Cape Conran

We’ve done quite a few things that we haven’t been able to write about yet so I’m going to fill you in. A few days ago we went to a great campsite called Banksia Bluffs Campground in the Cape Conran National Park. This was definitely one of the best campsites that we’ve been to. It is located on the south eastern part of Victoria and was suggested to us by a couple we had met when we stayed in Wilson’s Promontory.

We pulled in around 1 o’clock or so in the afternoon and paid for our campsite (in coins since we hadn’t stopped at the ATM in a few days) and the caretaker told us we could pick any site that was available. After a quick look around a couple of the loops we decided on a site and got out to check out the place. Within five minutes or so, Carly heard a rustling in one of the trees and we were surprised to discover a giant lizard crawling down out of the tree next to our van! When I say giant I mean this thing was 5 feet long from nose to tail! It was a lace monitor, more commonly known here as a goanna. I was pretty excited to see one in the wild since there was no glass plate between me and it like in the zoo. Carly didn’t want me to get too close to it but I was pretty fascinated by this thing. It looked like a dinosaur, and it had a funny walk, almost like a waddle.

After the goanna walked back into the bush (by that I mean the woods not an actual bush) we got our stuff and walked down to the beach for a bit before coming back and grilling some fish and potatoes and corn on the bbq we brought. A couple weeks before Christmas we bought a bbq we found for sale online from a couple that happened to be from New Mexico. The grill has its own carrying case and collapses down small enough to fit in the van under the bench and I can just hook it up to the propane tank for the stove and grill away. It’s a pretty nice little setup and we’ve quite enjoyed being able to grill wherever we are.

While we were sitting down to eat dinner one of the neighbors walked over to chat. He had arrived a little bit after us and was setting up his pop up trailer and the rest of the campsite all by himself and Carly had offered to help out but he said he had everything under control. After he had himself all situated he came by and introduced himself. James was from about an hour away and he had come before the rest of his group to pick out some sites. They had a bunch of people coming over, about 20 or so, between a few families. They had originally planned to go to another campground but it was really crowded for some reason so they came there instead. Coincidentally one of his cousins was getting married a little bit down the beach the next day which he said he’d rock up to in his board shorts with a beer in hand (jokingly). Somehow the conversation came around to s’mores, which they don’t know about in Australia, and Carly told James that we would have their kids over to our site to make them before we left. His people started to trickle in eventually and he excused himself and let us finish eating our dinner. That was about it for the first day.

The next morning we woke up and decided we were going to stay for another day since we had really enjoyed the site and hadn’t gotten a chance to appreciate it. First we had to pay for our second night. The office was about half a kilometer from the site so we decided to walk. I got out some more coinage and we set off down the road. The whole area is lined with banksia trees which give the campground its name. They are unique to Australia and produce some really cool flowers, just google banksia flowers to find out. On the way to the office Carly all of a sudden grabbed my arm and yanked me to a stop. She pointed to the ground a couple feet in front of me and when I looked down I saw my first Australian snake! It was dead though…run over by a car. I think it was a red bellied black snake (Australians are great at naming things). With our hearts beating a little faster we made it to the office and paid for our night and also bought some firewood for the night. They don’t let you collect any in the bush in the National Parks so the habitats for all the local critters don’t get disturbed. I lugged the 8-10 kilos or so of wood back on my shoulder and we got ready for the beach again.

When we checked in the caretaker had told us about some hikes in the area that we could do so we decided to try them. We got all ready to go which includes stocking up our hiking pack (a glorified fanny pack) with water and tissues and sunscreen and snacks and started off down the beach towards the boardwalk along the cape. We had to walk down the beach to get to the start and pretty much right away the sky didn’t look very promising. We made it as far as the picnic area at the end of the beach before the rain started falling. We aborted the first attempt and went back to the van and ate a quick lunch. By the time we had finished eating the rain was done and we started out again. We had a map of the area on a piece of paper that outlined the campground and surrounding areas. It said the walk was about 2 hours return to reach Salmon Rocks which are dyed orange by an algae that grows on them. The cape was very cool, right at the end of the beach there were some amazing tide pools that were filled with critters. There were lots of starfish and sea anemones, some were out of the water and they had pulled in all of their feelers. There were also a couple kinds of crab that were very skittish when we got close. We found some abalone shells but no live ones and lots of snails on the rocks.

