Friday, 12th November 2010
Once again we had an early start from Sydney and after just over 2 hours reached Gerringong – the point where we last finished our walk back in July, it seems like aeons ago.
After rounding up Black Head point (a bit of a climb here) we then reached Seven Mile Beach. When you’re walking on soft sand with each step sinking in, it sure felt a lot further than seven miles. There were a surprisingly high number of dead birds along the beach but we could only guess at what might have killed them. There were some signs along the dunes warning there was Fox Poisoning Bait about. Perhaps this might have caused the death of the birds? Or maybe some terrible storm out at sea caught them out.
We arrived at Shoalhaven Heads at approx. 2pm and drove straight on to our accommodation in Huskisson. The Jervis Bay Caravan Park sits right beside Currambene Creek and we had a lovely view from the lounge window. After checking in and unloading our cars we went into the township of Huskisson for lunch, but soon found that at 4pm there aren’t many places serving either lunch or dinner. Luckily we did find a small cafe that still had some food for us.
Saturday, 13th November 2010
Our 2nd leg of the journey is a 14km stretch from Culburra Beach to Currarong. One of the locals told us we could walk along the sandbank at this time of the year as the Wollumboola Lake hadn’t opened to the ocean yet. So off we went, unfortunately there was no path, we had to walk on sand once again. We tried to walk on the embankment where there was some vegetation to provide us with a firmer footing, but some of the plants are very long and strong growing along the sand and Di took a tumble after tripping on one of them.
Sand, sand and more sand with the number of dead birds increasing as we went. There must have been hundreds of the dead blighters, if not even thousands. It was quite dismal, especially with the smell of decay everywhere. We couldn’t really identify them, they were some kind of black water birds. Apparently these birds fly all the way from Siberia only to die from starvation or exhaustion (what a waste) At one stage a group of about 6 or 7 live birds were having a meeting at the beach, we guessed they had come to the funeral of their comrades??
The day was soon brightened up by a male nudist parading himself on the beach. The girls had a really good “perv” and decided that his body was a lot like the marble statues of some greek god. (hehehehe)
When we got to Currarong we came upon a creek, to cross it we’d have to wade in waist deep (for some of us shorties, it was more up to our chests). So I changed into my swimmers behind a bush and swam across whilst a very kind man took my backpack across. Geri and Di both went in fully clothed (they hadn’t packed their swimmers). The Johns walked up the stairs and around and we had a take away lunch on the grass beneath the shade of the trees, ah heaven......
Sunday, 14th November 2010
This morning we set off to the little market in Huskisson and we all found something interesting to buy. John and Di were by far the champion shoppers buying leather bag, jewellery and cushion covers, Geri invested in some worm potion for her garden (nice one Geri); John bought some fishing ‘gizmos’ and I bought some tomato jam which always brings me happy childhood memories of my aunt Maria and her homemade jams.
Then we set off on our walk from Huskisson to Hyams Beach (or maybe I should say a stroll). This was a very pleasant walk on a newly built pathway along the coast shaded along the way by some lovely trees. We travelled through Vincentia and both Geri and I were amazed at the transformation of the place. Last time we were here (quite some years ago) there were only beach shacks, but now it’s million dollar architectural built homes. Although this track was approx. 12km long, it felt a lot shorter this time, maybe because we weren’t walking on sand this time.
John C went fishing and caught a good sized crab and a small bream which made him a very happy chappy.
In the evening we played a card game called “go to hell” which Di taught us. Both Geri and I loved it, especially whilst drinking a full bottle of champers...
Monday, 15th November 2010
After breakfast we set off back to Sydney which took us about 3 hours. On the way back I couldn’t believe we’ve walked all this way. Only 817km to go to reach Melbourne.
No comments:
Post a Comment