Tin Mine Cove, Wilsons Promontory National Park - September 1991

I've been sitting on these photos for awhile, yeah around 25 years actually! This is another one of those feral adventures that took place in my formative years of walking, what this does show you though is that you don't always need the latest high tech gear and equipment to get out and enjoy the bush. If you have a close look at the photos you'll see that Dave was battling through in tracky daks and his pack was a hand me down from me, yeah and I'd spent around less than $100 to buy it years before from Aussie Disposals. I am modelling the latest in acid wash bushwalking jeans, although my canvas pack was a good one made by an Australian company called Outgear who unfortunately are long gone, the pack lives on however and still gets called into service occasionally if I need a reserve. Interestingly my red gortex jacket has only recently been placed into full retirement after years of service for me and then later on, Sam. Unfortunately the acid wash jeans have long gone, much like my hair!

Day 1     Lower Barry Creek       11 kilometres.

As was usual in the day Dave and I headed off after working half the day. Picking up our permit at the entrance gate we arrived at the lonely Five Mile Road Car Park late in the afternoon. Shouldering our packs we quickly set off along the wide dirt road that is the Five Mile Road towards our turn off north towards Lower Barry Creek. The road walk along here was (and still is) fairly tedious and it was a welcome relief when we turned onto the faint slashed and flagged track heading towards Lower Barry Creek. The country in the northern part of the prom is largely heath land and the walk down to Lower Barry Creek was no different, after passing over a granite knoll and savouring what would be one of very few views that we would get on this walk, we dropped down into the banksia's and scrubby heath again. In dwindling light some larger eucalyptus trees signalled our arrival at the basic Lower Barry Creek Camping Area, I'm not sure what's there now but back in the day all we got was a small cleared spot to pitch the tent and some water out of the creek, not that we were complaining we didn't need anything else really.

Day 2      Tin Mine Cove            12 kilometres.         23 kilometres total.

After a night of intermittent showers we woke to pack up the wet tent and start off on what would be an interesting days walking, made even more interesting as I'd come down with a crippling dose of man flu overnight. The route today crossed over Chinaman Swamp and involved and would probably be a bit of wading, how long and how deep the wade might be we didn't really know, but this bit of track had developed a bit of a reputation in walking circles as being fairly tough. Before we got to the damp section though we had to find our way along a very overgrown section of the walk and, with last nights rain that meant we were pushing through the banksia and heath while getting a cold soaking from the overhanging vegetation, just what I wanted when I was feeling a bit crook. After an hour or so of fairly solid scrub bashing, the dark tannin stained water of the first arm of Chinamen Creek signalled that we were about to get wet. Wading in the water got to just below waist high so it wasn't too bad, the excitement of the crossing along with the route finding meant that, at least after the initial shock, we didn't really notice the cold too much. Dave took the sherpa approach with his pack on his head on the deeper sections while my pack stayed just above the waterline. 

Crossing Barry Creek.

The routes a little on the indistinct side.

The famed Chinaman Swamp.

We had three reasonably deep wades in the next kilometre or so but soon we left the water for the last time, keeping Chinamans Knob on our right the scrubby heath lined route soon met up with an old fire track to the south of Chinamen Long Beach. Once we were on the old fire track the walking was fairly easy again, the only slight dampener to our mood were the showers scudding through, but at least we weren't pushing through the saturated scrub anymore. By early afternoon the sandy surface signalled our imminent arrival at Chinamans Long Beach, fortunately we'd timed our long beach walk on the falling tide so we had some reasonably firm sand to walk on. Chinamans Long Beach, as the name suggest is a fairly long beach, it took us the best part of an hour to traverse the sand before we met up with what looked like a freshly cut track that sidled Chinaman Hill around to Tin Mine Cove. This section of the track was a bit of an oddity as the standard of this short section was vastly superior to the rest of the walk, the track along here was well benched and clear, a stark contrast to how we'd spent our morning pushing through scrub and wading through deep water. The camp site at Tin Mine Cove was fairly basic back in the day, just a long drop and some water from the small creek, with a bit of flat ground to pitch the tent we were pretty happy and content, we'd just had a classic days walking.

Looking back along Chinaman Long Beach from the track over to Tin Mine Cove.

Filling up the water bottles, Tin Mine Cove.

Dinner at Tin Mine Cove.

Day 3  Five Mile Road Carpark.     23 kilometres        46 kilometres total.

Crawling out of the tent today we had a fairly long day in front of us, basically we were retracing our first two days of walking. The good news was that the showers were thinning out a bit, hey we even got a few patches of blue sky, the bad news was that no matter what the sky was doing we knew that we'd be getting wet feet again as we crossed the swamp. It's a funny thing when I do a retrace on a walk, the walk seems to go quicker, it was no different today and it seemed like no time we were back at Lower Barry Creek and changing into some dry socks. The weak afternoon sun now strong enough to dry our pants off a bit as we gently climbed back up to Five Mile Road and headed towards the carpark. Arriving back at the car in the late afternoon we headed off to Korumburra for our traditional feed of fish and chips, happy that we had just experienced a wonderful part of Victoria.

Back in the day there was some tape marking the route through the swamp.

Dave using the patented Sherpa Technique in one of the deeper spots.

The Dirt.

The northern section of the prom is a fairly wild place, and while the tracks are sometimes rough and overgrown, the wild coastal and heathland scenery makes the effort to walk there worthwhile I reckon. With this walk done long before I even knew what a GPS was I've got my distances off the map, speaking of which I used the Wilsons Promontory National Park 1:50,000 VicMap on this stroll. As far as I know nobodies written up the walk as we did it, but Glenn Tempest has written up the complete northern circuit in his Weekend Walks around Melbourne book. It's a hard walk to rate as the walking is fairly easy in a physical way, but is hard when it comes to navigation and conditions under foot (or water!). I suppose I'd settle for a medium rating, remember though that this was back in the dark ages and I'm sure conditions would be a lot different now. One thing I need to mention before I finish this post off is that you need to jump through a few hoops to get a permit to walk up here, the rangers like to make sure that your prepared and capable of navigating through some scrubby terrain, fair enough I suppose as they are the ones that will be the first ones out looking for you if you get bushed.

I remember the reeds floating on the surface of the dark water actually looked quite good, I guess I'll have to go back now with a decent camera.

Typical Banksia and heathland country in the north of Wilsons Promontory National Park.