Down on the Prom

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After a week driving around Tasmania, it was time to go back to the mainland. I flew back to Melbourne and spent another two nights with John and family, this time joining them for brunch (including coffee, of course... Melbournians love their coffee!) at a local playground, then a bit of much needed internet time interspersed with trampolening, driving dumper trucks, building Lego towers and watching Wallace & Gromit. My stay was topped off by a fantastic roast dinner, washed down by a lovely bottle of Tassie red. The next day it was time to leave Melbourne, so I said my goodbyes to the people and the place (I was becoming quite fond of the city!) and went to pick up my hire car.

But Melbourne wasn't going to let me go quite so easily... the photo on my driving license had expired, and by the time I got the DVLA and Victoria Police to confirm that my license was still valid, I'd had to cancel my reservation and there were no hire cars left! While all this was being sorted out, I took the opportunity to travel down to Mentone to see my cousin Hester and her young daughter Evie. We grabbed a takeaway frappy cappy and went for a stroll on the beach, with Evie throwing sand all over the path (and sometimes on us) as we went. Then it was back home for a quick viewing of the Bear Necessities (Evie singing out 'bearcessities' on que) and a play with Apey the Orangutan. After Evie had been put to bed, I had dinner with Hester and her husband Paul, and we spent the evening catching up and sharing travel stories. By the time I see them next, they'll have re-emigrated back to England!

So I ended up leaving Melbourne two days later than planned, on a bus. But every cloud... the bus was cheap and comfy, and it deposited me at the small town of Foster just before lunchtime. I'd travelled about 180km SE of Melbourne to visit the Wilsons Promontory National Park, or 'the Prom' as it's universally known. The Prom sits at the southern tip of mainland Australia, jutting out into the Tasman Sea like a hand reaching out towards Tasmania. I was going there to do a bit of hiking, but without a hire car I was a bit unsure as to how I'd get around... the park centre at Tidal River being some 50km from my hostel in Foster. Luckily, Hannah from Germany was staying at the hostel and happened to have a car, so she offered to take me in. The Prom harbours a surprising diversity of habitats and scenery, from white sandy beaches to windswept rocky mountains and thickly forrested valleys. Tidal River on the west coast is the main visitor centre, and a number of short day walks radiate out from there.

I kicked off with a walk to Squeaky Beach. I knew that the beach was the star attraction at the Prom, but I wasn't sure why, or why it was called squeaky. And then I walked on it. The sand squeaks. I don't know why, but it actually squeaks, whether you're wearing boots or not. Very strange, and quite amusing for such a serene and peaceful place! As well as squeaky sand, the beach is home to a lot of birds. The selection of photos may suggest that I'm a closet twitcher, but I assure you that's not the case... the Prom simply has so much birdlife that it's difficult to ignore. I continued the walk on via Tidal Overlook, a highpoint which looks back down onto the beach, to the fantastically named Lilly Pilly Gully, a small enclave of rainforest accessed by a 2.5km track. The track winds its way through areas recently ravaged by bushfires, pretty common in the Prom, which gave the scenery an otherwordly appearance... blackened trunks contrasting against bright green shoots, and tufted grasses with tall thin flowers sprouting from their tops. The gully itself is also nice, but similar to the forests I'd walked through on Tas.

Having an ice cream back at Tidal River, more of the Prom's birdlife presented itself, including the cute but mischevious crimson rosellas (vivid red and purple birds which, I doscovered, like mint choc chip ice cream), galahs and a lone kookaburra who sat patintly watching for movement in the woodchips before diving down to catch a worm or some other insect. Once Hannah had returned from her walk, it was time to drive back to the hostel. Dusk is the perfect time for viewing wildlife in Oz, and the signs on the road out of the Prom made that clear. So, we slowed and kept a lookout for movements in the undergrowth. Within ten minutes, we saw our first kangaroo disappear into bushes to the right, and on the opposite side of the road, an adult roo sitting in grass just off to the side. We stopped and got slowly out of the car, and the patient roo sat long enough for me to get a good look, before bounding off into the bushes. Seeing my first wild jumping roo made me feel like I was really in Oz... now all I need is a koala and a billabong, and I'll be sorted!

Both Hannah and I decided to spend a second day in the park, as the weather was so good and the previous days walking had been so good. I first hiked up to the summit of Mt. Oberon for views across the Prom, and then along a short track to Windy Saddle, through more burnt bush which made for a very stark landscape. Just as I was returning to the car park, the clouds gathered and a few spots of rain started to fall, so we both decided to retire to the hostel and prepare for a long drive north, into New South Wales, to do more hiking in the Snowy Mountains.

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Photos

Photo 5
Soaking up the surrounds

Photo 2
A kookaburra comes in to land

Photo 14
Looking out from Mt. Oberon

Photo 12
A roo!

Photo 10
I hadn't quite finished with that matey!

Comments

[Mum and Dad]

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Looked at your latest Blog in Bruges after we sent you the email, the birdlife looks colourful and we like the names of the places. Lucky you met Hannah and she had a car (never acheived that when I was your age).