I have been wanting to go to Wilsons Promontory National Park for a very long time now. When our classes were cancelled this past Monday it seemed like the perfect day to brave the 100% chances of rain and head out on a road trip!

We all piled in the car and headed out in the morning. The rain held up as we entered the park and we immediately starting seeing wildlife! The first animals we saw were some roos along the side of the road. The had been tagged and were likely involved in a long running research project in the park.

We hopped back in the car and drove around the corner—only to see a group of emus!! When I was a kid I was at a wildlife shelter holding some food. A large emu started chasing me around the communal pen and my dad had to save me. Ever since then their shifty eyes keep me on their toes—-however, these emus were nice and didn’t try to eat me for lunch.

We did about half of the wildlife walk which was on a red dirt path, surrounded by shrubs. The ground was littered with tiny white seashells everywhere–the ocean must flood up to that point at certain times.

As we continued our drive through the park we saw more roos, a couple of deer, parrots, kookaburra, and kept our eyes peeled for koalas.

After a quick lunch of fish and chips we ran into a rather tame wombat in the park. He had research tags on his ears as well and must have been very used to people because he hung around for a photo shoot.

At the far end of the park we did the Mt. Oberon hike, about 3.4km up one way. The rain was still holding off and it was nice cool weather for a walk. It was an easy hike up until the last bit when we realized we had actually hiked up into the clouds. It was very windy, foggy, and misty. There was stone steps that we had to climb up past some cell phone towers.  Coming around a corner you climb up over a rock and then the whole view opened up in front of our eyes. You could see the ocean and a couple of beaches and the hills all around. The clouds floated past underneath us and the wind almost knocked us off the top of the mountain!

On the way back down the mountain it started pouring rain and we all got soaked. But we all needed to see Squeaky Beach before we headed back to the city. Squeaky Beach will sound squeaky when you walk on it in just the right way—its because of the silicon content in the sand (I think!). Its also very beautiful and there is a lot of large boulders on one side that have been smoothed out by the waves and tide.

It was a really long day–but the best way to spend a day off class! I’ll definitely be going back to Wilson’s Prom to do more hiking.