For those of you that think I just drink and party all day, every day, I have created this post about Wilson's Promontory. Wilson's Prom, or "the prom" as locals like to call it, is an amazing National Park in the southern most tip of Victoria, Australia.
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| My pilot, Andrew! |
If the ocean hadn't risen to turn Tasmania into an island, the Prom would have extended all the way to Tasmania.
The car ride down to the southern coast from Melbourne is
approximately 3 hours.
I can’t really
tell you what it looks like because I am the worst navigator ever and slept a
large portion of the way.
However, we did
see a bunch of animals while driving including kangaroos, echidna, cows, birds
and sheep.
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| Echidna look like porcupines with shorter quills. I'm pretty sure they can't throw quills like a porcupine, but I didn't get close enough to find out. |
And, I did manage to wake up in time to see these beautiful landscapes!
Our first stop down The Prom was Squeaky Beach. It was named such
because the sand has quartz in it and it squeaks when you walk on it. (South Africans refer to it as “barking sand”.) The sand was super white and powdery and
created the perfect bed for a nap. You had to walk through a rainforest to get there and the beach was lined with giant boulders which helped shield the beach from the wind.
We decided to just roll the dice for lodging and googled
hostels once we arrived. When we rolled
up to the hostel, we were told that it was full. But that he would give us a 2 bedroom apartment for the same rate. The apartment was clean and no one came to occupy the second room so we had it all to ourselves! The hostel looked similar to a cranberry colored Bates Hotel, so we were very glad to have gotten to stay in the vacation apartments next door.
We arrived around 7:30 and decided to go to the local pub to watch the Australian Open tennis matches. Poor Andrew was forced into 3 days of live tennis and now I was forcing him into tennis on TV. This pub, however, was actually a hotel bar that also doubled as a senior center. Seriously! They had seniors' menu prices (which we were not eligible to elect) and you had to go up to the window and order your food despite there being waitresses all around. There was no salt in any of the meals, clearly catering to a sodium-conscious crowd and there was some kind of PTA meeting happening at the table behind us. It was all very odd, but surprisingly our food was actually really good.
The next morning, Andrew packed us a lunch (he will make someone an amazing house husband some day) and we decided to go climb Mt. Oberon. Mt. Oberon is 557m high. I realize that its not that high, but its still a mountain and the view was spectacular. As a reward for our immense bravery and physical aptitude, we were both allotted cookies at the top.
THAT was the big thrill of our walk back through the bush? It was... until a giant snake crept up next to me. That's right, a 4-5 foot long black snake with a lime green belly was sitting (do they sit?) just to my left. I squeaked a little when I saw it which prompted it to get up in a python pose then quickly turned and slithered away. Thankfully Andrew saw it as well and he went after it trying to get a better look. Fortunately, that snake did not have legs and could slither fast because I'm pretty sure he would have attacked Andrew and I would have been an asshole for leaving him dead in the bush.
When we got home, we googled "black snake, green belly, Australia" and nothing came up. There is a black snake with a yellow belly (Northern Ringneck Snake), but it says those are only 2 feet long and this one was at least 4 feet. Since I was too busy freaking out like a girl, I did not get a photo of Andrews would-be murderer.
On the way home, we hit up a small coastal city called Mornington. Pretty amazing!
This was a pretty rad 2-day trip. We hiked about 15,000 steps (according to my Australian Open pedometer) which is approximately 5 miles. It cost us less than $150 with lodging, gas, a rental car and food. Boom!
