We had heard lots of good things about Wilson's promontory. Unfortunately the day after the famous Black Saturday in Victoria, a dry lightning storm passed over Wilson's Prom and a bushfire ignited burning 25,200ha over 5 weeks, close to 50% of the national park. It was named the cathedral fire as this was the name of the area where the fire started. Due to the fire and rehabilitation programmes etc alot of the park was closed to the public as the fire had only been detained for a couple of weeks before we got there. We wanted to visit the park as it is situated at the southern most tip of Australian mainland, which is popular for its lush beaches, rainforest walks and cloud soaked mountain peaks.

We had to drive through the first part of the park without stopping along the roadside as there was rehabilitation work going on which was dangerous, trying to clear the burnt shrub and trees etc, it was incredible how many trees had been burnt and then there would just be a random patch that was untouched by the fire. We slowly made our way to he popular squeaky beach which is called this because when you walk on it the sands squeaks due to the rounded grains of quartz. We entered the beach from the north end car park to be greeted by huge rock formations, which we climbed up for some great photos. This is where the famous comment was made when Paula was to scared to climb up. James quoted 'its not cute to be a wuss' which we found hilarious and you can imagine it was used alot afterwards! The beach had a real untouched and rugged feel to it, surrounded by bush and forestry.. and the surf in the ocean was pretty good too!!

After playing around on the beach and watching local surfers catch some waves, we headed back to the visitors centre as there was talk on the details of the Catherdral Fire which we were really interested in finding out more about. The talk explained to us how the bush fire started, and how it grew so fast in intensity, due to the changing winds. Techniques such as water bombing from planes and helicopters were used but did not stop the flames of the fire. Other techniques such as 'backburning', a way of burning out the fires feuls was used - where you have to burn part of the park against the fire to try and stop the fires fuel source. They also told us what had happened to the animals living in the bush, and what was being done to help these animals. Apparently after a bush fire there are 'winners and loosers' in the wildlife population, which will be monitered closely. Anyway it was a really informative talk and kept us engrossed for a good hour, very sad to see the final outcome of the fire in the flesh. It was one of the best national parks in Australia as well. It will take years to grow back!!

That afternoon we did the SouthNorman/Little Oberon Bay walk where we had to walk over some sand dunes covered in tea tree to the southern end of norman beach, climbing around Norman point to little Oberon Bay. The view of Wilsons prom coastline was pretty cool but again alot of it was burnt but little Oberon Bay was a really nice white beach, very small but scenic. Anyway we turned around from here and worked our way back as a huge rain cloud was coming in thick and fast but we managed to dodge it and get back to the campers before it started to rain!!! Our day in Wilson's Prom was very informative and well worth the visit but unfortunately I think it has definitely seen better days.