Vanuatu: Lelepa, in the footsteps of hungry americans

Our first non-travel day in Vanuatu we spent on the Lelepa island tour.  After a bus ride from Port Vila we spent the first few minutes in the boat circling around a school of tuna with the lines out, hoping to catch some lunch.  Despite the tuna literally jumping out of the water in front of us, we didn't catch anything.

On the way to the island our guide (one of the Solomon brothers) regaled us with stories about Survivor Vanuatu, which was filmed on the mainland beach opposite Lelepa, with 'tribal councils' and challenges held on Lelepa.  The Australian Celebrity Survivor was filmed in the same location.  Both TV series' (especially the American one), were great for local business and especially our tour guide, who got a new bus as part of the deal.

We walked over the island and got an interesting tour of the bush tucker, medicine, and other uses for the surrounding jungle plants.  We snorkelled off the beach (not bad but there was better to come), and had a lazy lunch.

After lunch we visited an amazing cave that has great significance for Ni-Vanuatu as the place where Chief Roi Mata died (and is now world heritage listed), before being buried on Hat Island (with more than 25 members of his revenue, some of whom were buried alive!!).  It looked to me like a lava tube, and was pretty impressive, but too hard to take photos of since we only had candles for light.  The locals are scared of spirits in the cave - the first tour they made the tourists go in first to see if anything bad would happen :)  The way I understood it the custom was to take people to the cave to die, where they would be left on their own.  Nasty.

After the cave we went to a marine sanctuary on the east side of the island that had amazing snorkelling.  Our friends told us that it is considered the best snorkelling on Efate, and I believe it.  The coral was better than any I have seen on the outer Barrier Reef, and the fish were similarly amazing (we fed them the scraps from lunch).  Another couple on the tour said the snorkelling was much better than at Hideaway island, which is the best known snorkelling location in the area.

After snorkelling we visited the village on Lelepa, which was great.  We chatted with our guide about his village, and met his family.  We were the only motorised boat on the water, everyone else was a local in a dugout outrigger canoe.  Awesome.  I'd highly recommend the tour to anyone visiting Vanuatu.

Australian Rogaining Championships: 24hr rogaine in the snowys

"Are we doing this? Yes we are", and so it went, a friend and I entered the 2010 Australian Rogaining Championships just two days before the event. We crammed in a few days of training by going to work and sitting in front of computers, and then we were ready to mix it with Australia's best in the beautiful Snowy Mountains.

For those who don't know, Rogaining is a sport where crazy people dress up in lycra and gaiters, and crash around in the bush finding orange markers with a map and compass for anywhere from 6 to 24 hours.

We caught the bus down to the site, which was incredibly frustrating as it was late getting out of Sydney, and with a break for the driver we ended up leaving about 7:30, when we had expected to leave at 5:00pm. At least we could avoid the deadly drive home after being awake for 24 hours. We finally arrived at about 10pm, set up camp, and woke up the next morning to register and plan our route.

The organisers had set up a giant marquee for all the bus travellers, which was great. We all got busy trying to plan which bits we wanted to do at night, deciding which controls were worth getting, and colour-coding controls. Our (rather ambitious) flight plan is shown in green.

The race began at noon on Saturday; and the first thing we did was cross the Eucumbene river, which came up to mid-calf, soaking shoes and socks and paving the way for bad blisters later.

We started well, then had an embarrassing nav fail (got a bit cocky because the first few were really easy). After that we got our confidence back a bit, although we struggled with 83, and got to 31 at twilight, far short of where we wanted to be by that time (ie. around 37). We joined a number of other groups that were really struggling to find 31, and eventually found it. 62 then caused us heaps of problems, and the tone was set for the rest of the night.

We came down off 93 over what was practically a cliff, holding onto bits of scrub at about 2 in the morning, then had to rock-hop across an extremely fast-flowing Eucumbene river. We came very close to the all-night-cafe at 88 around 4am, but decided we couldn't be bothered walking the 2km round-trip for hot food. Instead we began the long slog back to the hash house down a fire trail. At this point I found out my friend had a lot more stamina than me, since he still had his mind on the race, whereas all I could think about was having a lie-down so I could stop feeling nauseous. He managed to convince me to pick up a few of the controls on the way back, and we retired early at about 8am.

Wish I had: better nav skills :) one of those thumb-compasses to help keep you on your bearing, a dry pair of socks, something to pad blisters that will stick to wet skin, and possibly a brighter headtorch - although the combo led-and-halogen was quite handy. I would also consider not wearing my goretex trail runners next time, since they are good at keeping water out, but once it is in (from a river crossing) they don't dry out quickly.

