In the car I had a very light Patagucci windbreak (ripped from bushwacking) and an $8 op-shop synthetic puff jacket. It was a toss up which would come but in the end, I took the $8 op-shop puff jacket. The ocean was calm, glassy calm with almost no swell at all – the Batemans Bay wave buoy was at 0.4 metres. You could have landed a kayak literally anywhere.
Trotting around the headland to the new lookout at Snapper Point, the track was a bit wet and soggy and I was almost thinking I should have thrown in a tee-shirt it felt so warm. At the new Murramarang South Coast walk sign, some macropods were lounging in the shelter. The tide was already rising so instead of doing the hill climb up Durras Mountain first, I jogged along the coastal track. The route follows the beach until you pass O’Hara Island – easy to wade out to today – and then runs up and down into gullies and over little headlands to Clear Point where the Durras Mountain track ascends in an easy grade to the top of Durras Mountain at 285 metres.
When I got glimpses out to sea I noted a large dark cloud looming to the south but mostly the track was so deep into the bush that I could not see much. As I started up the track to Durras Mountain my phone pinged. Doug sending me a text to say that the weather was wild at the house with strong winds and driving rain. “I’m part way up Durras Mountain” I texted back, “not much I can do about it.” But I did find a couple of small ziplock bags in my pack and tucked my phone and camera into those and put them in the pack pocket that lies against my back.
Not long after, there was a roar in the trees, much like the sound of a jet airplane taking off and the cold front hit. With wind speeds near 40 knots, the rain was soon driving down and I shrugged into my puff jacket and beanie, put my head down and kept going. The biggest safety issue is, of course, getting clocked on the head by a falling branch or tree. Eucalpytus trees are famous for dropping branches which are heavier than lead. I briefly entertained the idea of retreating to the coastal track and jogging the couple of kilometres into Pebbly Beach where I could shelter near the toilet block, but, the coastal track is narrower and overhung by more dead trees than the more open track over Durras Mountain, so I kept going.
I was pretty happy to jog past the old trig station on Durras Mountain because I knew it was only five kilometres to Pretty Beach and I run that distance in half an hour every week at the Park Run. The view from Durras Mountain was pretty obscured but I did catch a glimpse of a now seething ocean to my right as I jogged down the track. By the time I got to the eroded path that leaves the old fire trail, the rain had stopped, but I was chilly and damp so I kept my spare clothes on.
Down at Pretty Beach, the sun was out but the wind was cold and brisk. I jogged on past Snapper Point lookout, the ocean much different to earlier in the morning and along to Merry Beach where I found a handy boulder to sit on to eat and drink. In the sun, out of the wind, it was almost warm, but the ocean was a mess of white-caps and the swell was rising. By evening, the Batemans Bay wave buoy was at four metres and rising!
No comments:
Post a Comment