Practice walk: The coastal track

We want to walk the Overland Track these summer holidays, but we haven't really done any serious walks since Louka came along (though we did manage this when she was eight months old). So we thought we'd get some practice in.

On Friday I bought Louka some hiking boots. She happily wore them round the house all evening, so I guess they're comfortable. Then yesterday Graham went shopping for hiking food and brought back fruit and nut bars, trail mix, jerky, apples and the ingredients for Anzac biscuits. So the three of us co-operated to make Anzac biscuits, but the mixture was a bit wet to roll into balls so we just spread it into a slice tin instead.

This morning when Louka woke up we hustled her into her clothes and into the car for the 1½ hour drive to Otford. First thing when we got there was to have breakfast in the pie shop then we parked the car at the start of the walk.

The walk starts up a lot of steps in dry forest, but there are flat sections, grassy slopes, palm jungles and rainforest. It skirts the cliff edge quite close in places and goes up and over headlands and down to gullies and beaches. We paused at an informal lookout for a drink and snack at morning tea time...

then walked on till noon before stopping for lunch on the headland overlooking North Era.

Louka was getting tired, and we felt we'd have trouble making it all the way to Bundeena, so after lunch we headed back to Otford.

By the time we got back we were all tired: Graham had sore feet, I had sore knees and calves and Louka was not as sure-footed as she'd started out. But we made it.

Here are a few more photos from the walk: