Dawn from South-west Point

Dawn from South-west Point

To get to this spot we left Tidal River at midday on Friday planning to get to Enclave Creek by nightfall. About halfway down the heavens opened and informed me extremely effectively that it was time to reproof my megabuck Gortex jacket. Twenty-one km later at South Point drenched and with darkness approaching we dismissed the Enclave Creek idea and happily retreated to our shelter for a well earned dinner and rest. Our main worry being about the feasibility of completing such a trip if the weather didn’t improve.

We needn’t have worried with the next day dawning bright and clear. Rising before dawn I gave all of my five and a half kilograms of camera gear a work out in the magical first rays of the day. I took my time so as to give my gear a chance to dry and thinking that the two days we had allowed to cover the next ten kilometres was ample for the task at hand anyway. On one hand I was expecting this walk to be one of the toughest I had ever done but from my view of the nearby coast I wasn’t expecting those difficulties to start until around South-west Point. So casual was my approach that I decided to fill my water bottle en route rather than at the nearby creek. Boy was that an error of judgment.

It started easy enough but soon enough we were forced inland as the cliffs grew shear and our low level rock climbing and rock hoping grew more dangerous. See a you tube clip of my brother negotiating one of these traverses here . Incidentally this clip was of one of the easier traverses on which no-one actually got wet.

So dense was the inland scrub that our progress slowed to a crawl with only a few hundred meters an hour being covered. Eventually we stopped at Enclave Creek for ‘lunch’ at 4:00pm after checking out Enclave Creek Falls and satisfying our by now very parched throats. We decided that we needed to make South-west Point by nightfall to give us a hope of completing our trip the next day. Four hours later exhausted but happy we completed the one kilometre traverse between Enclave Creek and the point by torchlight. In ten hours of hard walking that day we had covered a mere two and a half kilometres. We had however scored one of the only spaces large enough to pitch a tent in that we had seen all day.

The next morning was one of rapturous delight, experience the new day from a place that a mere handful have ever experienced it from before. The location and light were stunning although it was slightly disheartening to see yesterdays start point so close at hand despite our efforts (visible as the furthest narrow headland on the left of the shot). The islands from left to right are East Moncoeur Island (102m), Devil’s Tower (faint island on horizon, 111m), West Moncoeur Island (97m), Wattle Island (leaving the frame on the right 82m). I’ve been told that it is possible to cross Bass Strait between Victoria and Tasmania without loosing sight of land, so numerous are these islands. All the islands in this shot except Wattle Island are in Tasmanian territory.

By 7:15 we were off on another huge day enjoying all the scrub, granite, coast, creek and mountain joy this part of the world could throw at us. Twelve hours later we had covered the six kilometers necessary to reach easier ground at Oberon Bay. From here it was a mere 8km of on track walking which we covered in a little over an hour by torch light revelling in the ease of unrestricted travel before the drive home to sleep in our own beds.

For more shots from this area check out my Wilsons Promontory gallery.

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