The Longer Hike

Hello!
Last Tuesday I did one of my ‘guided walks’ with the aim to walk up the coast to fossick for shells etc.
Two ladies came along that are friends of mine (Kaz and Marilyn)

The weather was spot on that day!!
And check out this – I either have never seen this or didn’t register it in my brain because I didn’t know what it was

Marilyn explained that it was a stingray that had fooffed about in the sand at high tide leaving the body and tail imprint!
How fabulous!

We continued up the coast navigating those rocky shores

Its not a fast place to hike thats for sure

Takes a while to carefully pick your way across and then up and down even more jagged outcrops.

The ladies were still in good spirits and I was asking the sea gods to PLEASE make sure the shells were still on the beach that I was aiming for haha

The small creek runoff that I was expecting was a LOT wider than usual.
I stomped over it but Kaz and Marilyn adopted a daintier approach that saved their feet from getting wet.

At least no-one fell in…

Always so much to look at on the shores

As usual great textures in the rocks and sand

It was taking a while to get to my fossicking beach!

Some interesting sponges – mostly orange

We even came across that hell-stinky-not-ambergris sponge (I didn’t get a photo and nor did I touch it!!)

Amazingly bright colour!

We spent some time on the shell beach although with the recent weather, there were more rocks than shells than usual
We had lunch there and at that point Marilyn was quite emphatic about NOT going back over the rocks to our start point.
So I figured we’d walk on and up to the inland track and double back

Goodbye jagged rocky beaches and hello scrubby pathways!

Sometimes almost monochromatic landscape!

Finally coming out of the gloom

Where we started to get fabulous coastal views

We were then to ‘take a short cut’ across the hills to meet up with the inland track to take us back.

Its been a while since I have done this and I GROSSLY underestimated the distance. You can see Cathedral Rocks so at this point we were closer to Rocky Cape than Sisters by a long shot.
And Blandfordia Hill went on and on and on and oooonnnnnn

(and up)

Yes the views were stunning but I was a little concerned about the ladies and this unexpected extended hike.
Kaz had mentioned it was a bit of a dream of hers to hike from one end to the other… little did she know…

We got some really lovely rainbows too

(Still going up)

Some cloud drama

The afternoon light was so rich.

Still smiling! And still no sign of the inland track!!! Yipes

When we finally reached the inland track junction there was a sign that said we had 2.5 hours to reach Sisters Beach (and our cars) or 50 minutes to get to Rocky Cape (no cars)
We started off to Sisters and then I thought to ask the time!!
4pm!!!
We were going to be hiking in the dark which wasn’t optimal!

Luckily Marilyns husband was willing to drive over to Rocky Cape and collect us and deposit us back to the cars, so we doubled back and headed to Rocky Cape instead!
Epic. We were out for about 7 hours and finished up right on sundown!
Poor Marilyn – she was about done in by the last bit but wow… she did amazing.
Later she said she shaped up ok and was really proud of her achievement as she never would have deliberately done that walk but totally loved it!
Kaz was also a bit sore but was thrilled to tick that walk from end to end off her ‘to do’ list!
I was just glad I got everyone back in one piece and we all had such a good day even though it was a bit unexpectedly long!

Until next time!!
Cheers