has effectively been burnt during the bushfires. Along the way Alana sees the first snake of the trip - a little brown coloured snake that is very keen to get off the path and out of our way. She handles herself like a trooper who has been near missing snakes all of her life. There are also some interesting rock formations on this hike. The hike difficulty is rated easy and takes us about two and a bit hours to get to Telegraph Junction. But doing this hike in the hot weather without any shade was just relentless! We then hike to Oberon Bay and make it there in good time.

Oberon Bay campsite is a lot more exposed than the other campsites and is fairly sandy. We try and set up our tent to maximize some shade then change into our togs and head down to the beach for a dip in the icy water. The water is very cold, but refreshing. Just what I needed after the hot sweaty hike. When we get out of the water and are sitting on the beach the wasps, bees and flies start to harass Alana. One blue wasp would just not leave my poor baby alone! Alana must smell good to wasps and bees or release a pheromone that pisses them off. We head back to the campsite and take shelter in the tent. I pass out and get some shut eye. We then get up and play some cards and talk about things. I see the smallest snake in the world with blackish-grey scales. At this point we have both probably had enough of hiking and camping. Dehydrated meal that night was also a bit dog foody. But we do have a lovely walk along the beach that night and watch the sun set over water. That night a helicopter does flybys over our tent. We probably did not get a great night's sleep Sunday night either - but it was sufficient.

Monday morning. I am determined to boil enough water to make myself a coffee. And we boil enough to treat 1.6 litres of water to take with us. This was one issue we faced. There was simply no way we could carry enough water. We ended up drinking untreated stream water while at the prom without incident, although it always passed three important tests. 1. It was from running streams and creeks. 2. It had fish and plant life. 3. It was clear or slightly stained by tannins from the trees and tea trees. Next time I would take tablets to treat water. Certainly the clear stuff from a couple of spots is beautiful and as clean as most water.

The hike back to Telegraph Saddle from Oberon Bay is rated moderate and is pretty much all uphill. Lucky for us a cool change has swept in and it is overcast weather with some spots of rain, else it would have been much harder. Even then we sweat a lot. We make it to the junction in 40 minutes instead of 1 hour and we do the walk back up the hill to the carpark in 1 hour and 40 minutes instead of 2 hours. It was lovely to get into sandles in the car park. Alana sagely kept a change of clothes. We then drive out of the prom and get caught in a torrential downpour along the South Gippsland Highway. Had to stop at one point and bale out the Swood afterwards!

Had a lot of fun and learned a lot this trip. Things like...

• Every little bit of weight counts.
• You can never carry enough water, so you need to refill and take purifying tablets. I'd probably only want to carry 1 to 1.25 litres of water in terms of weight for future reference.
• A kilo of trail mix, two bags of confectionery and a packet of craisins is too much for 3.5 days!
• Cooking a hot meal for lunch is ambitious and not worth the effort.
• Consider 2 minute noodles as a meals as they are light!
• Our red bottle of meths lasted for effectively 5 meals counting the times we used it for breakfasts. So was enough for 3.5 days but probably not any more than that.
• 3 hours with a pack on your back is probably as long as you really want to have a pack on your back. 5 hours is a very long time to have a pack on your back.
• 10 kilometres is about as long as you want to hike for with a pack on your back each day. Anything more than that is a very big day.
• 4 kilometres over rough uneven and broken rocky ground is a hard hike. In this sense the distance does not matter so much, but the hiking conditions do.