The Prom!

This past weekend, Matt and I went to The Prom. Unfortunately, we were not able to take a limo, but we did get an awesome rental van from the place where Matt works. Most of the vehicles there are stick-shift though, so there was no way I was gonna drive, and it would be a bit of a challenge for Matt. After driving for a little over 3 hours, we finally made it (without stalling once!) to the Wilsons Promontory National Park on the southern-most point of continental Australia. The park is known for an abundance of Australian wildlife, such as kangaroos, emus, koalas, and wombats, so we were hoping to see lots of animals. On our drive in to the park, we didn't get to see anything exciting, so we decided to stop at a small beach before heading further south to the main campground of Tidal River, where we hoped there would be lots more to see.

The beach itself was really cold and windy (this being winter, after all), so we didn't stay there very long. Instead we headed in to see what else we could see, and if it would be possible to go to the southern-most point. When we got to Tidal River, we bought an overnight permit for a campsite ($18.60AUD in the off-season, compared to $15.50AUD fee for 2 days entry, so a pretty good deal!) then had a snack in the car park and decided on some hikes to do. While we were sitting there, we had a very friendly visitor:

These rosellas were really interested in getting Matt's sandwich, and clearly have been fed by plenty of visitors, we could practically touch this one! After looking at the park map, we realized that the only way to get to the southern tip was a two day hike, and we didn't have any gear to do that, so we changed our plans slightly. We decided to do a short hike up Mt. Oberon and then have plenty of time to set up camp and make dinner before dark. The climb was a fairly steep walk up a maintenance road so it was pretty easy. This is the view from the top:

It was pretty cold and windy still, but this made for a pretty cool rainbow to the south. We seemed to have pretty good timing, too, because we were the only people at the peak for most of the time. On our way down we passed lots of people coming up and realized just how lucky we had been. We then made our way back to camp, found a nice spot, and made some dinner. As we were cleaning up, around dusk, my wish was granted:

A wombat!! I had never seen one before, only heard about them from Matt and was really excited to see these big fuzzy marsupials. This one was very bold as, like the rosellas, they get fed a lot, but just lumbered off when we came near it. We managed to capture this one munching on some grass, instead of people food, before he walked within inches of our feet to find greener pastures.

Sunday morning we slept in, then decided to go on a short hike along the western coast of the Prom which promised beautiful beaches and awesome views of the nearby islands. It was in fact a really nice walk with great views, though it was also really popular, especially for families and school groups. We found some really cool spots though:

This is the view of the beach in the first picture from a rock above the trail out on a peninsula:

All in all, we hiked about 15 km (9.3 mi) and though there was little to no dancing, except maybe with the wombat, I'm happy to say that we had a great time at The Prom.