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Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Sat 21 Apr, 2018 9:40 am
by JimminyJim
Hi everyone,

Long time lurker, first time poster.

First I'd like to say this is a terrific site. It has helped me immensely choosing gear and most importantly, the trip reports to help pick where to go next!

I found the trip reports on the Prom Northern Circuit extremely helpful in planning my most recent solo hike, so I thought I would register to do the same. Hopefully someone finds it useful. These are just the notes that I made for Parks Vic as I went along. They ask that hikers on this route please report back to them on the track condition and water supply as they don't get up there very often themselves.

I did the circuit anti-clockwise in three nights/four days (hoped for three days - but that would have been flogging myself after Chinaman's Swamp). April 17th-20th.

Camped at:
Night 1 - Johnny Suey Cove
Night 2 - Tin Mine Cove
Night 3 - Lower Barry Creek

1. Five mile road to Johnny Suey Cove

Water at five mile beach was brackish/salty in the estuary. Wasn't sure if there was a fresh stream nearby so continued through to Johnny Suey. Climb up track on other side of estuary quite overgrown. Descent to cove much clearer. Regular tape was present all the way from five mile beach to JS and track easy enough to follow.

The area available to pitch a tent at Johnny Suey was very small. I expect you would be lucky to get any more than three one man tents side by side.

Evidence of a recent camp fire here :roll:

There was some flow from both streams at JS. Very brown with tannins and a bit mucky tasting but OK.

2. Lighthouse point to Chinaman's Long Beach

Some hikers seem to be using the unlocked metal box at the bottom of the lighthouse as a rubbish dump.

Much of the eastern part of this track(lighthouse point end) is heavily overgrown. Often dragging my feet along the track without being able to see them because of all the foliage. However, I only lost the track once and backtracked to reconnect. I did use the GPS a couple of times to check that I was still on the track and not an animal trail! A couple of trees down required a bypass. There is no visible flagging tape, and only very occasional reflectors on trees for the entire track. The Western half of the track is quite clear and easy walking.

Track from Chinamens long beach to Tin mine cove is clear and easy walking.

Tin mine camping area is much more generous than JS.

Creek at tin mine cove is running. Heavily colored with tannins and microbial blue oils.

There was a couple of other people boat camping on the beach.

3. Chinaman long beach to Lower Barry.

Swamp was completely dry. Nowhere to refill water until Lower Barry.

Track started out well for first few hundred metres then became progressively harder to follow. No flagging tape. The next white pole is impossible to spot from the last, usually due to growth obstructing the view. Some of the more sturdy orange poles that come later in the track were knocked down or obscured from view until almost on top of them. Lost the path many, many times and bush bashed to find the path many times. At one point I climbed a tree to find the next white pole 50m on the other side of some imprenetrable thicket!

The last 2.5km or so was quite clear and new flagging tape had been recently placed quite regularly, so the track was easy to find.

Took me 5 hours for the 6km from the beach to camp.

Clear running water at Lower Barry Camp. Clean and plenty of space.

Disappointing to see some rubbish in the middle of nowhere during this section in the swamp wilderness zone (disposable drink bottles and tuna can). I am always confused when I see rubbish left in a place of natural beauty, by people that supposedly come to experience the place because of its beauty and lack of rubbish! :? :evil: Anyway...

An excellent hike and I will definitely be doing it again, but I'd probably not attempt the swamp again until some track clearing had been done. I can't imagine doing it wet :shock:

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Sun 22 Apr, 2018 10:08 am
by Singe
Nice report, I'm looking forward to getting back and having time to do the loop!

There's a little stream on the northern side five mile creek, just a little upstream from where you cross. It was flowing freely when I was there last September, but it had been raining (a group I met who were doing the loop clockwise said the swamp was knee-deep and very difficult to stay on track!).

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Sun 22 Apr, 2018 4:57 pm
by JimminyJim
Ah,thanks for the creek tip, Singe!

