Day 32: Royal National Park
Kilometres driven: 204km
Kilometres walked: 13km
Diesel: 0
Food: 0
Ice: $9
This morning’s drive took us past a sign that told us we were 100km from Sydney and the alarm bells began to go off in our minds. Sydneysiders were the last thing we wanted to encounter after a month in the lazy villages of the south coast. We stopped off in Helensburgh to make breakfast and a delightful lady made a passing comment in our direction that included a most offensive f word. I needed to remind myself that her desperate unhappiness was not my problem but, while I wished I was zen enough to let her issues slide like water off a duck’s back, I stewed on them for a good hour or so. From every negative there is surely a lesson to learn and from this one I will take: “Know that your words affect people often more than you realise. Be kind. Always.” Another goody to remember might be “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” Turns out all of our parents were onto something when they continued to repeat this one like a broken record.
Driving into Royal National Park was eerie. A bushfire had been through leaving blackened trees and melted signs in its wake. A reminder of just how easily these things happen. We pulled into Wattamolla Beach Parking Area and hunted around for somewhere to pay our parking fee. We are, after all, law abiding citizens. Not able to locate any kind of booth, we left the ranger a lovely note explaining our predicament before heading off towards our destination of Wedding Cake Rock.
The Coastal Track took us on an incredible path. Most of it was raised boardwalk so was an easy trek. We followed sandstone cliffs and had endless views of the ocean. It was the perfect day for it with blue skies, a hot sun and a light breeze to cool us ever so slightly as we walked. As we approached Little Marley Beach, Chris spotted a mermaid pool. He is well trained now to spot them from great distances. We made it our mission to get down there and enjoyed two swims in two separate pools as the waves broke and fishies swam by. A lovely way to break up the hike.
Continuing on we passed along two beaches and more incredible views of The Pacific before arriving to a fenced off Wedding Cake Rock. While we were allowed to venture to cliff edges right the way along our hike, this edge was out of bounds. We took in what views we could, snacked on a hot cross bun before retracing our steps back along Marley Beach, along the sandstone cliff tops and back to Veruca.
By that stage we were hot and bothered so we ditched our boots and trekked on down to Wattamolla Beach for a cooling swim. While the showers our app promised us weren’t in working order, at least we had enjoyed a quick rinse.
Thankfully, the ranger hadn’t bothered about our lack of parking permit so we high-tailed it out of there, like good law-abiding citizens, and skipped town as quickly as possibly and made a run for The Blue Mountains.
Driving west towards the Blue Mountains meant driving through Sydney’s Western suburbs. We braced ourselves for being back in a city but bracing ourselves was apparently not enough. It’s only been a month since we were amongst the hustle and bustle of Melbourne. But one month it seems is all it takes to grow accustomed to life at a slower pace. The honking, the highways, the speed at which everything seemed to be happening was amplified and we did not like it one little bit. From this, I take away a few lessons because, like it or not, we’ll probably be living in a city come June.
I think it’s important to step out of the city every now and then. To go further than the outer suburbs, than the Great Ocean Road, than Dalesford. To really get away. Drive for 10 hours and go from there. And when you go, preferably go for longer than a weekend. Then, when you arrive back in the city, you are more aware of the chaos. Then, you can make a conscious choice to be aware of getting accidentally caught up in the rush of it all. That’s what I’ll be doing anyway. 10 weeks in Nepal ought to be a good way to start before we hit the big smoke of BrisVegas.
Once we made it out of the lower mountains, the traffic began to fade. We took a stop in Faulconbridge for a toilet break and some snacks. We hadn’t eaten a proper meal since breakfast and 13km of hiking had us both ravenous. Turns our Sir Henry Parkes was buried just around the corner. Neither Chris nor I had any idea who he was until we googled him…the “Father of Federation” for those playing at home. Once satisfied, we continued into the mountains and on to Old Ford Reserve in Megalong Valley. We cooked dinner to the sounds of a large group of fellow campers yelling, boozing and cranking their electronica. No thank you. We relocated to the other side of the camping group, despite the anxiety that raised for me. When I told Chris I didn’t want them to know that they were the reason for our relocation, he said he hoped that they were well aware.
We had another group of quieter campers pull up beside us about an hour later. After they spent some time setting up a city of gazebos, swags, portable showers and a kitchen, they settled and so did we. We left the van briefly to go to the bathroom and our head torches lit up two glowing eyes staring back at us. We all stood and stared at each other for a time before our little friend took off back to wherever he had come from. He moved like a fox, but was more wombat shaped so we settled on assuming he was an agile baby wombat and called it a night.
