Southernmost

Every step taken without rain was considered a win. This was my mantra for our backpacking trip to the southernmost point of continental Australia.

We brought backpacking gear with us because BF had visions of us trekking around. This past weekend proved to be the first opportunity to use our gear. BF picks random goals e.g. going to the highest, lowest, southenmost, northenmost, etc. because getting to those random places allows you to see things you wouldn’t usually see.

Please don’t rain

The South Point was accessible via hiking through Wilsons Prom (really, there’s no apostrophe in Wilsons) and we had planned it for a couple weeks ago. But because our car ride was busy, we went this past weekend to an all rain weather forecast. We discussed whether we would still go and decided that we had rain gear so why not. But I was not excited about hiking in the rain.

This cutie is a swamp wallaby.

We cautiously backed our gear on Saturday morning and arrived at the trailhead hoping it would stay dry. We arrived 2 hours later at half-way hut, pitched our tents, and gambled on reaching the southernmost point. All but the last hour of the hike was car-friendly and not very steep. We hiked through gum trees, ferns, and banksia. It was beautiful.

It was very cold and windy at the South Point but we reached our goal! The ocean and sky colors were vibrant. After a snack, we hiked back to half-way hut to enjoy freeze-dried food and audio book entertainment in our tent. I was so tired; everything hurt.

Although it did rain overnight and threatened to rain on our trip out, we were cold but dry.