Who Needs Pasta Anyway!

With another long weekend and this one coinciding with the end of the school holidays, we took the opportunity to explore more of the South Coast. Together with Al, Rob and kids, we opted for a short overnight hike into the mouth of the Merrica River in Nadgee Nature Reserve.

Located to the south of Ben Boyd and abutting Croajingalong National Parks, this part of the south coast is quite remote. We reached the Merrica River carpark after 4.5 hours of driving arriving just after midday. Keen to get going, we quickly did our last minute sorting of packs and were off.

Signing the walking logbook, we proceeded through the disinfection foot wash to begin the 4km hike to our campsite. At you can imagine energy and excitement levels were high amongst the youngsters who were particularly keen for the first lolly stop!!

And so we trundled along, chatting and playing games keeping everyone happy stopping some 25mins later for the first lolly break....and then again 20mins later at a river crossing complete with a beautiful waterfall. From here the track climbed slightly as did the number of different types of mushrooms! I've never seen such variety!

 

Enthusiasm was waning but luckily we had crested the hilltop with the track descending in front of us which meant we were getting close and soon enough it bottomed out. As we made our way through the lush thick vegetation on a little single track we caught our first glimpse of water! Emerging out on to the sand, we had arrived at the Merrica River!

Having obtained a permit to camp at this spot, with the NSW National Parks having strict rules about letting 8 people camp (despite being a group of 9!) and 30 walkers in Nadgee on any given day, we were surprise to find a group of 4 young lads already set up! Thankfully though we walked inland up the river to come across an awesome campsite.

Feeling hot and sticky from the walk, we headed for a swim. We waded into the cold Merrica River,  crossing the lagoon which was only waist deep. Wandering further along we discovered a sand bar had closed the river off from the ocean. No one was brave enough to plunge into the rough ocean. The boys ventured off to explore the nearby rock shelves, while the girls loved jumping and breaking the small sand cliffs into the river. However with the cooler temperature and the sea breeze, we were all scuttling back to the camp in search of dry clothes and a warm fire!

On returning to the campsite, Al spotted a very large wombat, who was busily grazing a short distance away and seem unconcerned by our presence.

Once the excitement of seeing the wombat was over and everyone was dry and the fire was roaring away, we erected our tents and unpacked our bags before our thoughts turned towards dinner preparation.


Andy and I then had the following conversation -

Nat asks (after unpacking her bag and looking for dinner stuff), "Andy can you get the pasta from your bag?"

Andy says, " I don't have the pasta!"

Nat replies, "Umm well it's not in my bag either!"

Concerned looks appear on both of our faces, my stomach drops as I realise my mistake.

Last night Andy had been keen to pack our hiking bags with everything we needed. Knowing that my bag had various squishable items, I decided to add the food items before heading off from the car. It was becoming obvious that the box of pasta had not made it into my bag!

A quick conference was had between the two families weighing up whether I should run back to the car (in my jeans!) to retrieve the pasta. Pooling our food supplies together, we concluded there was more than enough for the two families - I mean we had two bottles of wine, cheese and biscuits, tim tams really what more could one want!! Together with the 1 box of pasta, pesto, parmesan, variety of vegies and damper, we would be completely fine and so we were.


Over the campfire we compared the previous weekend camping adventure and then reminisced of the Croajingalong New Years Hike the four of us completed in 2004/05......oh how time flies by and life changes :)