Day Twenty Two: Batesman Bay to Sanctuary Point

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Rest Stop: Aurao Snacks

Tired. That’s what we are.

Sixty three very difficult miles and all on the Princess Highway which means constant attention to heavy traffic, glass on the shoulders, missing shoulders, bumpy shoulders and well – you get the idea. The guide book calls this the most difficult day of the coastal section – and I hope it is true. It was very long, very hilly and just intense.

God’s provision was evident again tonight – we had a hard time finding a place to camp but we finally found the caravan park. They could easily have been full by the time we got there but the guy looked at us and said, “You would have a very small tent wouldn’t you?” to which we replied – absolutely tiny! He gave us a spot. Then we couldn’t cook because we had spaghetti and there was no kitchen – just the BBQ. As we were attempting to boil the water on the bbq, a woman walked over to us with a stove and said, “Why don’t you use this? I forgot I had it til I saw you trying to boil water – just use it and bring it back when you are done”. Pretty cool – didn’t just respond to a need she was asked to respond to – no she just voluntarily saw the hard way we were having to do things, dug around in her camper for the forgotten stove, checked it for fuel and then brought it to us. The theme continues.

High points would be the road had been reworked on one section and so the climb was much smoother and the shoulder was wonderful on the toughest hill of the day – one the guide book had warned us about for traffic simply turned into a really nice grind on brand new road. We went over one bridge today that was just really cool – we were going pretty fast and thinking about traffic and just staying upright and so forth when we rounded a corner bridge that was normal at first and then over a rainforesty like lagoon so everything changed – the temperature, the light and the gully was very deep. We went up a big hill right afterwards and both of us stopped to comment on how cool that was – very unexpected. Saw some cool old timey cars and a Studebaker Hawk. We got to Sanctuary Point on a smaller backcountry road system that snaked all over the place – we couldn’t find the campground, the motel was full and we were starting to get really tired. Then we found the IGA and bought food as fast as possible and they told us where a campground might be…. It was there, the guy had grace and here we are. Overall though just a long hard day with a nice campsite to lie down in tonight.

Off to sleep to the sound of Kookaburras…