Day 71

Start:  Brunswick Heads

Finish:  Pottsville

Distance:  15

Total:  1126

I had one of my tougher walking days today, even though it wasn’t particularly long. The route was difficult and the humidity was stifling so I was glad to get it over with. 

I had a good nights rest in Brunswick Heads and was not in a big hurry to leave this morning. I walked a quarter mile into town to eat breakfast then went back to my motel and finally left about 9:30. 

As you know, I use Google Maps to navigate on my route, usually selecting the walking option. The first part of my route was along a two lane road that paralleled the freeway. Then I was suppose to turn off the road and from the overhead image on my phone it looked like I would be walking through a very large campground or fairground. It was labeled “Splendour In The  Grass” on Google Maps. That meant absolutely nothing to me. So when I got to the point where I was suppose to turn into this large campground place, there was a locked gate across the road keeping traffic out. I just went around the gate and proceeded to follow the route on my phone. In this place there were many bathroom facilities with showers, a general store, an amphitheater, and miles and miles of paved and gravel roads leading to different campsite communities. It was very elaborately set up and organized. But strangely, I didn’t see a single camper, or person for that matter, anywhere during my two mile walk through this huge campground. 

Once I got to the far side of this large unoccupied campground, my map directed me to turn off the campground road and follow another straight road for about one mile. Unfortunately, sometimes you can’t clearly tell beforehand what kind of road it’s directing you onto.  In this case it was a grown over grass road through a farmers pasture that was waste deep in wet grass from an earlier shower.  So I spent the next 30 minutes wallowing through this wet grass, hoping I wasn’t going to finally meet one of those Australian snakes everyone raves about. But I made it to the end of the farmers pasture, only to be met by a locked gate that had an electric fence hooked to each end of the gate. So I needed to climb over the gate, but I couldn’t tell if the gate was actually electrically charged or just the fence on each end. I stood there and studied it for a couple of minutes in my wet shoes, socks and pants I had just gotten from walking through the wet grass. It didn’t look electric; but what does electric look like?  I couldn’t see where the wires from the fence connected to the gate. Besides, who in their right mind would electrify the gate. That would make no sense. So I touched it with my walking staff. Nothing. Good. So over the gate I climbed and headed onto the road just ahead, wet from the waste down but alive. 

With about six miles left to my destination, the road I was walking on got very close to the beach and basically stayed within 10-20 yards of the ocean the rest of the way to Pottsville. There were occasionally trees blocking my view but the surf was very heavy and I could definitely hear it for the next two hours. I made it to Pottsville, a nice little beach town, at about 3:00 and immediately stopped at the local tavern for lunch. I was running on empty having not had anything to eat since 8:00 this morning. 

One last thing. When I checked in to my motel, I was telling the nice receptionist, Julie, about my walking route through the huge, empty campground. It didn’t immediately spur her memory so I showed her on my Google Maps. Then she saw that I had walked through “Splendour In The Grass”.  She explained that this is the Aussie’s version of “Burning Man” and of course that only happens once per year. So it all makes perfect sense now. But I must say, that was one big campground. That’s it for my Sunday. Thanks for following along. JB.