Be advised: This post is (necessarily) long due to the dramatic and harrowing adventure being recounted. Some portions may be unsuitable for children and some adults.
A week or so ago I convinced Vincent that we should go hike the Coast Walk, a 23-26km (14-16 miles) trail that meanders along the coast as part of the Royal National Park. I had been tipped off to this “day trip” by a WeekendNotes email that said it was a gorgeous hike full of beautiful everything. I was sold. The email also said that the hike can be completed in one day by fit people, even though many choose to camp-out overnight and make it a weekend away. I put it down on the calendar for Saturday; afterall, I don’t camp and Vincent and I are “fit” people. Or so I thought. This proves to be the first of many mis-calculations made by me on this trip.
The second mis-calculation occurred as we bought train tickets. I had explained to the ticket-seller-man that we wanted to get off at Cronulla but would be returning from Otford because we’d be walking the Coast Walk in between. His reply, “You can’t walk that trail in one day. It’s impossible.” As I think back now, perhaps I should have taken his warning more seriously. But at the time, I just calmly explained that my sources said otherwise and that we were in a hurry to catch our train.
After the train ride and ferry to Bundeena we made our way to the start of the trail. The day was sunny and crisp—perfect for our hike! We started at 10:30 in the morning (after taking a short detour down the wrong trail) and were immediately greeted with a gorgeous skyline of Sydney! Also, I had already started to notice some lovely little birds coloured in bright yellow, black, and white. They seemed to follow along with us, twittering among the wildflowers. “This is going to be a great day,” I thought to myself. The trail headed straight to the coast—well, at least to the very high, sheer cliffs separating us from the ocean. So, SO beautiful. The ocean here is crystal green and blue and when the waves slam into the rocks below they’d break into the whitest white. If we had just seen this view over and over the whole day, I would have been happy.
After some time, we started our first descent—to Marley beach. The water looked pretty inviting, but unfortunately we still had a long hike ahead and didn’t have time for a dip (and let’s be real, there’s no way on the planet I would have gotten into that water anyway—WAY too cold and WAY too many deadly animals swimming around. Vincent however was a little disappointed). This is where we discovered how hard it is to “hike” across golden-sandy beaches. This is also when I first started to get anxious about how fast we were walking compared to how far we had to go. This nagging apprehension would only manifest over the course of the day ultimately testing Vincent’s patience with my Type-A personality (otherwise known as the personality that likes to ensure survival from the harsh elements of the natural world—why do you think I don’t camp-out?).
In spite of this, the scenery was breathtaking (both figuratively and literally). We trekked up mountains, down mountains, up more mountains, down more mountains—winding our way through all kinds of forests, over pristine beaches, climbing our way back up more cliffs that were placed there just to challenge our understanding of the concept of “being fit.”
We reached Wattamolla in about 2.5 hours. Vincent and I took a rest gazing at the ocean eating our sandwiches contemplating the second half of our trek. Could we make it in time? The sun, we reckoned, would set around 5:30 or so—leaving us 4.5 hours to go 15kms. With no time to waste, we headed onward—leaving all the Asian tourists and families with little babies to their cars and amenities—like toilets—for the open trail. Picking up the pace we made our way into new scenery—a bit away from the ocean through this kind of bush-forest. We were sure we were going to see snakes—but I guess it’s still a bit cold for them, thank whoever-I-need-to-thank-for-that. Even though all seems peachy, I (and hopefully Vincent) was really starting to get worried about finishing before dark. We kept seeing different mile markers and we never knew how fast we were going. The cliffs we kept having to walk over instead of around was one sure factor for our slow progress—but I mean come on, we had to look around some of the time too, or the whole trip would be a waste. We started walking faster though…and it started getting hotter. The mountains kept getting steeper and bigger. I was getting tired. And we still had hours to go.
Then we reached Garie and environs. Full of little shoddy cabins—Garie would have been a perfect stopping place for the day. Right at a gorgeous beach with a canteen—sigh, what were we thinking?! Did I mention it was really hot, and we had been hiking for like four hours? As we started scaling this grassy “hill” cursing mother nature—Vincent came across our first bit of land-dwelling wildlife: an echidna!!!! These ridiculous creatures are awesome and I have been wanting to find one in the wild since I got here. The poor thing though was scared out of her mind and just froze in the grasses—so we couldn’t get a look at her face. I considered picking her up—but for all I know echidnas can spit fatal saliva or some crazy nonsense. So we left her alone—and moved forward, our spirits just a bit higher.
Our good mood abruptly, and I mean abruptly, ended when we descended to the next beach. Do you know what a masked lapwing is? Vincent or I must have gotten too close to his/her nest, because before I knew it Vincent was running like mad and screaming for me to follow him. I didn’t even see the bird. I did see his shadow when he’d attack me from behind, swooping a few centimetres from my head. We were on a beach! What kind of birds have nests in the middle of a beach!? I kept running—it was so hard on the soft sand. I didn’t know what to do. My legs were going to quit soon and I knew then I’d be dead (this may be a slight exaggeration). The bird flew so fast…I couldn’t breathe. Vincent turned around and stopped running—I fell to a halt trying to catch a breath—then as I looked up I saw his face change. He screamed, “No, he’s coming back! Run Lindsay!” I grabbed my jacket and started waving it in circles above my head—I wanted to cry—I couldn’t make it to the end of the beach. I was ready to just crumple to the ground and brace for impact when the crazy bird decided we had enough and went back to his nest. Have you seen Land of the Lost when Will Ferrell is running from the T-rex? That was us. In all of the same zigzag glory.
When we reached the end of the beach—I had had about enough. Just in time for another mountain to scale. And we had lost the trail—it disappeared amongst all the petite cottages that we were not spending the night in. I stopped to ask a group of beer and wine-drinkers if they knew where to the trail was, and a god-honest Aussie in his budgie-smugglers with his plastic glass of white happily pointed us in the right direction (while trying to convince us to stay for a beer).
Now, we had 6-10 kms to go and only a few more hours of daylight. To put it simply, we started booking it. We hurried through a scary forest of huge palm trees over some more mountains through trenches up to our shoulders (all the while questioning if we were going the right way). The signs stopped and we found ourselves squinting to find our way through the darkening sky. I, at this point, was freaking out. Vincent stayed positive—but maybe he was just trying to prevent me from having a meltdown—isn’t he just a great guy? I told him I was sorry I got him into this mess—and that if we ever made it, I would never ask him to do such a silly thing again. I reviewed my lack of research and cursed my various miscalculations throughout the day.
Needless to say, much of the beautiful scenery in the last K’s were lost on us—but that’s okay because the minute I saw the highway with cars on it I felt a kind of relief rush over me that I have rarely felt. This was a near-near death experience. I’m sure of it. We had hiked for 7.5 hours probably equalling over 28 kms (17 miles). We got to the deserted train station and waited in the freezing cold for two hours—but it didn’t matter, because we could make it back to our concrete jungle that we know and love so much.
Epilogue:
We couldn’t walk right for the next few days—I am so glad I take pilates now or I’d be in much worse shape. And I think an investment into proper hiking shoes could be beneficial. An adventure for sure, but Vincent suggested that we stick to exploring Sydney for the next few months. I agreed immediately. See the full adventure here in photos!
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