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Published: April 9th 2019
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Day 56 Torbay to Muttonbird 12.4km (and a bit)
7km of beach walking today including a potentially big stream and the Torbay Inlet (seasonally opened up recently by either the Water Corp or the Denmark Council). According to the tide charts high tide is at 08:00, we are on schedule for a bit after that (not much after though). It's a sunny, gusty day as Meg and I head out. A pattern has emerged- we go then Pete and Phil an hour later, we get into camp and then they appear an hour later. Works well.
We are on the beach pretty quickly, sand's not too bad. The sky and sea distract us from the extra workload. Reach the first of the streams- very manageable. The second one not so much. If this one's so massive how's the Torbay Inlet going to be?!! Whip out the guidebook and follow the instructions to the wooden bridge then things go slightly awry. We end up completely confused with a number of 4WD track options. A very big, barking, ferocious dog then appears, then another- serious scary moment until a fellow emerges from the bush and grabs them. He offers
us directions of how to get back down onto the beach and we high tail it past his camp. Very pleased to see the beach again!
The next hurdle emerges- crossing the rocks to get around the headland. It was about as scary as the dogs actually except there was no one to hold the tide back! We rock scrambled very cautiously, it makes it much more difficult when you have a pack that pulls at your centre of gravity... and it's slippery. The waves were threatening but we climbed as high as we could safely. Kept thinking about king waves and drowned fishermen. Once around the rocks the next approaching hurdle was the Torbay Inlet. Sure was looking wide! We contemplated a bunch of different ways to cross - went up towards the river to see how shallow it was - not. Went down to the ocean part- the waves kept surging through. Local surfer offered us his board- hmm, it didn't seem feasible. Local surfer offered us a ride around- nope, cheating. Contemplated the 19km detour... for a few minutes. At this point Pete and Phil caught us up an we decided we'd watch them - if
they managed it, well... we totally could. They did, so we stripped off and did it too. The water was up to my undies (most other people's knees), the waves brought it waist high. We had put everything in our packs in a dry bag so got away with it fairly unscathed (also took heed of safety instructions not to do pack hip belt up).
Awesome!
Exciting!
Treated ourselves to a cuppa and biscuits in the sand dunes - all the while the 4 of us getting sand blasted- a fine cup of instant coffee with instant milk powder!
The beach walking came to an end with the Mutton Bird car park - ascended the stairs and promptly got blown away. Stellar views. Cyclonic wind.
The next few km's into Mutton Bird were easy, back to coastal scrub, some banksias, a ridge or two and a kangaroo (not really- no kangaroos, but it fit the sentence nicely).
Starving- rationing begins!
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