Anser Island from South-west Point

Anser Island from South-west Point

As a wilderness photographer I have a tendency to value photos from remote and difficult to get to places over those taken 10m from the car or off the public viewing platform no matter how amazing the scene.

With these criteria in mind and the experience of this amazing area fresh in my memory I would therefore value this shot as amongst the most significant to me personally that I have ever taken.

I first visited the Prom back in 1991 and over many years traversed every track in the area, revelling in the new pads like the SE Point/ Waterloo Bay track as well as some of the more remote tracks in the northern section of the promontory.

As a bushwalker who likes to explore areas that few others get to, my attraction to the trackless southwest corner of Wilsons Promontory came into focus fairly early in my forays around the Prom. In accordance with this interest I made enquires at the Ranger Station in Tidal River about doing a walk in this area only to be informed that off track permits were only issued to parties involved in scientific research.

Having walked extensively off track in other regions around Victoria in the full knowledge of local park staff I was frankly mystified by this policy. In the busy areas along the west coast and near the 1961 Cinnamon Fungus outbreak in the north of the Prom I could understand it but in most areas the shear density and verdancy of the undergrowth was its own deterrent to most potential off track candidates. Years later I found my mystification justified when after a mini tornado of letters to the editor of WILD that occurred in consequence to an article I wrote about a circumnavigation of the prom that I did (without a permit). I became aware that permits were in fact issued for non scientific parties and have happily applied and received such permits henceforth. My mystification these days is to why I was misled in the first place?

Anyway back to the walk, we left Tidal River at midday on Friday planning to get to Enclave Creek by nightfall. About halfway down the heavens opened and informed me extremely effectively that it was time to reproof my megabuck Gortex jacket. Twenty-one km later at South Point drenched and with darkness approaching we dismissed the Enclave Creek idea and happily retreated to our shelter for a well earned dinner and rest. Our main worry being about the feasibility of completing such a trip if the weather didn’t improve.

We needn’t have worried with the next day dawning bright and clear. Rising before dawn I gave all of my five and a half kilograms of camera gear a work out in the magical first rays of the day. I took my time so as to give my gear a chance to dry and thinking that the two days we had allowed to cover the next ten kilometres was ample for the task at hand anyway. On one hand I was expecting this walk to be one of the toughest I had ever done but from my view of the nearby coast I wasn’t expecting those difficulties to start until around South-west Point. So casual was my approach that I decided to fill my water bottle en route rather than at the nearby creek. Boy was that an error of judgment.

It started easy enough but soon enough we were forced inland as the cliffs grew shear and our low level rock climbing and rock hoping grew more dangerous. See a you tube clip of my brother negotiating one of these traverses here . Incidentally this clip was of one of the easier traverses on which no-one actually got wet.

So dense was the inland scrub that our progress slowed to a crawl with only a few hundred meters an hour being covered. Eventually we stopped at Enclave Creek for ‘lunch’ at 4:00pm after checking out Enclave Creek Falls and our by now very parched throats. We decided that we needed to make South-west Point by nightfall to give us a hope of completing our trip the next day. Four hours later exhausted but happy we completed the one kilometre traverse between Enclave Creek and the point by torchlight. In ten hours of hard walking that day we had covered a mere two and a half kilometres. We had however scored one of the only spaces large enough to pitch a tent in that we had seen all day.

The next morning was one of rapturous delight, experience the new day from a place that a mere handful have ever experienced it from before. The location and light were stunning my only regret being the need to hurry and therefore missing a few shots I otherwise would of got, oh well.

By 7:15 we were off on another huge day of scrub, granite, coastlines, creeks and mountains our previous days start point depressingly close wondering if we would have time to complete our walk in the time allotted.

To be continued…

For more shots from this area check out my Wilsons Promontory gallery.

10% of all profits go to the Wilderness Society

Anser Island from South-west Point belongs to the following groups:

*All Seascapes, All About Water, Dawn and Dusk Light, Descriptions, Horizons, Landscape Photography, National Parks of the World, Out of the Blue (75%+ Blue artwork), Rocks and Bones, SEA, Travel and Adventure and Wilsons Promontory