Wilsons Promontory trip

The red sun soon rises as I casually wake up after Seymour, where the train speeds down towards Melbourne city and arrives just a few minutes late. A surprise meetup with Paul from the Gariwerd trip followed as he's about to catch an Overland train towards Adelaide, a service run by Journey Beyond only several times a week. With a 6-month train pass, he's been using it extensively on his numerous work trips, travelling between the cities of Brisbane, Canberra and Melbourne, perhaps more than every other pass holder. If NSW Trainlink had a frequent flyer program, he would probably be at the top of the rank. The locomotive-hauled Overland train arrives at Southern Cross a few minutes late as he jumps on for an 8-hour trip towards Adelaide. 

Going towards the city, I ate at my usual breakfast place, went to a new library near Queen Victoria Market for a shower while waiting for everyone else to land. Theo arrived slightly after and followed my advice in catching the 901 bus from the Airport to Broadmeadows, then a train instead of the overpriced Melbourne Skybus. The bus is very direct except for the bogans typically present around Broadmeadows. Theo recalled a few kids at the back of the bus, boasting about skipping school. There isn't much around Queen Victoria Market either, apart from Jeff's discovery of a Chicken Jockey Minecraft movie hoodie the other day. We met up at a Malaysian restaurant and began our quick scramble to stock up on food. Coles in Melbourne Central was our first stop, then Aldi slightly up the street near RMIT. On our way we also discovered a really cool bouldering gym named Hard Rock with a climbing wall facing a glass facade. Apparently the gym has been overcrowded with beginners and a site for corporate events thanks to its Instagrammable nature, but on the flip side it's also good that they're getting people into the hobby of climbing. 

The SUBW group planned to meet up at Glen Iris, a station on the Glen Waverley line conveniently located next to the M1 motorway. The Aldi shop gave us a 30-minute delay so we now had to rush to the trains. The others didn't have a Myki card and it'd be cheaper to just get in. We scouted around Melbourne Central for a bit, discovered a few staff members and authorised officers, and found a surveillance gap where we broke open the gate and went in. Apparently the only place where one could sneak into a City Loop station is Flinders St Station near Elizabeth St. 

Boring drives down Monash Fwy as the car runs into evening peak traffic with all the suburban workers going back to Cranbourne. It's a wide 5-lane motorway before narrowing down in Pakenham, where we turned off towards the country roads. South Gippsland Hwy is fairly boring in general. We stopped at Leongatha, which has a decent Woolworths- finally a fully stocked egg shelf. The place has a run-down cinema with pokies near the entrance. That'll probably be an interesting place to watch the Minecraft movie we thought. Unfortunately the place is recently more well known for a Mushroom chef serving poisonous mushrooms, not the Minecraft movie. 

Heavy showers started as we got closer to Wilson's Prom. The MUMC group have started walking towards the campsite and this heavy downpour is certainly not pleasant. I checked the weather app and there were no signs of rainclouds- likely just coastal weather systems. The south seas facing Bass Strait and Antarctica are some of the roughest seas with rapidly changing weather so this is not surprising. Wombats wandering along the road weren't nice either with 4 sleep-deprived people in the car. We drove up to Telegraph Saddle at night where we parked, spotting a Toyota Corolla decorated with anime characters which likely belonged to some uni students. 

The moon rises as we approach Waterloo Bay, the first beach we saw. Walking on the beach at night it was a bit of a tricky exercise to find the track leading towards the headland, but that was soon solved with the aid of a Topo map. The track quickly rises over the headland, reminding me of the walks in Hong Kong along the beaches to the east. Beach after beach where everyone walks on sand and scrambles over the headlands. 

Reaching Little Waterloo Bay campground, finding space was a tricky exercise in the dark. Jeff, hitching a ride from MUMC, got there early and came to greet us. We quickly set up camp and made ourselves dinner. Adam utilising his new titanium pot made himself beef jerky pasta, a creative mix in the wilderness.

The Sydney people woke up early for a sunrise while the Melbourne people decided to sleep in. Adam brought his camera setup adding 3kg of weight to his ultralight setup. We tried Little Waterloo Beach first near our campsite and headed down to the bigger Waterloo Beach where we got our photos. 

We relaxed a bit by Little Waterloo Bay before heading out for the walk. I took a few MUMC people onto a scramble at the nearby headland, discovering more spots for photos. 

