Our 100km coastal walk: day 1

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About a year ago, when our twins were three years old and we could count the amount of nights we had slept all night on one hand, my wonderful parents gave us a beacon: the promise of five days off after next Christmas. So... those days have arrived and what did Jono and I decide to do? Not a resort holiday on a tropical island or a health retreat but a 100km walk along the south coast. We decided we wanted to connect the dots between my parents' place in Vincentia and Jono's parents' place in Batemans Bay: two places that we spend a lot of time in but the stretch of coast in between was largely unknown to us as we would generally be zipping along the highway at 100km an hour.

So, leaving our darling Ameya and Leila with my wonderful parents we set off, with bellies still pretty full from Christmas. Our walk started at Lambs crescent, Vincentia where we walked along the gorgeous and familiar white sands walk to hyams beach café. We felt by this stage that we had earned ourselves a coffee (what a great start to a multi day hike?) From there we headed up the hill and took some fire trails and backroads to get down to sussex inlet. This was the first big unknown for the trip: how to cross this estuary. Turns out we didn't have to worry too much. We walked down to a little place called Christians Minde and a local there gave us a ride across in his boat. Love it! It's so good sometimes to just trust that things will work out (especially when they do!) Apparently you can also call the owners of the marina ahead of time and arrange for them to pick you up, if you are reading this and thinking of doing the hike yourself. Once across the river, we were very tempted to stop at the RSL for a cooked dinner and beer, but we forged on - and happily so, Cudmurrah beach where we found a hidden and sheltered spot in the dunes to call home for the night. A 20km effort with a boat trip and a café stop thrown in. Not bad.

A highlight for me was doing yoga on the deserted beach at sunset, looking towards Pigeon house mountain on the horizon, watching the sea mist move like a veil over the glowing gold-pink sky and two sea eagles gliding around. Mental image only... but possible better than any of the actual images I took with my camera that day.

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Photos

some extra exercise
Thought the walk today had been a little easy so thought I'd burn a few extra calories :)

hitting the beach
Arriving at Cudmurrah beach

tea-towel bag
Borrowed from my mum (and her invention). I love it! Great way to dry the dishes.

campsite for night 1
Cudmurrah beach. Since rain was predicted we put up the tarp.

Dinner
Wholemeal cous cous, dehydrated mushrooms, sliced dried apricots, macadamia nuts and vegie stock. Took about three minutes to make and beat anything on the RSL menu. Jono was the brains behind this one.