Our first day hiking in Australia was a great success. An easy day took us from Portland to forest, and we saw wallabies, parrots, and koalas!
With “only” 20 km to hike today, CareFree and I slept in a bit, getting up after 7:15. Shortly after 8, we left our hotel and walked back towards the center of Portland, getting breakfast at the Main Street Cafe. An hour later, we were at the Portland Visitor Information Center, where we signed in and briefly chatted with one of the staff there. They said it was pretty likely we’d see most of Australia’s famous mammals. Especially koalas, since it’s now their mating season.
We started on a bright, sunny day. Most clouds were out at sea, making it a bit hazy and obscuring the horizon, and doing nothing to keep the sun off of us — we were fully exposed to the sun for most of the day.
The trail took us north out of Portland, initially at the top of Nuns Beach, and then up a staircase onto the cliff top overlooking Portland Bay. We passed a lighthouse, and for the next few kilometers, followed a strip of green space separating the cliff edge from houses.
Partially answering the question of whether the locals know about the trail (which is well marked), we stopped for a chat with a lady with a dachshund, who asked if we were doing the GSWW. She apparently knew the president of the Friends of the Great South West Walk, the trail’s stewardship organization. Her dog sat down in CareFree’s shadow to get out of the sun while we talked.
We passed by a whale-shaped whale viewing platform, complete with free (!) binoculars. There weren’t any whales to see today, but the visitor center we started at apparently raises a flag to indicate there are whales about. (In the early 1800s, Portland used to be a hub for whaling activity, with hundreds of whales harvested a year.)
We also passed an old water tower museum, repurposed as a military lookout in World War II, and now used as a military history museum. We considered going up to the lookout at the top, but then we realized that the cash we’d gotten for exactly this sort of thing we left in CareFree’s wallet … which was in her suitcase we left with her colleague. Oops!
We continued to follow the trail north out of town, eventually leaving Portland and following on a nicely-cleared grassy path beyond the shoulder barrier along Dutton Way. We were happy the path was being well-maintained and cleared of grasses, and this was definitely a step-up in maintenance compared to Te Araroa in New Zealand: we would definitely either have been going through tall grasses, or been directly on the road.
We took our first break at the cafe at Holiday Lifestyle Henty Bay, with soda and ice cream. Both were good, but the cold soda was definitely a boon in the direct sun. It wasn’t especially hot out, but the bright sun certainly made it feel warmer than it was.
Leaving the holiday park, we crossed Dutton Way and briefly followed a road through a farm, entering a eucalyptus forest. CareFree heard koala calls, but we didn’t see any. We did, though, just barely catch sight of a wallaby through the bush.
Exiting the forest, we followed a road west, and stopped for a short break underneath a eucalyptus tree at the Bolwarra Public Hall and Recreation Reserve. (There were picnic tables, but alas, they were unshaded.) While we were eating a snack, I saw our first koala, siting in the tree above us.
We followed the road until it branched off into a dirt road, and then the trail branched off that, leading us along a trail in the woods, a buffer space between two farms. CareFree saw the tail-end of our first snake, in the dry creek below a bridge we crossed. We also saw several tunnels dug into the hillside along the road, which our guidebook suggested might belong to echidna.
Further on, we crossed train tracks, and the trail meandered back and forth, sometimes next to the tracks, sometimes on a dirt (ATV?) road paralleling the tracks, and sometimes on a walking trail. We saw our second koala in this stretch, getting us off to a very good start in Australian wildlife.
We eventually rejoined a paved road, following the shoulder for a short while to a crossroads, where the road turned into a paved road, and intersected with a road crossing the railroad tracks, and stopped for another break. Two cars turning at the intersection waved at us and gave us a thumbs-up — at least a few more locals knew what we were doing. Though, the people who weren’t turning there sped through at a seemingly unreasonable speed, kicking up dust from the dirt road ahead we needed to follow.
Fortunately, no cars drove past us while we were actually hiking on the dirt road, and after ten minutes, we turned off onto a trail, which wound us around another farm.
We saw a few more wallabies, though they continued to evade being good photo subjects, being somewhat skittish and hard to see through the bush. We also saw several bright red parrots, squawking at us from perches high in the trees, seemingly upset with our hiking through their territory. The trail itself seemed to be crisscrossed with smaller trails, possibly (we thought) made by wallabies.
Shortly after four, about seven hours after we started, we arrived at Cubby’s Camp, one of two campsites along the trail managed by the Friends of the GSWW. (The others are managed by Parks Victoria.) It is a nice site, open and airy, with a covered shelter with benches and a picnic table, another picnic table out in the open, a privy, and two rainwater storage tanks.
We were tired, but it was a good first day on the trail. After resting for a bit, we got our tent set up, and cooked dinner, which improved our spirits a bit.
The whole day, we didn’t see any other hikers, though we did see two cyclists who passed us maybe 45 minutes before we reached camp, and again going back the other way sometime after we got our tent up.
After dinner, we got somewhat uncomfortable news. The weather forecast had changed: what was originally a mild forecast for the weekend was now a high of 90 °F (32 °C), and (presumably) as a result, a total fire ban was put into effect for tomorrow.
This posed two problems. First, unlike other areas, where total fire bans often still allow the use of camp stoves, in Australia, even that is not allowed. We can still make do by cold-soaking our (pasta) dinners, even though a hot meal after a day of hiking is almost always preferable.
More importantly, our guidebook suggests that if a total fire ban is in effect for any of the first three days of a hike (through the Cobboboonee forest), one should instead stay in Portland, wait it out, and then skip ahead to resume the original itinerary (because all of the campsites must be pre-booked). However, the forecast was fine this morning when we started, and we were now already in the forest. So we are at a bit of an impasse over what to do, and deferred a decision until tomorrow morning. Either way, it was a bit of a bummer, and leaving the trail (and returning later) would add significant logistical challenges.
As the sun slowly set (in contrast to our previous hike, sunset here is 9 pm, rather than 5 pm!), it started to noticeably cool down, but it was still nice out. A wallaby grazed on low bush on the edge of camp for several minutes before hopping off, but it was also photo-shy.
As if the weather and fire ban wasn’t enough, my power bank briefly went on the fritz, seeming to think it had no power left after I plugged my phone in to charge. (It had just successfully charged my watch, and thought it was 98% full.) This would have been a significant issue, since, especially with fire danger, we both wanted working cell phones, and CareFree’s charger would likely not be sufficient to charge both of our phones all the way to Nelson, in 5 days. Fortunately, after some down-time (and giving it a little kick-start by plugging it into CareFree’s power bank), it resumed working. Otherwise, that might dictate having to return to Portland to get a replacement, regardless of the fire situation.
But, tomorrow is a new day, we’ll figure out then what we’ll do.