2004/02 Prom and the Wedding - Lilly Pilly Trail |
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Tuesday February 10th
We found that the park shop had an Internet machine. This is just a simple computer that 
accesses the Internet for about $2 for 10 minutes access. It’s reasonably good for reading e-mail and sending short messages, though there’s no way to save any incoming messages, and the web access is really slow in most cases. I’d found that my satellite phone did not work as advertised. Although I could make phone calls OK in Australia, I couldn’t hook up to the Internet with it, as the Australian part 
of the Globalstar company wouldn’t have data access working until the end of the year.
Sandie had sore feet from the previous day so we planned to take it easy. We also had rain showers so it was late morning before we set off on the Lilly Pilly trail. The lilly pilly is a kind of shrub, but there are lots of other plants on the trail. Some, like the tea trees, really smell nice. Apparently, people did use the leaves at one time as a substitute for real tea. The vegetation changes every few yards on this trail, so there’s always something new to see. 
We took a side trail and found ourselves hiking up Mount Bishop one of the park’s smaller mountains. It was a long walk uphill, but there was a good view of the coastline and islands from the top, and a lot fewer flies. We met a couple who were hiking with fly swatters in their hands. They said that it meant they could swat the flies on their legs without having to bend over, much easier on the back.
We took it easy for the rest of the day, just driving out along Five Mile Road, looking for emus and wombats. Instead we saw lots of kangaroos until the rains came again and we retreated to the camp site. (See parts 2 and 3 for emus and wombats.)