BOUDDI NP – 11 June 2020
I didn’t even take my camera on this fitness day walk, after all, it was just a rock-hop along the rocks and a walk on the beach, not really blog-worthy. But then we discovered that even though it was an hour after low tide the waves were about 6′ and trying to negotiate around a rock where the waves were breaking, suddenly made the trip blog worthy!
This was Brad’s “walk”, Peter F, Trish M, Peter T and I joined him and we set off from Kilcare Surf Lifesaving Club at 9am. Big thanks to both Trish and Peter F for providing photos for the Blog!
The start of the walk, there were rock shelves below, but we opted for the higher (dryer route).
Rock hopping always gives you a full body work-out, plus, we had to be very careful on the rocks, some were quite slippery.
Nice tunnel.
I think this is where we approached the rock that we could go around the back of, but then there was a small slippery looking rock that you had to climb (covered with barnacles), and then crawl along on a ledge to the next set of rocks, and make sure that you counted the waves, cause every 7th was a big-un, well actually it was the 5th, 6th and 7th that were big.
This may (or may not) be where we stopped, very close to the edge. One of the problems too was that we didn’t know what was ahead, and if we all managed to get past this bit, if we had to retrace our steps, with the tide coming in, it would have been even dodgier.
Or maybe t was here, not sure.
Great view looking south.
Retreating after we were put off by the dodgy section of rock.
So, back to Kilcare and then up to the Box Head car park.
I think this is the start of the walk from Tallow Beach, you can see in the distance the Headland we were trying to get around, as it happened, we were really close to getting around, pity about the swell.
Little Tallow Beach, turns out this has a nice camp site at the back of the beach. We had walked through the heath at the top of the cliff.
There’s a decent track from the NPWS parking area down to Tallow Beach and then around past Little Tallow Beach to the Box Head headland.
Our lunch spot, looking out to Palm Beach Lighthouse and Barrenjoey.
Whilst we were having lunch, Peter T looked down onto the rock-shelf below and sighted what we think is a lovely Lion Seal, it was really big, we are guessing a male. This was one of the highlights of the day. He didn’t like us being around and so dropped down into the sea, we sighted him half an hour later, just frolicking around (maybe catching fish).
Here he is about to launch himself into the ocean.
From the base of Box Head there’s a faint footpad up to the Box Head lookout, we scrambled up this and looked down to see a dolphin and our Lion Seal frolicking.
On the walk out, looking down on Tallow Beach.
We actually went looking for whales, but they were so far out that all we could see (occasionally) were the occasional blow, which most of us missed! Great walk Brad, the dodgy pass with the breaking waves, the Lion Seal and the Dolphin definitely made it blog worthy.
Definitely blog worthy !
Yep, sure was!
Peter T’s comment to me, regarding the turnaround point was ” you always say how do people get into such trouble. Well going on at that spot was a prime example of exactly how people end up in trouble and on the news”.
Exactly, was the smart thing to do turning around!
Next time low swell. Plus bring whales closer.
Yep, put the order in, went to a few other locations over last 2 weeks, very hard to see them, we are not the whale watching capital of Oz!