This was a fun trip to plan. Uma and Ramesh where novices as far as walking with back packs is concerned. So we had to decided what to take. The list of things grew and shrunk based on weight. The advantage was we did not have to take any tents/stove or sleeping bags, as we had already requested for the doonas. So the food taken was
Aloo Parathas courtesy Ms U
தச்சி மம்மம் (have to keep the tamil brahman genes going)
Lots of dry fruits/nuts
Crackers and Cheese
Soups for Saturday lunch (dry mulgutwany, and some tomato etc)
Besibelah houli (rice/dry vegies/dhal) with a premixed masala in another bottle
Vermicille பாயசம் (the MTR quick mix variety)
Milk Powder
Coffee/Tea etc
And the most important 4 bottles of Wine
about 7 Lt's water for each day when starting out
With the clothes and what not, the bags weighed in at 14 Kg /12Kg / 12 Kg/ and 7 Kg
All the workouts and core training paid off. The new backpacks were a great fit , and Mr R was not too badly off with his borrowed bag. The start was a very early morning drive through Melbourne suburbs (a 5:30 Am start) to reach tidal River by 9. Finally started walking by about 9:45
Ms U who kept threatening that she was not sure if she could do this... took off in a furious pace. We had covered 5 kms in one hour, That with all the wight I have just described... This was our first stop for the well deserved drinks/scroggin break For the novice Boardwalker's, Scroggin is a mix of dry fruits, chocolate, nuts etc, that gives you instant sugar/energy and has no calories when you are walking :-)
The walk was sensational as the weather was perfect (about 10 C or so, with some breeze) and the scenery great. Reached our lunch spot Roaring Meg by about 12:45 Here had the peanut butter sandwiches and the crackers and cheese. ofcourse the scroggin was a ever present goody you had to have. Also Ms U had brought in some 'மொரு' buttermilk for those of you who do not understand, and this was really welcome!
As you can see we were all really happy and in great spirits with the walking. The final 6Kms of the walk was the hardest (in that it had a lots of up and down stuff ) and took us almost 2 hours. The extreme bit at the very end was funny... in a way. The sign said .8Km to go then we hiot on thsi extermely steep concrete path. At the end , of what we thought is the end, (this one lasted about 0.2 Kms) we saw an even steeper concrete path!
It doesnt look much here, but this was a killer at the end of a 6 hour (18 Kms) walk, and the only thing that kept us going was the fact that we had hot showers awaiting us. It was a great feeling to be the first for that day to reach the lighthouse, and Scot our park ranger showed us the place. The cottages were sensational.
We were very soon settled in the sunroom (with great views) and the heating on! Saturady was supposed to be a day for some short walks. Managed half an hour in the morning as the weather went nasty on us! It was superb views here
These were the type of views we got from the cottage as well. On saturday we realised that we had bought all the soups etc but forgot to pack bread. So had to raid the surplus food cuboard for some rice. This meant we had a lovely meal of ரசம் (முலகதன்னி சூப்) and rice with the dry beans/peas போரியல். Rest of saturday was spent just chatting/eating/playing cards and generally relaxing. Our falt mates had been there before and were cooking things that made our mouths water! They had even carried eggs, and made fresh pancakes for brekky (while we were having cereal with milk mad eout of milk powder) They had brought along a perculator (the type which you put on stove top) and enough coffee to feed an army. Our puppy dog expressions bought us some lovely expresso coffe, which was great! They even baked some fresh bread for lunch.
Now we know what to pack next time around! Sunday was walk back (weather was very condusive and cleared up again) along the coast with constant views of the light house. This time the first 10 Kms were hard and then it was anothe 12 kms of steady walking... Atleast the packs had each reduced by 2 Kgs or so.
The thing is while you eat all the food, you still have to carry out the rubbish. The only access to the Lighthouse is by walking or the choppers that deliver stuff once in three months! Even the gas bottles (used for heating and such) are brought in by shoppers. Guess next time I will contemplate transferring the wine into plastic bottles that weigh less. The final stretch was a bit of a drag as it was on the same path as before. WE did it and were in the car driving by 3:30 pm and in Melbourne by 6 Pm. Great trip and am looing forward to doing it again!
