Matt Down Under

I got up with the sun, as usual when I sleep in my tent. It looked like a beautiful day with lots of sunshine. I remembered there was a note in the bathroom about the end of daylight savings time, otherwise I probably would have forgotten to turn my clock back.

My plan for the day was to move from Darlington to French’s Farm for a couple of days to explore the southern part of Maria Island. There are two campsites at French’s Farm and at Encampment Cove, but I heard Encampment Cove was occupied by a large fleet of weekend sailors. I knew that Maria Island was a popular destination for boat owners, and the previous day on Mt Maria I saw at least fifteen yachts anchoring at Shoal Bay, so my plan was to camp at French’s Farm instead, which is nearby but was said to be less occupied.

No need to hurry, it was a nice day, so I took lots of time for breakfast and packing up, but because of my good organisation this time I was still able to pack up in record time. When I left Darlington it looked like half of the campers were still asleep.

Anyway I had a wonderful morning walking down to French’s Farm, which is about 2,5-3h from Darlington when walking. I saw plenty of birds, cormorants, wallabies - beautiful. It was warm and sunny and at half the distance, the track becomes sandy which is nice to walk on. I met a couple of bicyclists, and other hikers, Maria Island is great with a mountain bike too. A lot of people bring their bikes.

There was only a handful of tents at French’s Farm. It’s a nice big area with an old farmhouse and a shed, water tank and toilet. A good base to start exploring the southern half of the island. Large areas of land were cleared for farming around French’s farm, but nature has started to take it back.

It took me only about an hour to set up my camp, have lunch and prepare myself for spending the rest of the day at the beach. By the time I left it was a beautiful sunny day, blue sky, hot temperatures. I decided to have a lazy day at the beach rather than checking out the sights in the area, I still had enough days left to take it slow.

I walked along the beach at Shoal Bay. It’s beautiful there, the water is so shallow sometimes you can walk 50m into the water and it’s still only waist-deep. The only issue with Shoal Bay is that there always seems to be a lot of sea grass in the upper half of the beach, so I walked to the other end. In 2008 I didn’t go further than Shoal Bay, so from that moment on I was exploring new ground. I talked to a bicyclist who came from the opposite direction and he recommended checking out Riedle Bay, which is the bay on the other side of the narrow isthmus that connects the southern half of Maria with the northern half.

Riedle Bay was great, a real surf beach, big waves and a lot of wind. No sea grass, but after a while I went back to Shoal Bay. I liked that there was no wind, the water was so shallow and clear, and there was no sea grass at the lower end. So I spent my afternoon there, swimming, sunbathing and watching the yachts. A wonderful day.

When I returned to French’s Farm it was already late and by the time my risotto was ready, it was dark. It’s funny to sit on the veranda at darkness with food and a headlight. I counted up to 4 possums in the surrounding area, you can easily see their glowing eyes.

The night turned out to be very very cold, the camp ground is surrounded by forest and also down in a small valley, so there is no coastal wind at all and the temperature is really dropping quickly there.