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Sun 22 Apr, 2018 5:38 pm
by neilmny
Good work JimminyJim great to see one more active forumite.
It's people posting reports on their trips and observations that really make this site the great resource it is. Well done.

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Mon 23 Apr, 2018 8:41 am
by paidal_chalne_vala
I have walked the whole N. Prom. circuit three times over Easter 2015,2016 and 2017 and found water every time at the right places. It helps if you know where to look and have a pump up water filter for all water sources. The route can be hard to find and the track clearing work is sporadic so that one section may become easier to walk on and another becomes overgrown /reverts to a scrub bash.

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Mon 23 Apr, 2018 8:18 pm
by JimminyJim
neilmny wrote:Good work JimminyJim great to see one more active forumite.
It's people posting reports on their trips and observations that really make this site the great resource it is. Well done.


Cheers Neil, glad to be able to contribute

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Mon 08 Oct, 2018 1:58 pm
by JohnR
Hi an update on this walk.

I fastpacked it yesterday. Took 13 hours.

Chineman swamp is currently waist deep.

Parts of the track from Chineman Beach to Lower Barry Campsite are heavily overgrown. It would be extremely difficult without GPS.

In numerous other places the track is also overgrown (eg first 3kms from the lighthouse) but generally easy to follow.

Plenty of snakes. I encountered 6 all up. Seemed to be all Tiger Snakes. General rule applied: water plus sunshine = snakes. Was also a month with an "r" in it.

If you do this walk then gaiters and long pants are a good option.

All up a great challenge and lets hope they keep it as a wilderness area.

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Mon 08 Oct, 2018 2:43 pm
by andrewp
Thanks JohnR
Can you comment on the water situation at the camp sites? Maybe you didn't go up as far as Tin Mine, but you may have noticed if the creek at Johnny Souey was flowing.

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Mon 08 Oct, 2018 3:07 pm
by JohnR
Yes didn't go into Tin Mine.

Johnny Souey flowing strongly. Also a good flow at Lower Barry Campsite.

Cheers,

John

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Tue 13 Nov, 2018 9:13 am
by Joris
Hi folks,

I will be doing this walk as part of a bird survey programme in the next week - will report back on conditions. Sure hoping the water level in Chinaman's Swamp has dropped a bit by now!

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Tue 20 Nov, 2018 8:51 pm
by katcal
Joris wrote:Hi folks,

I will be doing this walk as part of a bird survey programme in the next week - will report back on conditions. Sure hoping the water level in Chinaman's Swamp has dropped a bit by now!


Looking forward to your report - I am hoping to do it in the first week of December!

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Sun 25 Nov, 2018 3:38 pm
by paidal_chalne_vala
The swamp at Chinaman's creek will still be a wet swamp until it dries out over summer . It will be character building to visit it before January . Take a head net for the insects!!

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Thu 29 Nov, 2018 8:54 am
by Tino B
paidal_chalne_vala wrote:The swamp at Chinaman's creek will still be a wet swamp until it dries out over summer . It will be character building to visit it before January . Take a head net for the insects!!


Planning on doing Northern Circuit 1-12-2018 to 3-12-2018 with a mate - let's hope we have the character for Chinaman's Creek, head nets packed.

There wasn't much recent info in the track condition reports when I spoke to an officer at the Wilson's Prom Park office on 27-11-2018, but she did say "ooh, the water could be neck deep in places, and there will be a lot of snakes around this time of year"...

Will provide a full report.

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Thu 29 Nov, 2018 8:41 pm
by katcal
I spoke to someone on Tuesday and they said thigh deep to me... neck deep seems... impossible? I am heading out on Monday.

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Sat 01 Dec, 2018 7:20 pm
by paidal_chalne_vala
The scary thing will not just snakes a plenty in the tall waist to head high grass but water snakes will be in the swamp.
I think if you have never walked the Northern Prom circuit ,then doing it for what could be the first time waist to neck deep in swamp water may be just too much like torture .

