Day 12 – Refuge Cove to Roaring Meg

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I wake before dawn with my tarp pitched high and watch the rising glow of daylight spread across the cove from the comfort of my hammock. We eat breakfast on the steps above the beach. I can think of few nicer ways to start the day.

We’ve got a 22km, 1200m day ahead of us; nothing we haven’t done before, but it’s a significant amount of climbing by the standards of this particular walk. The morning is bright and warm and still.

As we climb the headland and begin to descend to Little Waterloo, the wind we’ve been sheltered from picks up and whips about us. Wind or no, it’s a gorgeous day for walking.

We try to rock-hop around the little headland to Freshwater Creek, but hit an impassable section and return. As we do, we see a group of hikers who had apparently started to follow us notice our return and also turn around. When we clamber up a wombat trail to the track, they choose not to follow us for a second time.

The long spit of beach is fantastically beautiful, and windscoured beyond measure. At the south end it enters the trees and begins to climb gently but ceaselessly.

A haiku:

Azure sea, hills, trees
Jaw slack at untold beauty
Mouth fills with windblown sand

We pass an inviting broad rock with expansive views. Robyn laments that it’s too early for lunch at such a nice spot, and determined to keep walking and find somewhere else. I hadn’t even considered stopping. I think I need to learn to take more breaks.

We figure there might be a nice spot on top of the climb, and there’s a helipad marked on one of the maps, but when we get up there any view is hidden behind an impenetrable wall of wind-shielding teatree. We decide to push through to the lighthouse.

The thing I love about climbing mountains is the view at the top

I find myself scanning the sides of the track for orchids, but all I see are pretty sundews and [insert flower name].

The track is excellent; a single lane cut into the side of the hill, never rising or falling too steeply. It pops out to take in a couple of lookouts, and where it crosses creeks, large stepping stones have been emplaced. This is granite country, and it sings a song wildly different in so many ways, but with a refrain that calls faintly back to Namadgi.

The ascent to the lighthouse is a steep concrete ramp, and we slog our way up it slowly and purposefully. For the last few days we’ve been making a point of stopping every five kilometres or so to rest our feet, and Robyn laments having skipped doing that today, as her feet are aching.

The lighthouse is scoured by the sort of winds you have to lean into. We find a little museum room by the tower with a windowed room overlooking the Bass Strait, and we set up shop in there for lunch. Luckily nobody ventures in to be assaulted by the smells of dirty hiker and the sight of bare feet unfit for human eyes. It’s Robyn’s birthday soon and I decide now is the time to give her her present; a can of Pepsi that I’ve carried for the last two days. It’s the little things. In a tiny room besieged by gales and overlooking a furious ocean, we make a cozy picnic.

We notice a small vessel down in the waves, and after that, a series of large splashes in the distance as whales breach the water on their migration route. They’re too far away to make out anything but the spray of foam.

It’s a fairly easy 5km to Roasting Roaring Meg campsite. We get there around 4pm and figure we’ll have the place to ourselves, but two small groups make their way in before dark. The large site can accommodate a great many hikers, and we don’t hear a peep from them.

With just one day to go, we stocktake our food and revel in consuming the surplus. I eat two dinners. We make plans for tomorrow’s walking, checking distances and estimating times. Robyn brings up a nearby geocache on her phone and reads through the comments. She wonders if the user ahomburg is the same Adrian Homburg who moderates the AAWT Facebook page. If you read this, Adrian, comment to let us know?

They just get into their sleeping bags in wet clothes? Even in Tassie? In mud? Ergh. Maybe I am a mountain princess.

–R

At the edge of our site is a sign marking the track out to South Point, the southernmost point of mainland Australia. The sun sets through the skyscraping trees and starlight begins to trickle down. The shadowy track southward calls out gently with all the insistent pull of fairy lights beckoning.