Of beach, desert and mountain

After my hectic overseas traveling schedule over the last few months, I finally get back into more active bushwalking with Melbourne University Mountaineering Club (MUMC). I had been on trips every alternate weekends since I came back to Down Under. Unfortunately, since Violet was busy with studies as she entered the final semester of medical school, she did not come on any of the trips with me.

To get myself back into shape for more strenuous trips, I went on a beginner’s trip to Wilson Promontory National Park during uni spring break. Scenic view and easy-going group of people (I think there were 13 of us) made it an awesome trip. We left Melbourne on Friday night and camped at the Tidal River campsite on the first night. The next morning, we went on a short trip to the Squeaky Beach (it really squeaks when you walk on it!) on the other side of Tidal River, where we had breakfast on the beach. Then we went back to the campsite, and drove up to the Telegraph Saddle, before setting off for the hike across the prom to Sealers Cove on the east coast, where we camped for the night. There was shower every now and then throughout the day, and as the campsite was pretty muddy, and few of our tents were soaked with water, we decided to move to the Rangers Hut. The next day we walked for another 12km or so down south along the east coast of the Prom to Waterloo Bay. We had a short break at Refuge Cove on the way and few of the guys had a quick ’swim’ in the sea. On the last day, I went on the longer route with half of the group across the prom to the Oberon Bay and all the way back north to Tidal River, whereas half of the group went on a shorter route to the Telegraph Saddle to pick up the car and meet up with us at the Tidal River.

The next trip was to the Little Desert National Park, some 5 hour drive away on the western region of Victoria. It is not a desert per se, but most of the park was of arid landscape due to poor soil with little water. There were seven of us on this trip, and this was the longest bush-walk I have been to, in terms of distance covered, but it was largely flat with little/ no elevation. We covered 21km on the first day, from Kiata camp to Yellow Gum camp, 13km on the second day to Mallee camp, and another 21km back to Kiata camp on the last day (a total of approximately 55km over 3 days!). It was really nice to have campfire at the Yellow Gum campsite as it was quite chilly at night. Though the view was not spectacular, nonetheless the long bushwalk was a good preparation for the Melbourne half marathon I was due to run in the following weekend.

My latest trip was up to Mount Feathertop, the second highest peak in Victoria, in the Alpine National Park. Though it wasn’t my first snow experience, I find it to be particularly tough as the last two snow trips (to Mount Buller) was largely touristy trips, whereas for this trip, I have to carry a backpack and walk on thick snow for about 13km all the way up to the summit! We went up via Razorback, and the last push up the summit was hard, but the view from the top was awesome, especially as the sun was about to set. We didn’t stay on top of the summit for long as we had to rush to the MUMC hut before it got dark. We slept in dome-shaped MUMC hut for the night, and went down via Bungalow Spur the next day.

I reckon I shall be taking a short break from bushwalking for now as I prepare for the Japan trip in a few weeks time. And I shall look forward to more bushwalking over the summer, after completion of my year-long BMedSc research and before the commencement of the hectic final year medical school in mid January next year!

Note: Though I am not a big fan of liquor, I am gradually getting accustomed to the ‘practice’ of bringing port (or liquor of some sort) on bushwalking trips (as if the backpack is not heavy enough!) and have a good drink after the daylong of walking!