There was a class of some sort, most likely university students, out climbing the rocks looking in the tide pools. I commented to Carly that I would have LOVED that field trip when I was in school to which she responded that I was a dork, I agreed. We walked along a boardwalk at the beginning of the hike which was put there to protect an Aboriginal midden. The Aborigines used to use the site as a gathering place and you could still see the shells from the abalones and other shellfish they ate. The boardwalk ended and this was where it started to get hairy. The map showed a connecting trail after the boardwalk but we didn’t see anything of the sort and everything inland was covered in high grass that put us off a bit after the snake discovery that morning so we climbed up an area that looked like it led somewhere and just kept on walking along the beach. Soon after, the beach ended and there was nothing but rocky outcrops in front of us, the ocean on one side and a tall cliff on the other side. We clearly weren’t going the right way but we looked at the map and decided that the Salmon Rocks must just be around the next bend so we kept on going.

Little did we know that the rocks were still a kilometer or two away over really crazy rocky cliffs. I forgot to mention we were both wearing flip flops at the time too, not the best rock climbing footwear. We picked our way along hopping from rock to rock, sometimes getting stuck with no way to move forward and having to backtrack to take another route. We are big fans of The Office and had been catching up on the current season on our computers, one of the episodes we watched had an opening sequence where some of the characters were running around attempting to do parkour and failing pretty miserably. If you don’t know what parkour is you should youtube it, as well as the scene from The Office (season 6 episode 1 should be available on hulu) in that order to get a sense of what I started doing next. As we were hopping along I started shouting “HARDCORE PARKOUR!” as I would make an exaggerated leap onto a completely flat rock that was separated from the one I had been on by at the most 4 or 5 inches. We were both cracking up for a while after that which was good since we had no idea where the heck we were.

After about an hour and a half or so climbing around we took a break to have a snack and try to figure out where we were in relation to the next beach on the map that had access from the road. We came to the conclusion that we had no idea but that we must be closer to where we were going than where we had come from. We did see some orange rocks as we were climbing through which we thought at first were the Salmon Rocks until realizing that there was no way to get where we were without going through the same ordeal we had gone through. We also saw lots more crabs, which were exciting at first but after seeing thirty or so skitter off when we approached one of us would just grunt “crab” when we heard another one in a crevice somewhere in the rocks. After another 45 minutes or so of “HARDCORE PARKOUR!” we made it to the next beach that had a staircase leading up to the road and out to the other side of the cape and to the great Salmon Rocks. We were a bit underwhelmed when we finally reached our destination since we had passed through and climbed over similar colored rocks and we were both pretty exhausted. We went down to the water and ran into the ocean to cool off before heading back.

The way back was much easier. We found the Nature Trail which was what we had intended to take on the way out. It was pretty steep in some sections but at least it was solid ground. We saw an echidna running into the trees at one point but that was about it for wildlife. There were lots of ants though, there are very big ants in Australia called bull ants which are about an inch or so long and have jaws that are visible from the ground while you are standing up. I was bitten by one of these buggers in Wilson’s Promontory a few days before and it was not an experience I’d like to revisit. We came out of the trail just past the boardwalk and passed the wedding on the beach as we walked back to our campsite. We congratulated the bride who was very happy and shouted that she was now Mrs. Somethingorother.

Six hours or so we made it back to camp and took cold showers outside in our bathing suits as they didn’t have any proper showers at this campground. We had used our solar showers the day before but they were a pain to set up and we were too tired to bother with them. After cleaning off Carly made us some dinner while and then we started the fire. Once it was going we cracked open a bottle of wine which was well deserved after the day’s events and had a glass before Carly went to invite the kids over for s’mores. She walked into the circle of 20 or so people and said they could come on over and we had a fire ready. All of them, kids and adults, came over and brought their chairs and in one case a motorized wheelchair, which was pretty incredible. We made introductions and Carly took some of the kids to find sticks while everyone else chatted. They were a super nice group of people and made us feel very welcome. We fed the kids s’mores with Honey Maid graham crackers, Hershey’s chocolate, and Jet Puffed marshmallows from the USA and they loved it! After a while the kids and some adults drifted back to their sites then the rest and we were by ourselves again feeling very good about our two nights in Cape Conran.