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Sun 23 Dec, 2018 12:42 pm
by Tino B
Belated update for circuit completed 30-11-2018 to 2-12-2018

Chinaman Swamp
Crossed Chinaman swamp at 7:00am on 2-12-2018. There is some standing water about 10cm deep on sections of the track before and after the 2 major crossings. The crossings of the swamp are each no deeper than 75cm or more than 50m wide. The bottom of each crossing is quite flat, with few obstacles.

Throughout the section from Chinaman Long Beach to well past the swamp, the narrow footpad is overgrown, is not visible in many places, intersects with many animal trails and is easy to lose. The white and orange poles and marking tape are all sporadic and difficult to see, but some do appear at critical changes in direction. Although map navigation is possible in fair weather, some of the section between the beach and Lower Barry would be difficult to navigate when visibility was low - especially if you hit the wide sections of deep water off the trail. We began in overcast and misty conditions with persistent rain and 50-80kph winds. We referred to the GPX file for the Northern Circuit from TrailHiking.com.au on a few occasions to relocate the track after we had veered off on an animal trail.

There has been some rain in recent days but I doubt that it will have had a significant impact on water depth. There has been further rain on 14 to 16 of December, about 35mm. My guess is that this rain would be keeping the swamp topped up rather than increasing the level

Water
The creeks that cross 5 Mile road all have collectable water - Cow , Barry, Chinaman. The flows varied from quite weak to medium, with stained but otherwise good water. If you fancy a lighter load up the starting hill you could collect at these but they are all quite close to the carpark.

Barry Creek Campsite - strong flow of good water. Pity this site is so near the start.

5 Mile Beach Campsite - water is from a spring in the side of the hill across Miranda Creek and about 20-30m left of the marked trailhead to Johnny Souey Cove. The flow is not very strong but the water tastes ok when filtered.

Johnny Souey Cove - camped here first night and collected stained and ok tasting water several times from the creek at the southern end of the beach. Easiest access to collect water is via the beach by climbing up the boulders in the creek to a clear stream of water. Access to the creek from the campsite is overgrown.

Johnny Souey to Tin Mine Cove - no apparent/easily collectable water on the track.

Tin Mine Cove - the water was stained, full of silt and had a little funk to it. Make sure to access the creek from the campsite on top of the ridge rather than going upstream from the beach. Upstream from the beach means traversing swampy ground alongside the creek - it's 6 inch deep mud that stinks. Another reason to avoid walking upstream from the beach to collect water is that a group of boat campers created a latrine 1 metre from the creek without any attempt to bury their waste.

We each still had 2 litres of water we had carried in and some collected water so did not need any more from Tin Mine to the 5 Mile car park.

Chinaman Swamp - ample, heavily stained water.

Lower Barry - good flow of heavily stained water. There was some swampy funk in the air at Lower Barry and some areas adjacent to the creek seemed stagnant.

We both started with 4 x 1 litre bottles of tap water and an empty 1 litre Swayer bladder. We mainly used the tap water to rehydrate our freezer bag meals for 2 nights and to make a couple of coffees and hot chocolates each day. We used the bladders to collect drinking water from 5 Mile Beach, Johnny Souey and Tin Mine Cove. Using a good quality, low/zero sugar hydration tab is a good way to mask any bad taste in filtered water - look for a hydration tab that has low/zero sugar and is 1 tab per 500ml.

Tracks and navigation
5 Mile Car Park to 5 Mile Beach - all management road or beach

5 Mile Beach to Johnny Souey Cove - clearly marked trail starts on the northern bank of Miranda Creek and crosses Monkey Point headland . There has been recent clearing and there is an abundance of pink tape.