Despite the lack of training, both bodies held up reasonably well, apart from blisters due to damp, and our clothing was right - we were comfortable even though it dropped to about 2 degrees overnight. The weather was beautiful and clear, a light dew, and a very heavy fog early in the morning in the valley around 77.

I had a great time, although I've decided a 12-hour rogaine is much more my style :) Our score? Respectable, we came about middle of the pack.

The coast track in the Royal National Park

The two-day walk from Bundeena to Otford in the Royal National Park is pretty famous. I seem to remember reading it is the most popular overnight walk in the country in terms of visitor numbers. I can see why - the scenery is amazing, it is very close to Syndey, and you can use public transport to avoid a car shuffle. We planned the walk for Sunday-Monday on a non-NSW public holiday to make booking a few sites at North Era easier: you need to book a long way in advance if you want a Saturday night.

Day 1: Bundeena to North Era, 18 km

We stayed near Wollongong at Corrimal beach caravan park on Saturday. It was a pretty good park, although we never actually saw it in the daylight. We had some trouble getting through the boom gate at 6am, which almost made us miss the train from Otford. Missing the train would have been a problem, since they only run about every two hours. Still, we screamed into the station just as the train was being announced. A note for future hikers: the ticket machine only takes coins and the fare to Sutherland is about $5. Also FYI the quickest route is up Bulli pass along the Princes Hwy through Helensburgh to Otford.

The train trip from Otford to Cronulla via Sutherland went smoothly, and we arrived at the wharf in time for the first ferry to Bundeena. The ferry trip is beautiful, and was a good start to the trip.

After a short winding walk through the streets of Bundeena we hit the coast track and sat down for some breakfast. We picked a spot near some people doing bootcamp with an amazing clifftop view as a backdrop.

The walk takes in some amazing views, including some chalky-white cliffs before arriving at Marley Beach. The surf looked pretty dangerous at Big Marley so I went for a quick dip at Little Marley (which looked slightly less scary but still not too friendly).


After walking past some more great views, and some amazing coloured sandstone, we reached civilisation at Wattamolla. It is road accessible and is a pretty cool place for a day-trip. There is a lagoon, a huge rock to jump off (if you don't mind a $200 fine), and a beautiful beach. We went for a refreshing swim to escape the heat and humidity and were on our way again.


I went on a mission down to Eagle rock where Curracurrong creek jumps off the cliff into the sea, and was rewarded with a brilliant view accompanied by the crashing thump of waves into the cliff. I think this was my favourite part of the whole walk.

Shortly after the creek, both groups of our party made the same wrong turn up the Curra Moors Track, which is a wide fire trail that heads inland. The coast track is much less obvious at this point, and a sign to Garie beach is conveniently placed behind a large bush where it is only visible after you have correctly made the critical track choice. Em and I, with the benefit of the map, realised our mistake after a few hundred metres, but Tim, Josh, and Andrew ended up doing the complete loop to get back to the track, adding a few kilometres onto the trip. Tim used his finely-honed bush navigation skills (google maps) to get back to the main track.

We eventually all met up at Garie beach, but not before we left a note for Tim on the trail. Garie beach is also road-accessible, and there were plenty of fishermen and surfers about. The break looked pretty mean, and the surfers were all awesome.
Over the hill was North Era campground, which was our comfy grassy home for the night. We were surprised to find we knew our camping neighbours! There is water at North Era, but it isn't flowing much and is of the swampy kind, I'd suggest stocking up at Curracurrong, which has a good flow.

Day 2: North Era to Otford, 8km

We started day 2 with a swim (or two) to cool off in preparation for the hot walking ahead.
We walked past many shacks that date back to the early days of the national park - they have an agreement with national parks that allows them to stay. There are about 200 shacks in the park.

We had lunch in the shade at Burning Palms beach and then entered the coastal (littoral) rainforest section of the walk. There was a tough uphill section as we regained the escarpment, and a great view of Werrong beach. From there it was a fast trip out back to the station where we picked up the cars.

Bondi, crazy traffic, narrow miss

We combined our walk (see next post) with a lightning visit to see Kass, Matt, Luca, and Shell in Bondi on Saturday. Unfortunately the expected 3-hour trip turned into about 5 hours due to a smash in the tunnel on the M5. We got off the M5 and crawled through the suburbs and legions of people heading to the 'Future' music festival at Moore Park, and we almost added to the problem when someone jammed on their brakes in front of us. The tyres have less rubber on them, but we managed to avoid a smash.

