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| Pillar Point. |
I’ve always wanted to do a write up about the loop around the southern section of Wilsons Promontory National Park. This national park is a close as I could get to having a national park for a backyard, for at least 40 years I’ve been regularly visiting this stunning spot. Initially my visits were with family so we could spend time with my cousin who was a ranger down there. In my teenage years I started heading down to hang out with my surfie mates from school, spending many weeks down there in the school holiday learning to chase girls, drink and surf. Once I had my own car my trips morphed into bushwalking expeditions, slowly spreading out further and further into the park from Tidal River. ‘The Prom’ as it is known to most Victorians is a fairly big park, coming in at 49049ha, and it provides plenty of opportunities to escape from the crowds into the bush. The park features a range of walking options from paved, wheelchair friendly strolls all the way up to untracked multi day walks that will have the walker wading through swamp land. For me though without doubt the most scenic walking is around what is known as the southern loop, this loop visits multiple remote beaches, mountains, creeks, rivers and even a waterfall. The 60 odd kilometre loop is normally walked in 4 or 5 days but being
stupid....err, hardcore I decided to do it in 3 days on this visit.
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| The slightly dishevelled Feral Walker about to set off. |
So anyway bright and early last Friday morning my mate James turned up (yeah, I’d roped in a victim for this one) and we set off on the two hour drive down to Wilsons Promontory. After organising our permits I dropped James and our packs off at Norman Bay. Leaving James to mind the gear I headed back out to the long term car park before walking back to grab the packs and head off, I suppose I’ll look at that little walk as a warm up. Walking down onto the wide open expanses of Norman Bay today it looked like our luck was in as far as the weather goes, we were greeted by a perfect beach scene as we crested the dunes and dropped down to the beach. With the temperature in the low 20˚ there were still a few holiday makers enjoying the Autumn weather, as we made our way south along the broad sandy beach towards the flanks of Mt Oberon we passed numerous people out surfing, paddle boarding or just enjoying the sun on the sand. We must of looked like we were from another planet to these beach goers as we meandered along covered from head to toe, not to worry though as we soon reached the southern end of Norman Bay and climbed away from the sand, not to mention the majority of the other punters.
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Our first beach of the walk, Norman Bay.
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Norman Bay
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| Thankfully we didn't have to climb over this one. |
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Once off the beach the track slowly starts to gain height as it makes its way around Norman Point on its way to Little Oberon Bay. As you would imagine the views along here are substantial, in fact views are a bit of a feature of this whole three day stroll really. With a perfect blue sky above and the turquoise water to our right you’d be doing badly to take a bad photo along here. Dropping our packs we took the short side trip down to Norman Point, to be honest though with stunning views in almost every direction it is hardly worth the extra effort and head down to the lookout. Anyway after taking the obligatory photo at the point we climbed back up the our packs and headed off towards our next objective, the beautiful Little Oberon Bay.
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Our last view of Norman Bay.
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Little Oberon Bay.
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In my opinion Little Oberon Bay is one of the most picturesque beaches down at The Prom. Apart from photos though I had another thing on my mind today, reaching a small rocky outcrop I again dropped the pack, this time also stripping off and plunging in to the surf. Little Oberon Bay needs to be treated with a bit of respect if you plan on swimming here though, the beach drops off very quickly and there is generally a fairly large shore break pounding the sand. I was soon through the shore break though and treading water as I floated over the sets rolling in, the water temperature today was almost perfect and I probably could of spent a lot longer chilling out here. James wasn’t so keen on exposing too much skin to the bright sunshine though, so reluctantly I dragged myself out of the rejuvenating water and pulled on my already sweaty and smelly gear again.
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Hey, we've been walking for almost an hour!
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Life could be worse I suppose.
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The scenery from the beach isn't bad either.
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We now headed off along the track towards our next beach, Oberon Bay. With the tide almost at the dead low mark we were easily able to skip across Growler Creek with dry feet and head off along the wide sandy expanses of Oberon Bay. In contrast to Little Oberon Bay, Oberon Bay is a wide open beach, the firm sand making for easy walking which we appreciated as we made our way south the the mouth of Frasers Creek, the breeze coming in off Bass Strait helping to keep an edge off the temperature. Our exit off Oberon Bay is marked but a large yellow sand blow as well as the creek. Making our way to the Oberon Camp turn off we stopped for awhile in the shade, Jame’s using the opportunity to empty the accumulated sand out of his shoes before we set off on the hardest part of the day.
