Photography trip to Point Hicks in Croajingolong National Park

The other day, accompanied by my friend David Cook, I went on a photography trip to Point Hicks in Victoria’s Croajingolong National Park.

Bread rising in the camp oven prior to baking. Ah, there’s nothing like campfire tucker!

A well watered area in East Gippsland, Croajingalong National Park runs about 100km along the coast from Mallacoota Inlet in the east and is part of the Wilderness Coast.

We entered the park from Cann River. It’s a three quarter hour drive to the coast at the mouth of the Thurra River, our camping spot for three nights.

Camping is also available at the mouth of the Mueller River, two or three kilometres to the east.

Point Hicks Lighthouse is the pretty much the only built feature of the area, built in 1890. Now an automated beacon, Point Hicks Lighthouse can be seen for 15km out to sea, compared to the earlier days of coastal shipping when it’s kerosene light could be seen for 25km.

The current roll of the lighthouse keeper is to supervise camping in that section of Croajingolong National Park and run the accommodation in the assistant lighthouse keeper’s cottages at Point Hicks Lighthouse. The lighthouse keeper lives in the head lighthouse keeper’s quarters.

Point Hicks Lighthouse silhouetted against the morning sky.

Croajingolong National Park is renowned for it’s wildflowers. Although it was winter and approaching the shortest day, several wildflowers were in bloom including a couple of wattle varieties, heath, teatree, correa and several small annuals.

The weather wasn’t all that good for photography with a couple of overcast days, so images taken of wildflowers and landscapes on the beach and along the inlets lack punch. However, we struck one good, clear day, the day of the main photography trip to the summit of the Thurra Dunes.

Well, it’s quite a walk and climb to the best dunes, carrying the photography gear. I kept my pack to the minimum with two cameras, monopod, water, lunch and a couple of spare cards and batteries.

The walk to Thurra dunes is only about 2km. It’s the climbing that creates the difficulty, along with the loose sand on some legs of the climb. Starting at sea level, the track meanders through the scrub, climbing to about 100 metres and back down to around 50 metres, before the big climb up to the summit at 140 metres above sea level. It wasn’t too bad walking and climbing on this occasion, rain having fallen in recent days, stabilizing the loose sand of the Thurra Dunes a bit.

Camping was great at Thurra River. Some fire wood from outside the national park gave a cheery campfire for cooking a hearty meal and the customary campfire chat in the evening. We ate well and to top it off, I made a loaf of bread in the camp oven (dutch oven) on two evenings. This went down well as hot bread with butter to fill the remaining gap, after tea.