Bob had suggested this walk, and it sounded like a good one to do on a wet day with low tide. We traveled down to Scarborough by train, and there met up with Doug. The plan was to walk along the coast south to at least Thirroul. Bob had read about this walk in a new small booklet on Northern Illawarra Beach Walking by Geoff Whale.
We then walked north along Lawrence Hargrave Drive to Clifton to Moronga Park.
After a bit of searching and false start, we found the faint track that lead down to the bottom of the cliffs. This track has suffered over the years from a major slip – and great care needs to be taken in descending. Especially in the wet slippery conditions we had.
This took us down to the sea. We then started walking south. This involved a fair bit of boulder hopping at first.
Here, we could look up and see the Imperial Hotel at Clifton –
An old pipe –
And here are the ruins of an old rock swimming pool –
As we continued south the going became easier with more rock platforms.
We passed this high waterfall. It has a brick wall at the top. Google Maps has its name as “Ardons Falls”, but I don’t think that is an official name.
It was nice walking along this stretch of coast. The wet weather made it quite moody.
Here we found a large tunnel portal.
Perhaps used for storm water? Or perhaps old coal mine ventilation?
Now we are walking along Scarborough Beach.
And we continued around a headland to Coledale.
Sooty Oystercatcher
Kelp Gull
Great Cormorants
Coledale Beach
Little Pied Cormorant
White-bellied Sea Eagle
It was easy walking south to Austinmer. We found a nice cafe there for lunch.
We then continued south. More easy walking –
White-faced Heron
Brown Goshawk
And now we are at Thirroul Beach – a long walk, but the sand was hard packed. Thirroul is a town of artists and poets – but they must have all been indoors.
We had a few more headlands to walk around. This one was a bit tricky –
We finished off at Bulli Headland, and then walked to Bulli Station. Despite the rain – which ws on and off during most of the walk, we had had a most interesting time. It was mostly new country to all of us.