Wilson's Prom

Photos taken on Grant Kassel's Monash Bushwalking Club trip to Wilson's prom, September 2000. Good trip, plenty of walking, decent weather. 5 people: Grant & Wendy, Paul, Laura & Charles. Wilson's prom is not quite 2 hours southeast of us, and includes the southernmost point in mainland Australia, as well as some fantastic scenery. The promontory is largely a granite outcropping which has resisted erosion. We hiked the southern section. Apparently the northern section of the prom is a completely different trip. Photos taken at 720x480, best quality (light compression).

Wendy tried to teach us foreigners some more about native plants. Mostly we learned more about different varieties of Banksia, confirmed that Laura's earlier sightings were Sundew, and learned about some yellow flowers called Bacon & Eggs and some more that I'm afraid I've forgotten.

Saturday: Hiking in and to the Lighthouse
Saturday we left our public campsite outside the park, drove into the park, and began our hike in to the campsite "Roaring Meg." All told, about an 8km walk. Then Grant, Wendy, and I took a dayhike down to the lighthouse and back. You can see our trip on the map in the first picture.
	Map of the southern section of Wilson's Prom. I've highlighted the routes we walked in blue.
	Laura & Wendy at an amusing sign in our Friday night campsite.
	Lunch halfway to Roaring Meg.
Side Trip: Lighthouse
	First good look at the lighthouse on the way in.
	The lighthouse and surrounding point.
	A closer view of the lighthouse.
	Information plaque at the lighthouse.
	The steep cliffs by the lighthouse.
	Australia has the best signs! The sign for the steep cliffs at the lighthouse.
	Redondo island, about 7 km offshore.
	A picture of dubious artistic value, but representative of the shoreline views as we walked to and from the lighthouse.
	There were great rocks around the lighthouse. We played on them for a bit. This is Wendy and some rocks.
	This is the same photo of Wendy and the rocks, only equalized so she's not completely silhouetted.
	Grant, partly in a large rock.
Sunday: South Point and Hiking Out
South Point
On Sunday Grant, Wendy, Paul, and I left after a leisurely breakfast to hike to South Point. As you may have guessed, South Point is the southernmost point of mainland Australia.
	A nice cove we saw on the way to South Point.
	Grant and Paul were testing the GPS in preparation for their upcoming hike in Tassie.
	The sign for South Point.
	Charles (me) as far south as one can scramble. There's a 5 meter drop to some energetic surf between this rock and the one it looks like I might be able to get to.
	Wendy, Grant, and Paul snacking on South Point. As you can almost see, it was quite windy.
	There were odd things scattered around South Point. The large dried timbers weren't so odd -- the Australian shore has a history of collecting ships, so why not wood? -- but the boots were puzzling. Grant, Paul, and Wendy decided to make a monument to the boots. Here they hold it up with their feet.
	A pretty flower growing in the rocks on South Point. This is pretty special as the environment is very rocky and the wind is quite strong. Bushwalkers must be careful not to step on any plant while they visit. Hint from Grant: follow the right edge of the rocks as you walk out -- the plants are few and far between and one can avoid doing any damage.
Hiking Out
We returned from South Point and had lunch back in camp. The hike out from there was long and fatiguing, or at least felt that way to me, but had some very nice shoreline scenery. We finished just at dusk. I think it was about 13 km.
	View from a break on the way out.
	Grant organized a table out of debris lying around at this lunch-break area. It was still there on the way out.
	Grant was inspired to try some speleogames on the structure: see if he could fit through the slats in the palette while he was already in the middle of a stack of tires. No. (Partly because the tires were directly over the cross-strut.)
	The Road Home But a ways to go yet.
	There were two beautiful beach-walks of about 1 km each. Here is Laura on the first beach.
	Grant on the first beach.
	Everyone else walking ahead on the beach.
	At the end of the (second?) beach we had to find a way across the stream Shinbane.
	And up again, and about to go down we get a hazy view of the cove with another beach.
	Wombat! We arrived in the public campground where we had left one of our cars at dusk. There were many wombats about. This one was not at all shy and let me get quite close to it for this photo (no telephoto used).
Flora Photos
On the return hike, I stopped several times to capture interesting flowers. Flower identifcation provided by Nathan Hurst.
	Dillwynia seretata
	Acacia (?)
	Acacia (Blackwood)
	Dillwynnia seretata again?
Enjoy!