FRIGID AIR

Day 9,  May 4, 2022

Fish Creek – Wilsons Promitory National Park – Cape Paterson – Phillip Island

We are slowly beginning to realise that heading south in late autumn in a La Niña year is not such a great idea. Today winter arrived. Not at first,  but soon after we finished hiking to the summit of Mt Oberon on Wilsons Promitory.

The day dawned with a beautiful pink sunrise. Jupiter and Venus were still visible in the morning sky.

Wisons Promitory National Park is located about 55 km from Fish Creek.  We arrived at the trailhead to Mt Oberon summit walk in fine weather.  It didn’t take long for a sweat to start on the steep uphill walk. Birdsong was ringing through the tall gums fringed by tree ferns.  My knee felt so good I felt like I could run, were it not for the spiking heart rate. It didn’t take long before we were walking through dense fog as we rose towards the summit. Three and a half kilometres in 45 minutes we were at the completely fogged in summit. LouSeal finally came out of her two and half year hibernation and posed for a photo at the summit trig marker.

The descent was a bit trickier for my knee but we made it back OK.  We drove to the beautifully named Squeaky Beach and walked along the shoreline being blasted by cold Antarctic winds. Huge granite boulders framed the fine white sands of the beach.   On a day like today its hard to imagine this being a swimming beach. 

By the time we left the beach the rain arrived and the temperature dropped to single digits.  A swim in the emerald green waters of the Blue Pool in Bermagui felt like a lifetime ago.

Our plan going  forward will need to be reconsideration. It is predicted to rain for the next 8 days with temperatures in the low 10s °C. This is as cold as Sydney ever gets in winter.

We drove west along the coast toward Cape Paterson, stopping briefly at Venus Bay. This section on the coastline is reminiscent of the Great Ocean Road further to the west. The change in the geology was startling. Gone were the smooth  granite boulders replaced by eroded sandstone features. We stopped at Eagles Nest. A few surfers were out in the cold blasting wind. The sky tried to show some blue colour before being swallowed by ominous grey clouds.

Quite a dramatic landscape. But all I could think about was a warm shower and getting out of this cold wind.

We stopped for the day in San Remo  at the entrance to Phillip Island listening to rain falling on a tin roof.