Thurra River to Mallacoota, Croajingolong National Park - October 1997

We had a little wild weather on day 2 of this stroll.

I’ve decided to break out the scanner again and digitise a few of these old photos before they turn to dust. These are my rather vague and perfunctory memories from a walk I did years ago with Sam and my mate Dave. Croajingolong National Park is a long way from Melbourne, but the effort of getting there is richly rewarded once in the park, this National Park is a wild stunner. Having said that you’ll largely have to take my word for it as my old photos are pretty ordinary really. I’m thinking another visit to Croajingolong National Park should be in my medium term future, maybe an epic Lake Tyres to Eden walk might throw up a bit of colour for my blog…we’ll see?

Dunes near Mueller River.

Day 1 Thurra River to Gale Hill 10 kilometres
Our first day involved an incredibly long car shuffle before we even set forth on the track, not that it mattered much as we didn’t have a great deal of distance to walk today. Leaving the car at Thurra River we headed to the beach and turned left…and that was about it really! Well there was a couple of river crossings, but both Thurra and Mueller river were only knee deep wades so there wasn’t any real issues there. There were also a couple of rocky outcrops to cross but even these were pretty easy, the main issue there being the Redbelly Black Snakes seemed to like sun baking on them. So after successfully negotiating the river crossings and avoiding stepping on my serpent mates we were really left with a march east along the sand. Arriving at the turn off up to the spring at Gale Hill we headed up, managing to find the damp spot covered with some timber. After removing the timber we dug out a bit of sand and sure enough a bit of cool clear water started to trickle in. With some water safely found we set up camp and settled in for a lazy afternoon.

There is never a shortage of snakes down here....in my experience anyway.

Near Gale Hill on day 1.

Day 2 Gale Hill to Easby Creek 14 kilometres 24 kilometres total
Waking on day 2 of our Wilderness Coast Walk we were again blessed with a nice sunny day. After breaking camp we set off on our eastward journey again. The walking today had a lot more rocks to negotiate and almost immediately we crossed Petral Point, a large rocky point that was easily negotiated. After Petral Point it was another few kilometres of beach walking before we followed some poles up through the dunes to cross the back of Rame Head, the first time since starting the walk that we were more than a couple hundred metres from the water. After checking out the lookout over Rame Head we again dropped to the sand at Fly Cove before picking up the track to the Wingan Inlet Camp.

I'm thinking this is Rame Head but that may be a Feral fact?

Our original plan had us camping at Wingan Inlet but with the car camping area very busy and the tide being fairly low, we decided that we should cross the mouth of Wingan Inlet and camp on the other side. So after filling our water bottles we retraced our route back out to Fly Cove and headed towards the mouth of Wingan Inlet. Unfortunately our luck with the weather ran out about now and we found ourselves stripping off to wade across the mouth of the inlet, in some fairly heavy rain and strong winds. This wade can be pretty dodgy but today it was only waist deep, although we did wade a fair way out towards The Skerries. After arriving on the eastern side of the inlet we rock hopped our way along the now slick rocks, thankful to arrive at the sand again near Easby Creek. With the rain still coming down and the wind howling, we decided that the small camp just inside the coastal scrub here was a good spot to stop for the night, spending the last few hours of the afternoon snoozing in the tent.

Rock hopping around to Easby River the weather had turned.

Once safely past the rocks big Dave had a bit of a lie down!

With the combination of a very high tide and a strong storm surge, the waves were breaking a long way up the beach.

Day 3 Easby Creek to Benadore River 13 kilometres 37 kilometres total
Waking up next morning the rain had mostly passed us by and with a fairly short day in front of us we were in no real hurry. After a bit of a beach stroll where we had to dodge the occasional rogue waves washing right up onto the dunes, we arrived at the turnoff that would take us around behind Sandpatch Point. This was our second substantial detour away from the coast on our journey east, apparently it is possible to round Sandpatch Point at sea level but it is meant to be very rough and slow going. After another an hour or so crossing a mixture of coastal forest and heathlands and another close encounter with a sun baking Redbelly Black Snake, we dropped down some steps onto the sand again. Wandering up the beach we soon arrived at Benadore River and after a bit of exploring we settled in for the afternoon at the very comfortable camp on the western side of the inlet. This was our favourite camp on the walk and it came complete with a full suite of bush furniture to kick back on.

I'm thinking that this is climbing away from Red River as we climbed behind Sandpatch Point, although once again that could be another FF.

Our day 3 camp at Benedore River was a nice one.

We even had water views:)

Day 4 Benadore River to Quarry Beach 18 kilometres 55 kilometres total
In theory we had another very easy day in front of us today as we were only planning on walking to Shipwreck Creek. Leaving camp we crossed the closed outlet of the Benadore River and again headed inland a bit, this time crossing behind Little Rame Head. The walking behind Little Rame Head is once again across open heathland largely and I always enjoy walking this kind of country, I love the wide open views this type of vegetation allows. After an hour or two we hit the coast again at the beautiful Seal Cove only to almost immediately hard inland along a series of old overgrown 4wd and walking tracks as we made our way across to Shipwreck Creek.

This guy was asleep beside the track as we dropped down to Seal Cove, old mate didn't seem too concerned with us though.

Now as I mentioned earlier, Shipwreck Creek was our original planned camp tonight, but arriving at the chock-a-block car camping area at lunch time we quickly decided that hanging out here for the afternoon wasn’t really our best option. After dropping down the access road to grab some water where it crossed Shipwreck Creek we set off along the Old Coast Road. Once again the next few kilometres had some nice views across the low heathland before we touched the coast for the last time at Secret Beach before walking an old 4wd track back to the car at Quarry Beach.

Approaching Shipwreck Cove.

The Dirt.
We walked around 55 kilometres on this medium grade walk, I’d guess that the total climbing would only be around 300 metres over the journey as well, so it’s not overly taxing. Having said that we did this walk a long time ago, back in the day the tracks were sometimes very overgrown and not always well sign posted. None of the river crossings or inlets were bridged so they required a bit of a plan. Drinking water was also an issue, particularly at Gale Hill where we had to dig the sand out of a soak. The other things you need to keep an eye out for when walking at Croajingolong is the local fauna, I’ve never walked there without coming across snakes, although they are usually the fairly docile Redbelly Black Snakes, there are a lot of them. Ticks are also an issue here so you need to check for them fairly frequently. On this old walk we used a set of John Chapman’s notes out of Lonely Planet’s 1997 edition of Bushwalking in Australia. Having said all that I think Parks Vic have spruced up this walk a bit and the marketing department now call it the Wilderness Coast Walk, so I’m guessing things may be a little different on the ground now. Like I mentioned in the first paragraph, I’ll have to get back to write up and photograph this walk properly in my medium term future.

Relevant Posts.
Mallacoota to Merrica River, Nadgee Nature Reserve, 2004.
Haycock Point to Barmouth Beach, Ben Boyd National Park, 2010.
McKillops Bridge to Snowy River Bush Camp, Silvermine Walking Track, Snowy River National Park, 2017.

This is a beautiful part of Victoria.