Thursday 30 March 2023

North Head Beach from the campground entrance

Denise, Rob and Gavin at Wobbegong Bay rock platform

Lunch at Oaky Beach

New sandstone steps near Richmond Beach

After the rain, an interesting fungi

As good as a painting

A stunning coast

A scarred tree

Photos courtesy of Chris

This walk covers some very familiar territory for the club, so we weren’t expecting any difficulties as we climbed the giant staircase at Maloneys Beach and headed off to Quiriga and Judges Beaches on a bright, crisp morning. The walk is the the southern section of the new NPWS South Coast Trail, and we were walking it in reverse through to Murramarang Resort at South Durras.

However, we soon realised that a track looks very different in reverse and without detailed signposts we needed club maps, both electronic and paper, to find what we hoped was the NPWS’s new route from Judges to North Head Beach. After a cliff top cuppa near the viewing platform we headed on to Honeysuckle Beach where we again found ourselves hunting for the overgrown start of the next leg.

From there it was clear walking along well marked new track, complete with sandstone stepping stones across the gullies, and plenty of healthy burrawangs and open forest above Little Oaky Beach, heading for lunch at the newly constructed camp grounds at Oaky Beach. Following the widened track through the lemandra down to the beach we looped back up to the creek. In the past this has not always been easy to cross, but two new wooden bridges and a raised walkway made this short section easy!

Next was Richmond Beach where we were reminded how hard sand walking can be. New and well-marked cliff top track led us past more stands of burrawangs to Myrtle Beach, a long beach walk, and then stairs up to the Dark Beach link. New track here has scattered sandstone steps to ease the gentle climb and quite quickly we found ourselves at Emily Miller Beach where the beach walk we were expecting has been replaced and walkers are redirected behind the beach to eventually reach the car park at the top of Wasp Headland. This was another section where we took a path we knew as signage was not up.

The rock platform at Wobbegong Bay looked lovely in the afternoon sun as Rob gave us a quick geology lesson before we headed back to the car. We had stretched 17 kms into 20, but had a wonderful day of beaches and bush, cliff tops and headlands with the occasional family of wallabies, several smallish goannas and a lone sea eagle to add variety. Thank you Denise and Gavin for your company, and Rob for your last-minute leading of our outing.

Chris