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We're off to the next beach, Oberon Bay.
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Oberon Bay
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| The yellow sand blow marks the spot to leave the coast. |
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Leaving Oberon Bay we headed east along an old sandy fire track, the walking along here alternated between easy strolling on a good surface under a canopy of tea tree to an open slog through soft sand. After around thirty minutes we came out at the Lighthouse Track, this fire track run north-south down the centre of the promontory and over the years I haven’t got a lot of good memories of trudging along this hard road. Initially though we made use of a couple of seats that Parks Vic have installed at the junction of Lighthouse Track and the Waterloo Bay Track to have a bite to eat and chill out for a bit in the shade. It was now early afternoon and when we once again started walking down Lighthouse Track we felt the full force of the suns rays on the open track. Within twenty minutes though we arrived at Halfway Hut, the surrounding trees once again giving us some welcome shade and the water tank giving us the opportunity to wet out hats down.
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Heading east across to Lighthouse Track was a bit of a mixed bag, this was a good bit.
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We were now more or less following the route of the old telegraph line for awhile.
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Halfway Hut
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| Not far to go now mate. |
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After another short break in the shade at Halfway Hut we set off on what is probably the crux of todays walk, the climb up onto the flanks of the Boulder Range. The next thirty minutes was a solid climb with no real opportunity to give our muscles a break. By the time we got to the turn off for the Roaring Meg Walking Track we were both sweating bullets, with our shirts drenched in sweat we found ourselves a little shade sitting in the spoon drain on the side of the track and had a bit of a drink. After recovering for a while we set off on the last few kilometres to Roaring Meg Camp, it is always a bonus to be on a walking track and after walking the fire track up from Halfway Hut we appreciated this walking track even more. We were now walking through sections of coastal heath, Rodondo Island appearing like a pyramid in the distance we were now looking at Tasmania. The old telegraph line led us south through the scrub and before long we arrived at the deserted Roaring Meg Camp. We chose the upper terrace slightly away from Roaring Meg Creek to pitch our tents, the theory being that there might be a few less mozzies away from the creek and at the same time we were able to make use of some new camp platforms to cook on that Parks Vic have installed.
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| We had Roaring Meg Camp to ourselves. |
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Now a sensible walker might sit back and chill out a bit now, but we decided to head off on the reasonably substantial side trip down to South Point, the southern most point on the mainland of Australia. It’s not a short walk though, adding another 6 kilometres to todays walking. It was now well and truly late afternoon as we set off so at least we got the changing afternoon light to help our photos as we descended. The South Point Track is another of those great Wilsons Promontory walking tracks that look like it’s been blended in with the natural environment. Before long we popped out of the casuarina’s and the bottom of the mainland was in front of us. Unfortunately Parks Vic have declared the rocky point a rehabilitation area so opportunities for exploring the remote point are a little limited, although with views of the nearby islands and the red lichen coloured rocks glowing in the late afternoon sun, it definitely made the effort to get here worthwhile. With James being keen to linger for another hour or so waiting for sunset I decided that the comforts of camp were calling me and headed back before dark, it had been a long but rewarding day.
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Heading down to South Point in the late afternoon.
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Rotondo Island, Tasmania.
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The Dirt.
We walked 24.3 kilometres today and climbed 834 metres, on what I’d rate as a hard days walking. The walking today was along a mixture of beaches, fire tracks and the more traditional walking tracks. There are no real ball busting climbs but there are quite a few individual climbs that do get the heart rate up a bit and 834 metres over the course of the day is nothing to be sneezed at. Water can be a bit of an issue today too, Parks Vic don’t recommend getting water out of Frasers Creek anymore at Oberon Bay, so your options are the tank at the toilet at Oberon Bay or the tank at Halfway Hut, the Halfway Hut option is probably slightly more reliable, once at camp Roaring Meg Creek is very reliable. Roaring Meg Camp has two terraces to camp on, the upper one with some camp furniture and maybe a little less mozzie prone, the lower terrace near the creek having easier access to water but being damper and maybe more insect prone, the toilet is on the upper area.
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how wonderful and thanks for the photos.
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