Sadly we didn't take any photos, but we had a great time checking out Bondi, meeting Luca, and seeing Matt and Kass' place. When I was going for a swim I noticed I seemed to have picked the all male section of the beach - apparently the Mardi Gras people forgot to book the after-party venue for the day of the parade (Antiques Roadshow beat them to it!), so the party was on last weekend.

Montague Island

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Last weekend we headed out to Montague Island with a pack of family to celebrate Mum and Dad's 40th wedding anniversary. Montague is a nature reserve with heaps of wildlife: large seal, little penguin (aka fairy penguin), and shearwater (muttonbird) colonies are in residence, along with a lighthouse and the original lighthouse-keeper buildings which have been turned into a fairly swanky hotel. We spent 2 nights on the island, which was fun despite having the most amount of rain seen on the island (Narooma had over 100mm for the weekend) in some time.

The journey out to the island was more exciting than I expected. The island is only a few k's off the coast, but there was a bit of a swell which made getting out over the Narooma bar interesting. I can see why plenty of boats have been capsized crossing the bar - even in our powerful boat the skipper had to sit and wait for the right wave.

When we got close to the Island Em spotted what we thought were dolphins, but turned out to be pilot whales. They look like dolphins that ran into a brick wall, and are very rarely seen around Montague. There were also heaps of seals and shearwater's feeding around the whales. We spent quite a while watching them, checked out the seriously stinky seal colonies on the rocks and then arrived at the jetty.

Once we were on the island, we got a tour which included information about the island's history and NPWS' efforts to rid the island of the dreaded Kikuyu grass. This grass pushed out all the natives and was killing the fairy penguins by entangling them and starving them to death.
The NPWS have got rid of almost all of it, replacing with natives, and building penguin boxes so the penguins are happy (Ralph gets FoxTel). We watched the penguins come up from the water at sunset, although numbers were fairly low because this is their molting season and many stay on land to shed feathers.

The buildings were beautiful, and the house had everything we needed for a good weekend. The light looks amazing at night with the beams shooting out into the darkness - I just wish I could have taken a decent photo of it... Bizarrely the light is only as bright as a single car headlamp! It runs off batteries charged with solar power, and a generator for backup.

Found: 1 frisbee

Back in November, in a somewhat anal primary-school-parent moment, I put my name and phone number on my brand new ultimate frisbee. I then had the displeasure of watching it drift beautifully into the frisbee-shaped slot of a storm water drain down near the lake after an unfortunate throw.

Yesterday I got a phone call:

This is going to sound weird, but I have your frisbee....

A woman kayaking in the lake came across it floating in the water some two months after I first lost it! I met her and recovered a disc that, apart from being a bit dirty, is still in good nick.

Some of the guys at work have decided they are going to start throwing things in the lake with their phone number on them as a way to meet girls...

I bought a surfboard!

I finally got around to buying a board. It is a 7'7" epoxy board, from the local Broulee surfshop. It is too big to fit in the car so I can only surf at beaches I can carry it to :)

DisKapital Ultimate Frisbee Tournament

I played in my first ultimate frisbee 'hat' tournament, DisKapital, on Jan 2-3. It was held at Downer playing fields, which were perfect (not too soft, not too hard) after the rain over Christmas. A hat tournament is one where teams are constructed randomly, ie. drawn out of a hat, with a bit of balancing to make sure one team doesn't end up with all the best players.

I had an awesome time, played zone defence for the first time, and hopefully improved my throwing and other skills. I produced some impressive blisters and was seriously sore after a full weekend of running around. Checkpoint Charlie (the theme was Berlin Wall) took out the title after narrowly (on a golden point) beating my team Achtung Baby in the final.

Great fun. Just wish I had taken some photos...

The Overland Track: lessons learnt, tips for new players

Glad I brought: Ear plugs (for blocking out snoring in the huts), my super-small and light sea to summit day pack, the empty goon bag for carrying water, and my walking poles.

Wish I had: Some wine. A decent wine in one of those soft 1 L plastic bottles would have been great to stretch out over the whole walk. Also wished I had bought a dehydrator and brought more gourmet meals with a variety of veggies. A pack cover or a small screw-gate 'biner to keep the birds out of my pack would also have been handy.

Would leave at home: The Steripen water steriliser and just carry tablets for emergencies. The huts have massive rainwater tanks with beautiful water that doesn't need treating.

