Hans wanted to hike to Mount Dromedary in the Gulaga National Park from Tilba Tilba, a 12 km return hike.
Di was not so keen on this hike so decided to "potter" while waiting for Hans to return.
A good choice by Di as the hike was not very interesting, no real views from the summit ("filtered through the vegetation" is what the spiel said), wet and slippery and 2 leeches selected Hans as part of their daily blood intake. One of the leeches found its way to Hans waist, where it managed to suck blood from the waistline where Hans thought that only fat resided. The other leech was detected on the right ankle. Oh well. After all, the hike goes through a rainforest of sorts, and there had been lots of rain the last couple of days.
Hans amused himself on the hike and did a bit of "art" on this tree.
This is the summit all right. Not much for show...
The view from the summit. Very filtered.
A bit of history. The track is an old gold-miner track.
The saddle (of the dromedary).
Background story to how Mount Dromedary got its name. Well, it was that guy again, James Cook. Captain Cook saw the mountain from out at sea back in 1770 and declared in his log book that "At 6'o clock we were abreast of a pretty high mountain laying near the shore which on account of its figure I named Mount Dromedary".
Di's morning had been one of exploration and enjoyment. Hearing about Hans' leeches whilst drinking very good tea at a lovely coffee shop in Cobargo (after a pleasant visit to a 2nd hand book store) just highlighted her good choice!
Part of the exploration was to Mystery Bay which is a tiny settlement but with a great council campground amongst the trees bordering the beach. Very nice spot. The bay got its name due to the mysterious disappearance at sea of 5 men - their boat, with valuables, clothes and papers were found all together but their bodies were never found. Hmmm.... Very mysterious... although it would be easy to deliberately disappear on this part of the south coast (note: our own conspiracy theory).
Then on to Central Tilba to meander through the shops and of course try all the cheeses at ABC cheese factory. Yum.
At 1 pm, we met again outside Pam's Store in Tilba Tilba, where there is a parking area and where the track starts and finishes.
We decided to go back to the ranch for lunch, but Di wanted to show Hans what she had seen while he was hiking, so we took a short detour to Mystery Bay, including checking out their camping ground in more detail. All very nice.The landscape Narooma and south of it is really beautiful - quite a bit of dairy country with lots of dairy cows to keep Di happy! Here are a few pics:
Lunch was leftovers and after Hans had a shower to wash off the hiking "perfume", we were on the road again to get an afternoon coffee and do some more sightseeing. The weather was now sunny, and it was a very pleasant day around 20 degrees.
We stopped back at Chalk and Cheese cafe in Cobargo. Di for the second time today as she had been there for tea when Hans was hiking. We had coffees and a muffin to share. Very pleasant place. Very nicely decorated and reasonably good coffee and muffin.
We went out on one of the breakwaters where they had very cleverly constructed a pool for kids to swim in. All very safe. The harbour entrance itself faced northwest, i.e. a very good choice.
Here is Hans on the breakwater, pointing to Mount Dromedary in the background.
Di among the pleasure crafts and fishing boats.
Back to the ranch again for a break before dinner, the local Chinese is on the menu tonight.
Salt and pepper prawns, sizzling garlic platter and special fried rice. Very tasty, but too much. We left with some of the fried rice for later, but really really full. Good night.
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