Coast Walk in a Single Day
We recently took on a unique Sydney challenge- to finish the Royal National Park's Coast Walk in just one day!
Our Group Consisted of Guide Stephanie, David (An enthusiastic new bushwalker and new dad), Lucas (a local Firefighter) and Victor (a Yoga Instructor and Wellness Guru)
We packed our bags and set our alarm clocks early, meeting down at the very scenic Otford Lookout at 7am.
Our walk set off on May 21, one day before the official first day of whale watching season, hoping to see some whales or Dolphins one day early!
First up, we progressed down through the beautiful clifftop walk to Werong lookout, which is a beautiful lookout that overlooks a far away beach (they say its a nudist beach, but you wouldn't be able to see anyone from up here!) from here we climbed down handcut stone steps into the (native cabbage tree) Palm Jungle, where it grew dark in the shade of the dense vegetation.
After a long and sunny boardwalk section through the hills, we reached Burning Palms Beach (which is nearby to the very famous Figure 8 pools) and it was roaring, the surf was rough today, so we decided to give the rock pools a miss.
Just as we started to emerge from the jungle, a little bit of rain came along...we whipped out of rain jackets and then shortly after took shelter on the porch of the lifesaving club in Garie, to have morning tea. We watched as dolphins frolicked in the ocean from our lookout, what an exciting sight!
It wasn't much further from there until we reached the famous Eagle Rock and Curracurrong, where we stopped to take some great pictures and look at the waterfalls blowing back in our direction from the ocean.
Given the weather was a bit windy, we decided to walk for just one more hour to the very similarly named Curracurrang Gully, where we stopped and sat in the sunshine next to a emerald green waterfall to have lunch: hot chicken soup, sandwiches and fruit were on the menu. Sadly, none of us brought our swimmers today, it would have been a lovely spot to have a dip!
At this stage, we were officially only a little over half way in terms of distance, but as we had started with the more challenging end first, we were 5.5 hours in on our anticipated 8 hour day. We wondered over lunch how long the second part of our day would take us, but knew we had torches and had allowed enough time, it wasn't going to be a problem.
We progressed north, passing around the iconic Providential Point then Wattamolla after Lunch, posing to take some fun photos in a very colourful part of the walk. the Sandstone in this area has magenta, yellow and brown colours interspersed with white, making for some really stunning surrounds.
Little Marley then Big Marley beach followed, with the waves crashing violently to shore, we felt the power of nature. Millions of shells decorate this beach, with a lovely sandstone midden cave at the northern end to sit a while in and relax.
From here our party pushed on to Wedding Cake Rock. The Rock now has a large fence around it as it is said to be ready to fall into the ocean soon. The Rock itself is not incredibly interesting, but the lush vegetation in this part of the walk is really stunningly beautiful. we really enjoyed observing birds and wild flowers as we walked past.
Last Stop, was the famous Balconies. the view out to the ocean and the cliff lines in really spectacular!
Finally we neared the end, pushing on through just a short 1km to the end of the walk in Bundeena, the feeling of achievement and satisfaction took away any tiredness we may have felt. what a great challenge and we walked the whole 28km in 8 hours!