Boots vs. trail-runners: My Vasque goretex trail-runners kept my feet dry for the entire walk, were nice and light, and didn't give me blisters. I was worried about the lack of ankle support with a heavy pack, but combined with walking poles I was fine. Highly recommend!

Got (Telstra) mobile reception at: Top of Mt. Ossa and at the Pine Valley hut helipad.

The Overland Track: Cradle Mountain to Lake St. Clair in 8 days

This walk has been a long time coming, so it was great to see all the planning come to fruition. We got into Launceston in the early afternoon, picked up some stove fuel from Paddy's, did some last-minute waterproofing, bought some food from Coles, and had our last civilised dinner at the Pizza Pub. All of that was within easy walking distance from the backpackers. Hot tip: Check the free food cupboard in the backpackers kitchen before you launch your shopping sortie.

Lee from Tiger Wilderness Tours picked us up, and kept us entertained with information about Tassie and the walk all the way to Cradle mountain visitors centre. We picked up our track passes, hired an EPIRB from national parks for $40, paid $60 for a parks car pass to cover all of us (possible if you are staying in Tassie and hiring a car after the track), and jumped back into the shuttle to get to the start of the track.

Day 1: Ronnie Creek to Waterfall Valley Hut

We started at Ronnie Creek at about 9:30, after Lee took some photos 'for the police'. It was a decent climb with heavy packs to Marion's lookout, then kitchen hut. We had lunch in the hut with some daywalkers who were nice enough to carry out some of our rubbish :) We walked up the slope slightly and dumped our packs for the assault on Cradle. We stuck our packs under the scrub a little to protect against the Currawongs, which were eyeing off the bags even as we left.


Cradle was covered in cloud, the wind was really strong, and it was raining slightly - a typical day on the track. A couple attempted the summit before us and turned back because of the weather; we kept going and were rewarded with amazing (but fleeting) views as the wind periodically blew the cloud away.


We picked up our packs and continued to waterfall valley hut, which seemed to take forever. It started raining really heavily for the last few k's and we were really glad to see the hut.

Soon after we arrived, a pack of 9 soaked uni students plodded in - they were our companions in the huts for the next few days. The photo shows some of the chaos of 20 something people trying to dry wet gear on the verandah.


We also met a friendly Frenchman, who walked with us for the rest of the trip, and a Japanese guy who was totally underprepared for the walk and had to be given food by the hut ranger. The rangers walk sections of the track and stay in the huts to look after things. The ranger at the first hut was Bill, who is allegedly a 90 year old(!!!?!) volunteer.

Day 2: Waterfall Valley Hut to Windermere Hut


We woke up to snow in the morning, which counted out the side trip up Barn Bluff (the cool pointy mountain you can see from the cradle summit photo above). A couple of the uni students tried, but turned back before the summit. It was another really cold, windy day, with sleet on the way to Lake Will. We had a cold lunch huddle on a small beach, partly sheltered from the wind by bushes.


In terms of walking it was a very easy day; we arrived at Windermere hut in the early afternoon despite a fairly leisurely start (getting everyone out of the hut at the same time was like herding cats). Two of our party went for a swim in Lake Windermere - crazy!

Day 3: Windermere Hut to New Pelion Hut

Amazing views today from Pine Forest Moor of the mountains ahead. Left to right they are Mt. Oakleigh, Mt. Pelion East, Mt. Doris, Mt. Ossa, and Paddys Nut with the Du Cane Range in the background. As soon as we hit the edge of Pelion West we entered what I think is the worst section of the whole track. There is very little duckboarding, and we spent hours stepping on slippery tree roots in pools of water and mud in the rainforest.


We were so happy to see Frog Flats. It is pretty tempting to camp there, but Lee warned us about the masses of leeches. We talked to another couple who did camp, and they confirmed that the tent got covered in leeches.

We checked out the historic Old Pelion Hut (built in 1895), before arriving at the new swanky one. This hut is beautiful - it has a huge verandah with views to Mt. Oakleigh, and sleeps 60. That gave us enough room to avoid the loudest snorer, a German guy called Sven(?). Even his friend didn't want to sleep near him - he said to me he didn't want to sleep in Sven's room because 'my colleague, he is always snorkelling'.


There were a couple of guys at the hut who had walked in from a dirt road along the Arm river track, which was apparently only about 4 hours. It would be cool to come in this way and summit Mt. Oakleigh; apparently the views are fantastic. The cruellest part was they had carried in 4 L of goon and were drinking it right in front of us - they didn't even offer to share, and polished off 2 L each. Bastards.

