Early start today. Full moon though gave plenty of light to pack up and no torch needed to walk the roads and paddocks to start with.
Had a long day planned not just distance but a long beach walk and a lot of elevation change. After the walk through the roads and paddocks I came to this ridiculous hill that goes down onto Tunkalilla beach. I thought I had made a video but it didn't happen I must have double tapped as its 1 second long. However the hill is steep. Like it drops a metre every step. In the video I didn't make I mentioned any other place it would be used to abseil down but not on the Heysen.
I turned around and went down backwards using the fence as hand hold. If I slipped I would have dropped face first onto the top barbed wire. Anyway I noticed the tides the day before and wanted to walk the beach early at low tide.
The beach walk is about 6 and bit kilometres long and I really didn't want to walk up along the soft sand and rocks. It turned out to be an easy walk along a hard packed highway. I noticed Kangaroo tracks on the beach going down to the waters edge and then back up. I'm wondering whether they like the beach as much as we do.
Getting to the end of the beach I saw a lot of children running around (about 10). As I got closer I could see 1 man at the waters edge and 5 or 6 out surfing. These blokes had it right when they told the wives, we'll get the kids out of your hair and they all go down the beach for a surf and then take shifts on the beach making sure the kids don't inconveniently drown or something.
I stopped and had breakfast watching them surf and a pod of dolphins prowling? the surfline. The trail then climbs back along the cliffs. A misstep would not be nice along here. You then start winding along tracks through Deep Creek Conservation Park. The trail winds up to Tappanappa Camp area. I was impressed with this area as a campsite and would be a good base to have a look around this area.
The walk past here was a well graded walk with a lot of daytrippers and campers doing the trail to the deep creek waterfall. It was getting hot and I was dripping sweat but I climbed back up out of deep creek to another campground called Trig. My target though was a hikers camp about 5 kilometres further so it was down into another gully this track not so formed more like the Heysen I am used to.
The climb out of the gully of Tent Rock Creek this afternoon was a chore. It was the fourth major climb of the day and I was buggered. The track passed through some area that was burnt out then dropped down into the camp site.
I met couple of day hikers who were planning a moonlit walk to finish at Tapanappa camp ground around nine. I didn't have the heart to tell them that the moon wasn't rising till 8 or 9. I had walked by moonshine at 6 in the morning and it didn't set till after 7. Another group of three hikers came in about 5 but it was the two that came in at 7.30pm. It was dark and we had all left the table and were settling into our tents when they arrived by torchlight.
They weren't speaking English and I don't know whether they were tourists but the tent they carried in was 4 person coleman set-up. A very heavy tent. In a box was a blow up mattress which they then blew up with a battery powered blower. I thought to myself what other crap have they got when I heard the clinking of wine bottles. I don't know how far they walked with all this stuff. There was a road about 400 metres away so they might not have walked far. Just hope they took it all out with them.
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