Last Day – Waking Up at South Cape Rivulet
The night before, the sun set a beautiful pink over the eucalyptus forest and river as we made our dinner.
It rained during the night, and the wind howled. Amy said she thinks that when she’s in nature, she can hear music quietly—like someone is playing a song really far away. But really, it’s the symphonies of the ocean and the forest. The sound of the wind howling resembled little voices in the night—faint, gentle screams.
We woke up at 5:30. Well, we set the alarm for 5:30 and meditated in the tent. Amy complained, while giggling, that she could feel my breath on her face. We moved a bit slower than usual—it was drizzling outside, and we didn’t want to dirty the tent with our mud-caked pants. We had cookies for breakfast, made by the lovely Amy. Our wet, sandy socks were painful to pull over our dry feet, but after five days, we’d gotten used to it.
We took off in search of the track. We crossed a series of beaches. I told Amy it was going to be mostly flat today—it wasn’t. Up and down, up and down we went, along several beaches, boulder hopping as we moved.
We found a staircase and climbed it, only to discover it led to a campsite and a toilet—not the track. Still, it was perfect—we both needed to poop.
Off we went again, back along the beach. We couldn’t find the track off the beach, but I noticed some footsteps going up a sand dune, and Amy spotted stairs at the top. So, up we went—extremely vertically. Climbing the dune with our packs on was brutal. As I approached the top, Amy said, “You won’t believe it.”
“What?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” she said.
When I got to the top, I saw it—a damn staircase leading straight back down. Jesus Christ. Oh well. We laughed at ourselves. Of course that wasn’t the path.
Afterward, we battled hectic wind at the top of a black, smooth cliff. The path skirted the edge and was completely exposed, the ocean crashing far below. The wind was so strong we were being thrown sideways.
We used our trekking poles for stability, and Amy kept looking back to check I was okay—like I might fly off the edge at any second.
The walk was short, and we soon reached safer ground, beginning our final descent through open buttongrass plains and eucalyptus forest toward Cockle Creek—the final steps of the South Coast Track. This part of the hike was quite pleasant—and flat, as I had predicted. We listened to a podcast for the first time on the trail and were overwhelmed by all the information. But from it, Amy got the idea to go to the movies by herself. I support it.
On the walk back, we passed a hiker who had camped at the spot where we took the stairs. We had a brief conversation—she was kind and from New Zealand—and we thought nothing more of it.
When we reached Cockle Creek, we were relieved to take off our disgusting shoes and pants. As we were changing and celebrating the finish, the New Zealand girl walked by and offered us a lift to Hobart.
We were unsure—convinced Tony and Helen wouldn’t be back in time for our original ride. We had passed them on the trail days ago, and were unsure of how they planned on catching up to us.
BUT THEN WE REALISED: IT WAS WEDNESDAY. NOT THURSDAY.
We had hiked out a whole day early. Which explained why we had so much extra food.
So we laughed and accepted the ride.
