It was a great walk to Sealers Cove! Slightly more demanding than I expected, probably due to the warm weather in combo with a backpack, that had been packed for all possible conditions .. it was heavy. First part of the walk was uphill towards Windy saddle and went through areas that were recovering from a bushfire that raged through in 2005. The fire was started by a back burn attempt going horrible wrong - for some reason it was decided to start a little fire just around Easter when the park was packed full of happy campers ... 600 people had to be evacuated!!!
The peninsular nature of the park i.e. surrounded by water on three sides and the fact that fires are very unlikely to spreed out of the park, means that fires will often be left burning till the die out naturally. During the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria 2009 the prom was once again hit by a bushfire which burned approximately 25% of the park. Luckily no one died, but enormous areas of bush was damaged and neighbors to the park was once again not impressed by the Governments plans to start back burning again.
After enjoying the views form Windy Saddle the track dived into the lush dark green rain forest covering the east side of the park and I could once again start the battle of trying to get enough light through the lens to picture some of the wildlife living in this dark place.
I saw surprisingly little flying wildlife on my way through the rain forest, next to no birds - guess the exceptional warm weather was an excellent reason to sit still in a shaded tree somewhere and relax - Reptiles on the other hand was well represented, I managed to spot quite a good collection of these heat hungry critters sitting on the forest floor where the sun managed to penetrate the foliage.
The last 2.5km of the walk are flat and most of it happens on boardwalks negotiating the swampy area between the beach and the slopes up towards Windy saddle and Mount Oberon.
Good solid walking down there in Victoria, even though the return trip would include slightly more climbing I was quite confident that I would be able to scramble out early next morning, probably having quite a bit of an advantage not having to do the brunt of the walk during the midday heat. All good and I still had a good part of the Saturday to explore around Sealers Cove :-) As you have probably noticed, I like those Victorian park signs stating that you are not allowed to bring your riffle to the park - surprised? :-D
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