Due to a thesis deadline, I could only write up the trip report and work on the photos recently.
Royal National Park-Coastal Track-Bundeena to Otford, 3rd-4th March
Party: Gisella Fiacchino, Karl Ng, Heather Gilbert, Nicholas Herold, Sang Trang, Heidi Wintermeyer and friend, Meg, Mardi and Wendy.
We all gathered together at Cronulla Station at 9:20am Saturday morning and was about to catch the 9:30 ferry to Bundeena. However, Sang had to find a proper place to leave his car, so half of us missed the ferry. We just relaxed under the sun by the wharf and waited for the next ferry. An hour later, we met up with the others at a cafe in Bundeena, and were informed that while they were waiting for us, they had consumed all the coffee in the cafe Amazing!
After about half an hour of street bashing, we entered the national park and began the coastal walk. It was a very hot day; walking on cliff top with no shade had exposed us to the strong sun for most of the day. We got to Little Marley Beach around lunch time and jumped into the water straight away to cool down from the extreme heat. We had a lot of fun swimming, followed by a long and relaxing lunch. After that, we continued walking along the coast. When arrived at Wattamolla, we were already boiling and exhausted by the heat. So we decided to have a brief stop there. However, there were lots of people and the water was rather filthy there, so only some of us went in for a swim. There, Heidi and Jo, Karl and Heather decided to turn back and stay at Little Marley for the night. It was already 4 pm and we were still far from the official campsite North Era, so the rest of us pressed on, hoping to get there before dark. But the heat didnt help and we had to stop occasionally for water breaks. Most of us had gone through almost 2 days of water just in the first day, so we had to collect water from a stream that was barely running. We got to the Garie Beach at 7:30 pm and were too tired to continue, so we set up our tents on the grassy area, and then went for a quick dip. The water was a bit too cold to swim in by that time. We cooked dinner and watched the moon rising over the headland. We enjoyed lots of interesting conversation in the night and waited a little bit for the moon eclipse, but didnt see it.
The next morning, we set off pretty early as we were warned that it would get very very hot later in the day. We stopped briefly at the carpark halfway down the beach, looking for clean water but only from the tap in the public toilet. Most of us, including myself, felt a little tired probably from the heat in the previous day. Fortunately, we bumped into a couple at Little Garie and they kindly gave us water from their water tank. We gulp down heaps of water like we havent been drinking for days. And suddenly I felt much better and realized maybe I was dehydrated. Still the walking was kinda tough with my poor fitness, especially the climb back to the top. We had a nice and relaxing lunch at a lookout, and then continued down the track to Otford Station. We finished the walk at 2:30 pm, and glad that we didn't leave it later, as the afternoon was already heated up.
The next day, I could hardly walk and had to stay home to recover from muscle pain. Sang even describe his post-walk feeling as similar to being hit by a truck. Nevertheless, it was a good walk despite the heat, and a nice group with lots of fun. Thanks everyone for coming to the walk.
Took me a while to process and upload the photos at home. Here's the link to them.
[1]http://au.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/winnie150777/album?.dir=/8059scd&.src=ph
Wendy