Today was finally the day! I've been looking forward to visiting Wilson's Promontory ever since a friend camped there and showed me the pictures. It looked so wild and extraordinary, littered with gigantic rust-tinged boulders and surrounded by constantly crashing turquoise waters. In the end it blew away all my expectations, although I still have no idea who Wilson was or what Promontory means... The park turned out to be a lot closer than we thought, so after we treated ourselves to a room service breakfast (isn't there something unexplainably sublime about eating eggs in bed?) we arrived at the gate of the park in around two hours. Thick gray clouds followed wherever we went, but the sun would occasionally shine through brilliantly and I would roll down the car windows to soak in every minute of it. Once we got into the park there was a thirty minute drive to the visitor center, and my face was glued to the window as we followed the undulating road around hairpin corners and over rolling hills. All along the way we passed marker after marker for nature walks, hikes, beaches and camping grounds. There is so much to do there! A quick cold lunch at the general store (most towns here have these relics of the past) and we were off to a trail that we might have picked just for the name: Lilly Pilly Gully. For the next three hours we hiked through glittering green rainforest. Much of the time we weren't able to see anything but the solid emerald walls of trees on either side of the path, but it would occasionally open up to grand, sweeping vistas of mountain valleys and golden beaches. As beautiful as it was, charred stumps and sappy scars made it impossible to escape the reality of 09's bushfires, and, seven years on, we got a stark reminder of just how damaging they can be. What really amazed us though was that some of the most badly burned and hollowed out trees were still very much alive, fresh green saplings jutting out from tired and gnarled branches. Halfway through the hike I turned a corner and audibly gasped in surprise as I was greeted by a full grown wallaby standing in full view in the middle of the trail. He stopped instantly and stared right back at me, silently calculating his next move. Seconds later he bounded into the forest, disappearing with an earthy thud, thud, thud. The main part of the hike finished at the top of Mt.Bishop, which gave us sweeping views over the park. It was beautiful to say the least, but the strong wind at the peak did nothing to discourage giant man-eating flies from repeatedly dive bombing my face so...our summit celebration was short lived. Brittany found going downhill a whole lot more enjoyable than going in the other direction (shocking!), and actually jogged most of the way back to the car. She'll deny it, but I'm pretty certain her newfound energy only arrived when she remembered there was ice cream waiting at the bottom. By this time it was late afternoon, and the clouds had broken up to reveal a bright blue sky. Just a minute or two from where we started our hike was Squeaky Beach, aptly named because the sand is so incredibly fine that it literally squeaks underfoot. I thought Clearwater had fine sand, but this stuff was on a whole different level! With rainforest behind us, massive boulders to either side, crystal clear water in front and mountains bursting from the ocean on the horizon, we sat for a long while to rest and appreciate where we were. I eventually went on a little photography mission while Brittany buried her feet in the cool sand and soaked up the setting sun. We finally decided to leave when the clouds rolled back in, and I'm extremely relieved to report that we made it the entire day without a drop of rain. Back in our car, we were exhausted and drenched in sweat, desperately looking forward to a clean bed and change of clothes. Unfortunately, our "roll with the wind hippie dippie" travel style came back to bite us in the butt as it was late afternoon and every single hotel we called was completely booked. Urghhh! We spent a good hour driving and calling hotel after hotel until we finally stumbled onto Coal Creek Motel, which turned out to be that prison from every 70's movie you've ever seen. The warden was nice and the cells were spacious, but it was a bit unnerving to hear literally every word spoken by the people on the other side of the cinderblocks. We even had to play musical rooms at first when we were given the wrong room keys, MULTIPLE times. I'm still not sure which was worse: walking in on someone else's room or being in a room and having a stranger walk in...but hey, it was cheap. We're off to the MotoGP track tomorrow, and then we'll see if the penguins dance for Brittany. Gonna hit those gift shops HARD!