Duke Of The Hazards

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes"
- Marcel Proust

Today was a real adventure, over 5 hours of walking including a 454 meter boulder climb. But first, the beginning. I left White Beach and drove all the way past Triabunna and up to Coles Bay.

The above pictures were taken at a little spot on the way. But it's clear conditions were gloomy. However getting closer to my intended destination, I passed through Swansea and the clouds started to clear a bit. Then I got to the Oyster Bay lookout

That's more like it.

The rest of the journey featured the usual twisty roads, and after paying for my 24 hour car pass I stopped to look at the Friendly Beaches.

The beaches seemed popular with surfers, but I wasn't interested in these beaches as I wanted to see Wineglass Bay. Getting closer to the park The Hazards came into view,

Quite an awesome sight. The Hazards are a group of mountains in Freycinet National Park and later I would try to climb one of them.

Past Coles Bay I made a b-line straight for the Wineglass Track car park as that is where the walks all start from. The walks vary from 20 minutes to 5 days, but one 'walk' stood out for me.

Amus, it sounds like anus, therefore it is funny.

Substantial is the right amount of hazard for me!

The start was simple and easy to follow, like a tutorial level.

But the moment I passed this sign...

The difficulty increased in the form of slippery boulders and steep rocks to traverse. Soon after passing this sign a man passed me as he headed back down. He said that conditions were too slippery for him. I glanced at his shoes, they looked like they cost more than my van rental and if they couldn't stick to what they were designed to stick to then maybe this would be a tad too much. But my work boots and I were up for a challenge, so I proudly said 'Oh, OK, well I'll just see how it goes' like the super tough guy I am and I continued onwards and upwards.

The route was marked by these ribbons, but there were occasions when the ribbons were hard to see.

As the altitude increased so did the difficulty. Small streams of water flowed over the already smooth face of the mountain and I almost thought it wasn't worth the risk.

However, I crossed paths with a couple who had been to the top and my manhood basically sent the 'well if these two can do it...' message to my brain. With new vigour I continued upwards.

Coles Bay

I guess this is a load bearing rock?

And then the cloud rolled over the horizon.

With the clouds coming in, many sensible people would think 'maybe this is high enough, I'd better get down before it rains', but sensible is not my style, just ask my bank manager. I continued as I went out to climb this rock and I wasn't going to let some pansy weather system stop me!

Around an hour and 30 minutes from the start of my ascent I reached the summit...

Well, 'a' summit.

The path had actually gone down a bit before going back up, but I missed that, so I back tracked and went up a small valley to find...

 Wineglass Bay (although it was a bit of a cloudy wine glass)

A quick snack and then the wind picked up a bit. But before it did I noticed the whole mountain was eerily silent. No birds, no insects, nothing, only the crashing of the waves on the bay below. But I now wanted to get down there and see the beach up close, but to do that I would have to spend some time getting off the side of this 454 meter rock.

I can jump that...

...um... maybe not.

90 minutes later I was back on the ground, you know, the ground that doesn't have you sliding 450 meters downwards if you lose your footing. I then turned left and set off to see Wineglass Bay.

At least this route had stairs

20 minutes of walking and I reached Coles Bay lookout.

Great, but the Wineglass lookout was another 20 minutes away, so no time to mess about.

Pictured: Messing about

On the way to Wineglass lookout I crossed paths with the guy that didn't climb the mountain earlier. He seemed marginally impressed with my feat, I held back my alpha male boasting that my manliness demanded I spout, then we went in separate directions as I really wanted to get to the beach lookout before the sun set.

The lookout? But this isn't much closer than looking from atop a mountain. I needed to get closer, to feel the spray of the ocean, to get sand on my boots. So I took the decision to walk the 30 minutes to get onto the beach properly.

 I would have gotten there sooner, but the plants were quite interesting, like this dead twisted tree (above) and the fern thing (below)

Then I made it and set foot on a beach so clean it could be used in a Daz advert.

Well, clean apart from the giant seaweed

The light was disappearing, so I had to make the one hour walk back to the car park, which was the point my legs started crying as I hadn't exactly been 'eating well' today, unless a banana and two apples for lunch is 'well'.

By the time I got back to Aztec, the sun was down and my stomach was rumbling. So down to Coles Bay we went.

And avoiding the wildlife expertly.

I stopped in to the Iluka Tavern for a swift half pint of Boags and fresh local mussels in chilli tomato broth. Delicious stuff! Then up the road again to stop into the free campsite they have here. You're supposed to ask the Information Visitor Centre place which bays available, but the place was shut and nobody was in the campsite so I've just parked up and now I'm going to bed as I fully intend on returning to Wineglass before sunrise as the beach faces out to the East, which happens to be where the sun rises. So goodnight ladies and gentlemen, now to play us out, here's Captain Kirk talking about why he is climbing a mountain...

And here's the third wallaby photo for today, did you spot them all, boys and girls?