Maryanne woke me up before she had planned. The wind was building and she was worried it would soon be too much for the spinnaker. We wrestled it down, stowed it in its bag and switched to the jib. It was a good thing we did. The wind stayed strong the rest of the way, even requiring a reef or two at times to keep everything civil.
We picked up a visitor for the passage to Jervis Bay
We arrived at Jervis well before we had originally thought, which gave us plenty of time to find just the right spot to set our anchor. We ended up on the southern end of Long Beach in a patch of sand just big and deep enough for Begonia. {Maryanne: We arrived at the Beecroft Peninsula Side of Jervis Bay. This is mostly set aside as a military weapons range, and with strict rules about when you can (and cannot) go ashore; We triple checked before leaving the boat!}
In the morning, we set off to trek to the lighthouse at Point Perpendicular. On the main road, we stuck out our thumbs and were relieved to immediately get a ride from a group of English expats in a pair of cars. That saved us the boring, dusty part of the walk. The lighthouse is very pretty and blinding white, with the foundation painted bright blue. To me, it looked like a giant chess piece.
The old Point Perpendicular Light/Lighthouse
We then took the trail down to the Outer Tubes, where the military had a WWII gun emplacement. It is a prime fishing spot – one of only a handful in the world where marlin and big tuna can be landed from shore, The spot was so full of people fishing that we passed on going all of the way to the rusty gun ruins and instead contented ourselves with views of the impressive scenery.
The cliffs at the end of the Outer (torpedo) Tube trail
From there, we walked a kilometer or so back along the main 'road' to a trail with viewpoints to the north that we could see on our map app. There was no signage whatsoever when we got there, but we did find a trail that seemed to be going in about the right direction, so we continued on.
The trail popped out at some lovely cliff views
After a while, we emerged from the bush at the top of the 80 meter cliff face to spectacular views (One of our guidebooks incorrectly reports these as the highest in Australia - they are not). At this point, the trail became much more rustic; so much so that it was hard to even find it in some places. We backtracked a bit and found it much easier going on the bare rock a few meters back from the cliff edge. In several places, we started spotting anchor points screwed and sometimes concreted into the rock. We assumed climbers used them as belaying points for descending the cliffs.
On the way back along the same trail, seeing the cliffs from a different angle, we spotted what appeared to be a campsite in one of the many caves eroded in the rock face. A good look through the telephoto camera lens revealed it to be a makeshift shack, with a picnic table and windbreaks made from lumber; what a cool place to spend the night for the climbers, we thought.
We met three young guys going the other way and asked them if they knew about it. One of them was local and said he had been looking for it to show his friends. He then told us that it was possible to get to it without ropes. Oh, really‽
We hadn't seen it before, but they were right. The spot was known locally as either the Glass House or Fishos' Cave. It could be accessed via a short descent through a crevice that was not much longer or steeper than a couple of flights of stairs, then via a wide shelf to the entrance. I was initially skeptical, but our new guide bounded down in practically one leap to show me how easy it was. I followed next. Maryanne stayed behind so someone would remain to tell the insurance company.
It was a great spot, if a little too windy. They need to redo the plastic sheeting windbreak they have down there. Since the rock layers comprising the cliffs are flat, the place has a perfectly flat floor that is just the right size for a couple of tents. At the edge, behind an open-framed wall, is a six-person picnic table. Oh, if only we had known, we would have packed a picnic. What a spot!
"Fishos' Cave" aka "The Glass House" was an unexpected find
A local on his way back from the Outer Tubes picked us up for our ride home. He showed us loads of photos of himself holding giant marlin while standing on the rocks there.
Begonia anchored at Long Beach (South), Beecroft Peninsula, Jervis Bay
Since it was still early, we pulled up anchor and headed down the bay to the Hole in the Wall in preparation for our next excursion. The Hole in the Wall lies within the waters of the Jervis Bay Territory (JBT), which was the last of the states and territories within our Australian circumnavigation loop that we have not yet been, so we were keen to go. {Maryanne: Switching to the other side of the Jervis Bay enabled us to visit the Booderee National Park by boat}.
As the Australian Capital Territory lies entirely within New South Wales, the JBT was established as a way for the federal government to have access to a port without being unduly beholden to NSW. When the JBT was formed, the agreement also included a rail corridor between the two territories, but that was never used because by the time the ACT was taking shape, air travel was becoming common enough that the new airport could meet the same need. Thus, the JBT has a military presence, but no merchant shipping port and under 400 full-time residents (over half of which are Aboriginal).
The next nice day, we rowed ashore with a plan of walking a good portion of the JBT's trails. Once again, our map app was both helpful in finding obscure trails and misleading about their quality. Our first hour or two was on a trail worryingly called the Adder Trail; much of it was so overgrown and hard to follow that we were often required to push our way through deep, scratchy undergrowth to follow it. We made a point of making a huge ruckus as we did so, so that any adders within would flee for fear of being trampled. We never saw any, so that was good. {Maryanne: We assumed the trail name was due to an especially large population of the Common Death Adder snake, so we spent most of our time trying to keep an eye on the trail rather than the views. We were very glad to find a more path-like trail for most of our walk}.
Enjoying the sights in Booderee National Park
Further along, the trails ended up being mostly disused fire roads, for which we were very happy. We walked for miles and miles, taking in most of the viewpoints on the peninsula. We arrived back at the dinghy right at sunset on sore legs, ready for an easy day to recover.
Back to the boat by Sunset
[Maryanne]Per Wikipedia "Australia consists of six states (New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia), three internal territories (the Australian Capital Territory, the Jervis Bay Territory, and the Northern Territory), and seven external territories (Ashmore and Cartier Islands, the Australian Antarctic Territory, Christmas Island, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, the Coral Sea Islands, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, and Norfolk Island)".
With our visit to the Jervis Bay Territory this now means we've visited all the states and Inland territories of Australia. I doubt we'll ever get to all the external territories, but I'm feeling unreasonably smug that we've managed the full set of states and inland territories!
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