NSW Coast Walk : Kiama to Bulli

KM this section : 60
KM completed : 644

Walking out of Kiama, past the lighthouse.

Unsurprisingly I make it a lazy day in Kiama, it seems a nice place, and there are actually things to see - various buildings dating from victorian times, a large lighthouse, many churches, and I see many signs for the 'blowhole', which I guess will be a sea cave with a partially collapsed roof.  But apart from getting out to do a bit of shopping, I pretty much just hang around the campsite TV room...

Basalt columns.

It really is not far to Sydney now, and not far to walk on my first day out of Kiama, just twenty-seven kilometres in fact.  The Kiama Coast Walk continues, it is still nice, passing some interesting rock formations today, some are natural, some are the results of old quarrying.  There still is a quarry here, my GPS line goes along the road to it in fact, and there look to be many lorries rumbling along it - I find a better route among houses, although for a while I worry that I am in a gated community.  Then back to the sea, good to return to a beach, except, oops, it seems to be being dug up - there is a new marina under construction it seems, there are many danger signs, and on the beach a massive bulldozer is slowly shifting sand about.  Of course, I backtrack and walk around on the road, going through the construction site would be bad and wrong, and I certainly wouldn't want to spend the rest of the afternoon worrying whether somebody there called the police to report me for trespassing...  Well, I make it to camp, at a place named Windang, by 5pm, for the third night in a row I'm at a proper site.  And there is a nearby bowling club where it is schnitzel night - like the Kiwis, the Aussies like their schnitzel, although over here they still generally make it with chicken.

There is a beach somewhere under all that.

I walk out of Windang along a busy road, looks like there's not much land between the sea and the (very large) Lake Illawarra, what isn't this road is houses or a huge golf complex.  I do expect to leave the road after a few kilometres, but, it turns out the GPS line runs along a railway line, not ideal in this country where, unlike America, trains are fairly frequent and go faster than walking pace.  So, I walk along a cycle path instead, which is absolutely fine, for all that it is beside a six lane highway, with a truly enormous steel works between me and the sea.  The afternoon is rather better, I'm still on the cycle path, but it's now a nice route along the coast.  And it is another short day, I reach (another paid) camp for 4:30pm and this evening I find a 'workers club', I must say I approve of Australia's clubs, I have visited a few now and they are generally comfy, and are happy to provide non members like me with food - massive fish and chips tonight - and beer.

Windang Bridge, over the Lake Illawarra inlet.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.