KM this section : 111
KM completed : 584
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| Él no es marinero / es capitán, es capitán... |
I awake to see that Green Island is now properly out to sea, good thing I didn't camp there... Time to walk then, and yes, this means a beach or three - I confess, I am beginning to get a little bored of them. It is easy walking at least, as far as lunch anyway, I eat beside Sussex Inlet which bars my way north, and seems very wide. Well, the GPS line follows the bank inland, so I do also, then come to a point at which the line crosses the water, right next to a boat hire place, hmm. Well, no need for me to swim all of them, so, a bearded nautical type takes me over for a mere ten dollars. No sooner am I back on dry land, than I spot an echidna making its way across the track ahead, Australia continues to impress with its weird fauna. From here a long gravel road takes me past the substantial St. George's Basin, and then off back towards the sea, but then the track vanishes, and I am faced with a kilometre or so of insane bushwhacking. The brush is sometimes chest high, and I worry about what creatures may be lurking in it, other than the massive spiders who I can at least see overhead, sat in their giant webs which I try to duck under. It is a great relief to rejoin a real path, then not long after I am at my planned campsite - sadly I find it is now just a picnic area, so, off into the woods it is then.
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| Looking over the Crookhaven, from where I entered the water. |
Another day, and of course another beach, and then the longest swim yet, a channel busy with pleasure craft, whale watching boats and so forth. I wait for a pause in the traffic, then clamber down the piled up boulders into the water, taking a few cuts and scrapes on the way, and then swim. A strong current is flowing inland, better than out to sea I guess... I'm swept along rather faster than I can swim, but still make steady progress, perpendicular to the current as it were, and indeed as the inlet is curved I return to dry land pretty much where I intended, and only bleeding a little. More beach walking in my pants ensues, then more water to cross, just a wade this time, and then a nice cycle path. Leaving yet another beach, my GPS won't turn on, this is not a good time, the wood I'm in is some kind of mosquito hell, still I manage to go the right way and eventually the thing decides to work again. On to, seriously, yet more water, namely the river Crookhaven. I follow the line and get to a small jetty, and realise it must at this point be the record of boat trip - no boats about now, I fear... So, I slog through mangrove swamp to find the best point to cross, the water still looks very wide, but it has to be done. I set to stripping off and packing up, manage to shed some more blood too, slicing my finger on a shell... Then the swim, this takes a while, the other side just doesn't seem to be getting any nearer, I have to remind myself that this happens with walking too. There is at least not much current, and eventually I get to the other side, which unexpectedly has a bar, I cannot resist, bring on beer plus pizza, yay. Then a kilometre or two of night walking, first on road, then a farm track, private land I guess, no help for it, not least I need to find somewhere to camp - a flat bit of grass by some trees will do.
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| More crazy Australian animals. |
Sure enough, I awake in a field, complete with cows, well, got away with it. The tracks here are up on embankments, I guess this is a drained lagoon, it all feels kind of Dutch. A short walk and I am looking at yet more water to cross, except this time I can take the Comerong Island ferry, well maybe - the guy in charge tells me sternly that no foot passengers are allowed, but no, this is Aussie humour. Ha ha. Comerong Island is very flat, there are more cows, and also horrid flies of the 'really want to land on your head' kind, I am glad to walk off on to a sandbank - seems that currently the island is not, in fact, an island. Then, shockingly, a beach - a long, long beach, all the way to the small town of Gerroa. Here my GPS line makes another odd choice, going through a house, heading for a stretch of private land by the looks of it. I opt for a roadside cycle path instead, them for the rest of the afternoon take the Kiama Coast Walk, a fine cliff path leading to, of course, the historic town of Kiama. Here I book into a proper campsite, and unsurprisingly head out to find beer plus burger, in a rather odd bar - beer is cheap, but I could do without the youths routing snippets of terrible music from their phones through to some kind of amplifier.
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| Possible location of pot of gold : Kiama. |
Photos to go with this post can be found here.
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