Summer Holiday 24/12/2017 - Tourist Day

After a night of listening to Wombats grazing under our trailer and rubbing their butts on the actual trailer, Wombat stew sounded like a good breakfast option.  Ending up with cereal for breakfast we headed for Point Perpendicular Lighthouse.  As we were approaching the GPS indicated to turn right into military land, closed off by some impressive looking boom gates.  Unsure of whether we really should be going in there we approached the right boom gate only to see the person in the cubical of the left boom gate wave.  A quick manoeuvre to the left and we nearly caused an accident.  The guard was waving to the car behind us.  Ending up at the original right boom gate Kerrie sheepishly told the guard that she is not certain whether we should be here or not.  The guard, with a sheen of sweat on his brow, told us that if we are here for the lighthouse it is all good.  I think he was happy to see us gone.  It was another six kilometres to the lighthouse and the kids were looking out for snipers, spy satellites and enemy soldiers.  Maybe we should restrict them on what movies they watch.
The lighthouse looked impressive on at least 50-meter-high cliffs.

Notably, we met two interesting tourist groups.  The first was a couple asking us for the best way through the security fence to the cliff tops.  As we are on military land and the cliffs look pretty dangerous by themselves, we convinced them that it probably would be a better option to just take photos from a distance.  The other odd group were a couple of Asian dudes with fishing rods, who asked us for a lend of some bait.  No idea how they were going to fish off a 50-meter-high cliff and why they thought we looked like fish mongers (not to mention how they would return the bait they wanted to borrow).

I think it was time to get out of there and head off for a swim at Honeymoon Bay.  The bay, including the adjoining campground is open only on weekends and holidays.  Obviously, the military doesn’t work on those and people generally get married on weekends.  The bay is very idyllic, and we had a great time snorkelling and swimming in general.  Only problem was that there was a tad bit too many people i.e. we were not alone.  About a hundred people enjoyed the beautiful spot and I nearly took out an old guy while snorkelling.  But I think he is OK.

On our way out, the security guard gave us a friendly (if not a bit nervous) wave and the kids were relieved that they didn’t get kidnapped by some sort of undercover commandos.

With me being a bit apprehensive we headed for Currarong where we parked and had some lunch in the picnic area.  I say apprehensive as you may be aware I don’t like confined spaces and the idea of a 30-meter-long narrow tunnel didn’t sound like too much fun.  But an adventure anyway.  We set off on the one and a bit kilometre walk through the dunes.  My spirits lifted dramatically when I saw the tunnel.  It didn’t look scary at all.  You could see the other side and it only took a bit of a duck waddle to get through.  There was plenty of breathing space.  On the other side we were greeted by the most spectacular view from a fairly large ledge high on the cliff face.  We had planned to have our Christmas lunch here, but with the poor weather forecast tomorrow we decided to do the planned Christmas activities today.

The ocean views trumped everything we did today.  What we didn’t realise that we still had another Ace up our sleeves.

Luke read about Mermaids Inlet in his climbing forums and we found the unmarked track that leads to it after some searching.  The crevasse resembles as if someone has taken a huge knife and slashed the cliff face, creating a cleft with two rock walls on each side divided by a narrow-sheltered inlet.  The rock walls are often used for deep sea bouldering, but we just enjoyed another nice swim.  I think this would be my favourite place for today (maybe the fact that there were no other people had something to do with it).

Now we are all looking forward to Christmas.