Day 4: New Pelion Hut to Kia-Ora Hut


We climbed all morning to reach Pelion Gap, then dropped our packs for an assault on Mt. Ossa - the highest mountain in Tasmania. It was a tough climb, 500m vertical, and once again the clouds lifted to give us a great view from the top. We found out later that a couple of days after we climbed Ossa, someone got choppered out because they had dislocated their shoulder on the climb.


I got phone reception from the top (5 bars! Telstra only) and called the folks. When I got back down I found the birds had unzipped the top of my pack, picked holes in all the ziplock bags, and distributed my first aid kit around the area. I wasn't silly enough to have food in there, and got everything back, but it was really annoying now that stuff wasn't waterproof. I'd recommend buying a generic pack cover if your pack doesn't have one, purely to protect it from the birds.

It seemed to take forever to get to the hut (again). When we finally arrived, a few people went for a wash in the creek and picked up leeches. Warren from bundy had them inside his raincoat and on his eyelid after putting his clothes and sunglasses on the ground beside the creek.

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon, and quite a few people chose to camp to avoid the noise of the hut and the 'snorkelling'.

Day 5: Kia-Ora Hut to Bert Nichols (Windy Ridge) Hut


Everyone who camped the night before packed up their tents in heavy rain this morning. I'm glad we chose the hut. We set out in the rain, with Em's knee and Achilles playing up. We stopped in at Harnett falls, which were really pretty and arrived at Bert Nichols under beautiful sunny skies. We hung out on one of the tent platforms with a view of the Acropolis and Mt. Geryon and dried out our feet and gear in the sun.


Bert Nichols is a brand new (2008) hut, with a drying room, huge kitchen, and even some artwork.

Day 6: Bert Nichols Hut to Pine Valley Hut


We started off the day with a section of nice, flat, relatively dry track. After the turn up pine valley we were back into rainforest with slippery tree roots. We crossed a few suspension bridges, which made Em nauseous, and her Achilles was winning the pain battle with the Nurofen. We arrived in the afternoon to a really packed hut, but there was still room for us (just). It was raining and the clouds were low, which counted out the two main day walks - the Acropolis and The Labyrinth. I freaked everyone out in the hut with a small sleep walking incident...

Day 7: Pine Valley - The Labyrinth

We attempted the Labyrinth this morning, since it was too wet to think about climbing the Acropolis. The Labyrinth is a high plateau with a beautiful series of lakes that can be reached as a day walk from Pine Valley Hut. When the weather is clear the views are amazing, when it is cloudy or snowy it is deadly - a woman died doing the day walk up there in 2000 and her body was never found, despite many search parties. As an aside, there is a poo tube you can borrow if you are going to camp up in the Labyrinth area since it is impossible to dig your hole far enough away from water. There is something about a communal poo tube that is very wrong...


The track up to the plateau is much rougher and scrubbier than the main track - at one point we walked up a small waterfall. When we reached the high plateau the rain was being blown across the lakes, and we couldn't see more than a few metres in front of us. I turned back with most of our group, however two kept going for a short distance and managed to get some views during a brief break in the clouds. It is easy to see how you could get lost in the area; there are tracks in multiple directions, marked only by small rock cairns.

Day 8: Pine Valley Hut to Lake St. Clair

We had heaps of heavy rain during the night, and were wondering if some of the sections of track out of Pine Valley would be under water. There is a log bridge over a stream that has a wire running beside it to hang onto for just this eventuality.


Fortunately the track was still mostly above water, and we had a quick run down to Narcissus hut, where we saw the Cradle Huts crowd of commercially guided walkers for the first time on the track. We got to Narcissus in about 3 hours and were able to move our ferry booking to an earlier time using the radio.

Narcissus is a terrible hut - it is small, stinky, infested with native rats, and I'm glad we didn't plan on spending a night there. Two of our party picked up leeches right outside the hut.

We were glad to see civilisation when we arrived at Lake St. Clair, and promptly sat down to a beer and some food. I wouldn't recommend that cafe, the food is pretty terrible, even when judged by someone who has been eating dehydrated peas for 7 nights. Luckily our shuttle driver was waiting to take us back to Launceston, a shower, a big meal and more beer. We had a great pub meal and drinks at Irish Murphy's, I rate it.

What was it like?

We had an awesome time, and Em proved she is a hardcore hiker, putting up with an injury and still enjoying 8 days in harsh weather conditions in the wilderness. I took a couple of short movies of the track itself, so you can see what the path was like. I'd estimate less than 5% of the walk is duck-boarded, although if you include the old, mostly underwater, split logs then you might come up to 10%.