GOW series: Beauty and possible death

Day 2 of hiking started out with some gorgeous rolling hills to our Northeast

Unforunately, we walked quite a long ways down this dirt road before we realized we missed our turn.  Probably added two hours to our hike time, lol.  Thank goodness we didn't have our packs on!  It was a nice leisurely walk, except for Paul who took off like we had the plague.  Hannah, Dave and I had some fun with pictures on the walk back.

  

  

One of the many "Shit will kill you" signs I came to love in Australia.  Snakes, tsunamis, and currents maybe?  Or jagged rocks?  I can't really tell.  Shortly after passing this sign the others spotted a Tiger Snake, which is quite venomous.  I missed it somehow.

 

 It was about here, walking through Fern Gully, that we started getting a little disappointed that we hadn't seen any beach-scapes yet.  Literally, a minute later we turned around a bend and saw this:

 

 And proceeded to take Facebook profile pics for each of us!

Hannah

My personal best jumping photo ever....I am absolutely terrible at jumping photos

Then Dave went and showed me up.  This shot is still the Best Jumping Shot Ever.

Sour Puss was already on the beach so he got solemn looking lonely-soul-on-the-beach picture

  

Oh we're just chillin on the beach...you know...like you do.

The beach we're on is called Wreck Beach. It is my favorite spot in Australia.  Without a doubt.  Now am I saying that if you've never been to Australia you should by-pass the Great Barrier Reef for Wreck Beach...no. But I prefer things that are off the beaten path, empty, beautiful, serene, powerful and peaceful beaches are my thing.  This one fits the bill.  And it has history.  It gets its name from the obvious...a wreck.  A ship wrecked in 1880 (I believe) here and there are still a few pieces littering the beach.  By a few pieces, I mean two (at least that we could see).  You can only get to it at low tide, if the tide comes in you'll get stuck on the rocks for a few hours so we had to plan accordingly.  Which only makes it more appealing to me. Enjoy an overload of pictures.

 

Southern Ocean

Surfing

  

Dave hiking Aussie style-barefoot.  Taking it to a whole new level with the pack on his back (carrying our water, snacks, etc etc)

knackered

 

I think he was literally whittling wood under the anchor.  This one fake, but later becomes the site of naked photography.

 

 

 Tide pools.  There were dozens if not hundreds of these little circular...holes (?)  I'm not really sure what to call them.  I'm sure they have a name and someone can make me feel really dumb for not knowing it.  But they were all over the place, just asking for me to step in one accidentally, lol. They had their own little ecosystems in them, pretty neat if you ask me.

A little caught off guard with this picture, but good scenery at least :)

 

 There's another ship part...no idea what it is.  Again, its probably something that most people would now, but knowing nothing about ships or mechanics, or mechanics of ships in the late 1800's I have no clue.

I learned a story the last time I was at the GOR about this shipwreck.  Apparently there was a deckhand who survived and swam to shore.  Later in the middle of the night as he was fighting hypothermia he heard the screams and/or sobs of a woman.  He swam back out to the wreckage and found a young woman, about the same age as him. He brought her all the way back to shore in freezing cold crazy waves ocean.  They used their body heat to keep each other alive (this is a PG rated story!).  The next day they walked to find help and lived happily ever after.  But not together.  They both married other people and never had their fairy tale ending.  Isn't that a crap ending to a story?  I thought so.

  

Book jacket photo for when he becomes and author!

 

 

 

 

 

 

My fav shot!

Hannah and I had the BEST animal sighting climbing back up to the trail:

No one gets to see an Echnidna that close! Its almost cute.

Then we had a bit of a scary wildlife sighting on our way to the parking lot.  I was leading and nearly stepped on this friendly guy:

I don't know if its actually the highly poisonous Brown Snake that live in the area, but its a snake and its brown.  Enough reason for me to freak out.  Orrrr take a picture...you know.  I was walking in front with Hannah and Dave and just about stepped on him before skidding to a stop and putting my arms out like you protect your passenger in the car, lol.  Dave threw a stick at it and it slithered off.  A bit of a dangerous gamble, throwing things at it, but I was not about to try to step over it.  (Though I did consider it and thankfully Dave was there to tell me what a stupid idea that was).

Earlier in the day we also spotted our first wild koala!  Actually a mother and baby if you look closely.

We made camp that night at Johanna Beach. It was still light out and we saw this sign:

 

which meant that Hannah and Dave had to go surfing!  Crazy fools, the water is coooold to boot!

Unfortunately Macca was too preoccupied with beating me up and I was too preoccupied with taking pictures of the sunset to get many good photos.

Come to think of it, it was the next morning that my camera suddenly didn't work anymore!

Sunset at Johanna Beach

Sing with me: "Lowered Expectations"  Please someone get the reference!!  I was laughing my ass off at this picture.  Macca and Dave being Australian didn't get it, and I think Hannah was too young.