The coastal walk: Otford to South Era

Before Louka came on the scene, we used to like to do the coastal walk in Royal National Park, camping overnight at Providential South. Before Louka gets too big to carry, we'd like to do it again, but we've let ourselves get out of condition, so we thought we'd work up to it.

On saturday, the forecast was for a mostly sunny day, but by the evening they were predicting windy weather, and in the morning they'd updated it to windy with showers. It was still sunny though when Louka was finally ready to set off. We'd never driven to Otford before, and even with the GPS the route was a bit confusing, so we didn't arrive till 10:10.

The weather was still hot and sunny, but after a while the wind picked up and the sky clouded over, with the sea looking grey and rough with white-caps. Louka seemed to enjoy the wind in her face (I've heard of babies who are terrified of the wind) and in fact stayed cheerful for the whole walk. She's not afraid of heights either: despite the warning signs, she tried to climb over the railings on the cliff edge.



After a couple of hours we stopped for a snack. We ate apples and muesli bars, and Louka had pear and banana purée. Then we headed on for a little longer, reaching South Era before the weather looked threatening and we decided to head back.





She had a bit of a nap on the way back, but it was Graham, who'd carried her the whole way, who was really tired when we got back to Otford.