Our walk towards Wilsons Prom Lighthouse and Roaring Meg Lighthouse started with a walk down Waterloo Beach. Beach walk soon ended as we went uphill around the coast. Most of the track is buried in coastal bushlands as we weaved along the slopes. Small scrubs soon turn into forests, oddly organised and well aligned as if they've been artificially planted. The pace was fairly slow with MUMC people but we soon got there with some rest and backpack adjustments. It's glad to see that MUMC's club gear is similar to us- a mix of dodginess and functionality. They do however charge a hire fee unlike us where gear hire doesn't cost anything at the end. One of the MUMC members is a shadow trip leader, practising trip leading before being approved to run trips on the club. It's interesting to see two sides of the scale- SUBW being very relaxed, and MUMC being fairly strict. SUBW runs a system where everyone can be a trip leader, while MUMC runs through a list of competencies and assessments. Both have their benefits and constraints and it's somehow down to personal preference to say which is the best.

A slight detour got us to the lighthouse which houses a museum and a few cabins repurposed for visitors to book and stay. A resident wombat crawls along as we have lunch over the windy slopes with coastal winds blasting through. We got our group photo sorted next to the lighthouse before continuing the track towards Roaring Meg. I asked Jeff how his cycle through the Goldfields towns of Bendigo and Maryborough went. It was apparently a long weekend with 30 hours of cycling and him trying very best not to fall asleep behind the wheels. 

A few people on the MUMC side are first-time campers and took their time reaching the campsite. Nonetheless, we all set camp squeezing around a small and crowded campground. We sat around making dinner while I told some campfire stories from Sydney, most notably the purple feather story. MUMC aren't very big on stories and probably focuses more on riddles. Plans for the next day were quickly formulated as we decided to do an early start for South Point, the southernmost point of the Australian mainland. A bit of walking the next day led us there, a rocky yet scenic headland.

The reddish rocks are part of a giant piece of granite extending all the way from Tasmania, explaining its similarity to the Bay of Fires on the Tasmanian east coast. There's the Rodondo Island in front looking like a pyramid and Wattle Island to the side. It was a bit too late and the sun was too bright for Adam's long exposure shots of the sea. Nonetheless, we got good pictures of red rocks over the orange shade. Carlos and Theo continued along towards the southernmsot rock humanly accessble while the rest stayed towards the back, mesmerising the views.

Back at camp we packed up and started our walk back to the car. The SUBW group with a flight to catch will take a more direct route towards Telegraph Saddle, while the MUMC group will take the more scenic route around Oberon Bay. Both groups started at the same time towards Halfway Hut where the track branches off. A quick lunch and it's time to say goodbye. SUBW people pressed on along the fire trail, completing the 5km trek in a bit more than an hour. 

We paid a quick visit to a lookout at Telegraph Saddle next to the carpark, also where the easy walk to Mt Oberon starts. I sat in the comfort of the car with the best apple juice of Australia still sitting at my seat (it's a brand of juice not found in Sydney). 

Silly music just as we cruise through the afternoon sun of Gippsland with all the rolling fields and cattle farms. We stopped at Leongatha again for a quick rest stop, visiting the public toilets next to council buildings. The drive continued up to Pakenham where we rejoined M1 towards Melbourne. We turned off the motorway near Richmond and got stuck around a bit of traffic and crowds heading to AFL. Soon we parked at Chinatown, said goodbye to Theo, checked into hotel for a shower and went to a nearby Izakaya with Adam's friend. We ordered matcha beer which tastes like veggie juice, some of the weirdest drink we've had. 

Jeff went with MUMC on the longer detour and got back to Melbourne around 9pm, with a quick dinner at Leongatha McDonalds. We went to Bing Chillin for some pictures, drawn in from some internet memes. Just like last time we're not a big fan of bing chilling and went for Souffle instead.

MUMC has a clubroom- a full 4-storey building featuring a library, gear store, event space and even a bouldering wall. I got access and gave myself a self-guided tour around its library. There's an extensive collection on magazines, climbing books, guidebooks on bushwalking tracks and some local history archives. Guidebooks aren't as useful nowadays with internet being the predominant way of finding walking tracks and those hidden, out-of-the-beaten-path tracks are usually not featured in those books. 

Songbook from 1973, Walk magazine from the 1960s, documents about their Mt Feathertop hut (open to public and one of the most luxurious mountain huts you can find). 

Lots of pictures of their adventures. They also publish a yearly magazine- The Mountaineer, which is a tradition SUBW should revive as well.

A bit of walking got me to the main Parkville campus of Melbourne Uni. Typical uni buildings as I went towards the tram stop and caught a tram back to the city, wandering around before my 6pm flight with Jetstar back to Sydney.