It dawned cloudy and cool which many would call perfect hiking weather and I would call grey and terrible for photos. No one ever accused me of being a fan of the gloomy day! But a walk had to be done, so after a quiet morning in my cabin, watching kangaroos out the window and making a filling breakfast Drew picked me up and deposited me at the spot where I was picked up yesterday. The trip notes called today difficult, and while not terribly long, it was brutal in terms of climbs and descents.
On the map there are various “decision points” which mostly aren’t options. A couple are — inland or beach walk — but most are simply alerting the walker to something in the track that needs attention. So, the first decision point for the day, again, not a choice, led me down to Milanesia Beach, which is supposedly one of the most beautiful beaches on the Southern Ocean, and was named after a large ship that was stranded in the shallows there for over a week in 1902. There’s a river that flows into the sea at this spot, and while shallow would require the removal of boots again. BUT, I noticed that if I backtracked a bit it was possible to get down to the beach WITHOUT having to cross the river. It was still low tide, but once again I hurried along as I had heard two stories this morning about rogue waves drenching people and one even losing a shoe to the sea. I was happy to see footsteps in the sand, which I assumed were from the couple I met yesterday, and relieved when the way marker led up off the beach.
The path today provided some stunning views back over the distance I’d already walked, but the hills were pretty brutal. It seemed that the trail went down to sea level and then back up to about 300 ft, and then down again, and then up to 500 ft at one spot. Some areas had stone or wooden steps, some were just long slopes up or down. It was so difficult that I didn’t take the side path down to Ryan’s Den campground because it involved more of the ups and downs.
Ryan’s Den was named after Dr. Charles Ryan, who in the early 1900’s broke his leg on the beach and crawled all the way back up the main ridge over a period of 4 days, then down to the Gellibrand River (which I will cross tomorrow), and then floated down to Princetown on a log. So they say anyway…
There was some good wildlife today — two wallabies jumped out of the bush in front of me and disappeared… but see if you can find the wallaby face in the photo I’ve included — the picture that looks like just greenery. There were also some crimson rosellas and maybe a king parrot or two high in the tree. Lots of little fairy wrens dotted the path, and I frightened a flock or two of magpies. I don’t recognize all the bird songs, but the air was filled with them.
There were blackberry bushes along the way, but I’d been warned not to eat them — they may have been sprayed since blackberries are considered a noxious pest weed here! And there are boot cleaning stations every once in awhile because of some fungus that’s been tracked through the bush — you first wipe your boot and then dip it in some solution that must kill the fungi. I passed a rock outcrop that was called the Lost Apostle — I suspect because it looks like those in the sea at Port Campbell… which I will see tomorrow.
Eventually I came to Moonlight Head, which is at 500 ft, and was named by Matthew Flinders in 1802, reportedly because of the prominence of the high headland in the moonlight. This was before the Cape Otway Lighthouse had been built, so anything that could be recognized by ships from the sea was a landmark. Another 4.5km, past some farm track (and a giant bull), through the woods a bit more and I reached The Gables lookout, which is one of Australia’s highest sea cliff at 660 ft. The view was impressive but it was getting chilly and I was ready when Drew picked me up just after 3pm.
Last walking day tomorrow. And my body is okay with that.
