Up and down the rocky coast

This day was announced as the most demanding - and it was true. We went up and down the coastline from the hilltops to the beach, along the beach and then back to the hilltops for some 18 km in warmth and sunshine. Yes, it was a challenge, but it was bearable and it was great. During the beach parts, it's certainly important to keep your feet from getting soaked and soft and sandy - one needs them for another long walk and there is no way of cutting it short and taking the bus instead. I for instance also left my heavy DSLR camera at home and took a small elder Pentax instead. Apart from the Hooded Plovers encounter, that was certainly a good idea.

On the beach, we found Abalones collected by divers. This snail is valuable and sought-after in Asian countries, especially Japan. Even though it seems a lot of them live at the Australian South coast, their collection is strictly limited - maybe that's only why. So we put it back where we found it.

A little highlight on the beach was the encounter with a pair of Hooded Plovers. Several signposts before had told us they were endangered and people should watch out not to disturb them. As they are small birds, one may walk past them without realizing and we certainly did with their nest. The nests of seabirds are normally very well camouflaged so one may step on eggs and chicks without the faintest intension to do so. So we withstood the temptation to find one of these fluffy chicks, tryed to get some acceptable pictures from the distance and walked by.

Looking back to where we came from.

After the exausting part of the trail the choice was to complete the track on our own feet or getting picked up by the bus from the lodge. We decided to be ambitioned and indeed, the last bit was quicker completed than expected. Chances are this is only an intermediate state as the walk is not only under continous maintenance by 4 people, it's still under improvement, too. Some parts we walked were only opened since days or weeks. So maybe this road will soon be history, too.