by Biggles » Thu 27 Aug, 2020 11:44 am
Be prepared for all weather conditions.
The Prom is a southern, exposed extremity and subject to the full vagueries of weather, both east and west. Never mind what you can imagine down in the far south.
In October 2010 I walked the Southern Circuit, starting at Telegraph Saddle, then to Lt. Waterloo Bay, Refuge Cove and Sealers Cove. Weather varied from sunny-hot (first day) to overcast-cold (second day) and for the final two nights at Sealers Cove, downright appalling and ugly: wild storms, horizontal rain, furious gales, monster surf that crashed into and through the scrub at the base of the campsite...booming thunder and lightning. I didn't get any sleep: too busy getting in and out of tent to peg it down in the gravel pitch (pack a hammer for that bugger of a surface). A full day confined to the tiny tent. Final morning, sublime hazy calm and a nondescript walk along the beach and inland, then 2km before the end at the carpark, another round of horror rain, wind, cold and tempest. Nowhere to shelter. Sealers Cove was the pits, just the pits: my pack leaked, my food was drenched, clothes saturated, tent battered in the storm and general misery. I recounted my tale to fellow campers back at Tidal River, which was also smashed by the storms (cars damaged, awnings ripped, tents shreaded). It's a funny thing that memory does; the trip was the worst I had undertaken, but it's also recalled as the most memorable!
Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
—Oscar Wilde, 1890.
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