I have returned from my adventure and what an awesome one it was! I have a lot of pictures, I managed to take over 400 (no worries I am not posting them all...), anyway I have a bunch to share so I am going to break this up into the 3 days worth instead of one major entry. So...
Day 1 - Friday
Just as a background, this trip is for my Education in Natural Landscapes class (same as the farmer) this time we are experiencing "bushwalker". Friday morning the group from my class met at our scheduled location and loaded into the van starting our journey. There were 8 students (7 Americans and 1 German) and our tour guide Will, who works for the National Park agency. We had all been given backpacks on Wednesday and been split into appropriate tent and cooking groups. Of course my pack was significantly full and probably started off weighing between 40-50 lbs or more I am terrible with weight estimates. We each had to carry a sleeping bag, sleeping mat, clothes, food and then any other essentials. Each tent pair split up the tent parts and then groups of 3 for cooking had to split up the stove and fuel for cooking. So needless to say we were all pretty bogged down. It's about a 3 1/2 hour drive to "The Prom" so I used it to catch up on sleep and take in some scenery. We arrived a little before noon and quickly unloaded, after some safety speeches and pep talks we were on our way. Just a little background on the Park - Wilson's Promontory is one of the most well known National Parks of Australia and is located on the most Southern tip of the continent. It was founded in 1898. It is a peninsula jutting out from the mainland with numerous granite outcroppings and many different ecosystems. There are lots of websites about the park if anyone wants to learn more. We were hiking a trail called "The Circuit" which begins on Mt. Oberon, works it's way to the coast in a big loop and then event cuts back to Mt. Oberon, the total distance only being about 36 km ~ 18 miles, the trail isn't bad, but there are a lot of ups and downs which made the going difficult at times. Our first day we needed to hike 12 km from the carpark to the Little Waterloo Bay where our first campsite was located. The weather was spectacular, best since I've been here and soon we were all rolling up our pants and sleeves to enjoy the sun. We hiked a good 8 km before taking our first break for lunch. The hiking wasn't too bad but it took a little for me to get used to the backpack's weight and gain proper balance. After lunch we headed onward and finally reached Waterloo Bay - everyone shed their shoes and ran up and down the perfect sand through the surf for almost an hour before Will rounded us up and kept us moving. Fortunately we didn't have far till our campsite and we headed onto our own beach to explore after setting up camp. When it finally got dark we all huddled around cooking dinner over our little camp stoves. My group made mac n cheese and vegetable soup. The water in the park is pure (or close to it) so we could drink right from the creeks which was nice, it had a nice yellow color though from the tannin in the tree bark. After everyone was full and happy we walked out to the beach and looked at the stars. Try as I may I could not get the "starry sky" function on my camera to give me quality shots but believe me the sky was fantastic. After the beach we stalked the several critters prowling around ofter our food taking pictures of them. My tent mate and I went on a crusade for frogs in the nearby swamp but nothing was talking at all! Buuuummmmmmmmerrr! Since no fires are allowed everyone went to bed pretty early. All in all it was an excellent first experience.
Day 1 - Friday
Just as a background, this trip is for my Education in Natural Landscapes class (same as the farmer) this time we are experiencing "bushwalker". Friday morning the group from my class met at our scheduled location and loaded into the van starting our journey. There were 8 students (7 Americans and 1 German) and our tour guide Will, who works for the National Park agency. We had all been given backpacks on Wednesday and been split into appropriate tent and cooking groups. Of course my pack was significantly full and probably started off weighing between 40-50 lbs or more I am terrible with weight estimates. We each had to carry a sleeping bag, sleeping mat, clothes, food and then any other essentials. Each tent pair split up the tent parts and then groups of 3 for cooking had to split up the stove and fuel for cooking. So needless to say we were all pretty bogged down. It's about a 3 1/2 hour drive to "The Prom" so I used it to catch up on sleep and take in some scenery. We arrived a little before noon and quickly unloaded, after some safety speeches and pep talks we were on our way. Just a little background on the Park - Wilson's Promontory is one of the most well known National Parks of Australia and is located on the most Southern tip of the continent. It was founded in 1898. It is a peninsula jutting out from the mainland with numerous granite outcroppings and many different ecosystems. There are lots of websites about the park if anyone wants to learn more. We were hiking a trail called "The Circuit" which begins on Mt. Oberon, works it's way to the coast in a big loop and then event cuts back to Mt. Oberon, the total distance only being about 36 km ~ 18 miles, the trail isn't bad, but there are a lot of ups and downs which made the going difficult at times. Our first day we needed to hike 12 km from the carpark to the Little Waterloo Bay where our first campsite was located. The weather was spectacular, best since I've been here and soon we were all rolling up our pants and sleeves to enjoy the sun. We hiked a good 8 km before taking our first break for lunch. The hiking wasn't too bad but it took a little for me to get used to the backpack's weight and gain proper balance. After lunch we headed onward and finally reached Waterloo Bay - everyone shed their shoes and ran up and down the perfect sand through the surf for almost an hour before Will rounded us up and kept us moving. Fortunately we didn't have far till our campsite and we headed onto our own beach to explore after setting up camp. When it finally got dark we all huddled around cooking dinner over our little camp stoves. My group made mac n cheese and vegetable soup. The water in the park is pure (or close to it) so we could drink right from the creeks which was nice, it had a nice yellow color though from the tannin in the tree bark. After everyone was full and happy we walked out to the beach and looked at the stars. Try as I may I could not get the "starry sky" function on my camera to give me quality shots but believe me the sky was fantastic. After the beach we stalked the several critters prowling around ofter our food taking pictures of them. My tent mate and I went on a crusade for frogs in the nearby swamp but nothing was talking at all! Buuuummmmmmmmerrr! Since no fires are allowed everyone went to bed pretty early. All in all it was an excellent first experience.
The map - our exact route isn't pictured cause we did a somewhat shortened version of the 44 km trail outlined. As mentioned we stared on Mt. Obernon and walked down the lighthouse trail before cutting over on a different trail to Waterloo Bay.
A field of grass trees - very cool plant - the big stick/cone things are the flowers - gorgeous when in bloom...
1 comment:
GREAT mammal pics! I absolutely love that beach. Looks like an amazing trip:)
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