Johnny Souey Cove to Lighthouse Point - Johnny Souey beach is an easy stroll at all tide levels. We rock hopped around 3 Mile Point at high tide in benign conditions with 9kg packs - it was fun and only required a few scrambles - wet weather or a lot of spray would make this dangerous in places. The track on 3 Mile Point seemed clearly marked when we met it. 3 Mile beach is quite narrow and meets a bank of eroded scrub and banksias that varies from 50-150cm. At high tide there is no dry beach and walking on the fragile bank is not always clear (or responsible). Commit to getting wet feet and jumping on a banksia stump if a big wave comes in.

Lighthouse Point - you can see the light station from the beach and there appears to be several ways to approach it. We continued on until we were below/east of the light station where there was a V shaped gully. There is some scrambling involved to a buoy with a rope attached near the top of the steep slope below the light station.

Lighthouse Point to Chinaman Long Beach - the track starts out quite clear and provides several nice spots for tiger snakes to sun themselves. As the track makes its way trough the saddle between Mt Hunter and Mt Margaret, it becomes quite overgrown and is sometimes not visible even if you are on it. The foot pad remains but is intersected by many animal tracks which can lead you astray. The track maintains the same heading from the light station until you are between Hunter and Margaret, turns left and then loops to the right. Once you are past the saddle, the track opens up, markers start to appear and its a 4km downhill to Chinaman Long beach.

Chinaman Long Beach to Tin Mine Cove - the beach is wide at low tide but a high tide will have you walking on soft, tiring sand, but thankfully the beach section is short. There are 2 choices from the beach to Tin Mine Cove. We rock hopped around the coast at low tide and took the track on our return. The coastal route required a few scrambles and was quite long, the track is well-cleared and easy walking.

Tin Mine Cove to Chinaman Swamp - Chinaman Long Beach seems very long at 6:00am, at high tide, on soft sand, with gusts of wind up to 80kph and in driving rain - our consolation was that it wasn't weather for snakes.

Chinaman Swamp - see above

Chinaman Swamp to Lower Barry - as you approach Lower Barry, the track becomes more distinct, is marked with tape and a few poles and is easy to follow.

Lower Barry to 5 Mile Road - clear track in most places.

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Fri 11 Jan, 2019 2:33 am
by 8r0wnd09
Outstanding report Tino B, I’m doing the circuit in a couple of weeks so thanks for the detailed info!

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Wed 23 Jan, 2019 5:10 pm
by Tino B
Track conditions from a walk completed from 28-12-2018 to 30-12-2018 (original report from 30-11-2018 two posts up in this thread). With only 4.2 mm of rain in January to 23-1-2019, water conditions will not have improved.

28-12-2018 to 30-12-2018

Chinaman Swamp
Crossed Chinaman swamp at 8:00am on 30-12-2018. There was some standing water up to 10cm deep on sections of the track before and after the 2 major crossings, and I suspect most of this will have dried up by now. The crossings of the swamp were each no deeper than 65cm or more than 50m wide. The bottom of each crossing is quite flat, with few obstacles.

Water
We drank plenty of water before departing and carried 4 litres each, as well as a 600ml Gatorade (empty bottle used for hydration drinks and protein shakes). The creeks that cross 5 Mile road all had reduced water flows. Cow Creek was stagnant, Barry Creek had an ok flow but is only 5.5km from the trail head, Chinaman Creek was quite weak but collectable.

5 Mile Beach Campsite - the spring in the side of the hill across Miranda Creek and about 20-30m left of the marked trailhead to Johnny Souey Cove. We started our hike at 5:30pm and arrived at the 5 mile campsite at 8:50pm, made camp and ate dinner. One of my hiking mates was volunteered to wade across the creek at about 10:30pm to collect water for the next day. He said that the flow was weaker than it had been on 30-11-2018 but the water tasted ok when filtered.

Johnny Souey Cove - the creek at the southern end of the beach, accessed from the beach by climbing up the boulders in the creek, had a weak flow. The water was not as good a quality compared to 1-12-2018. I imagine it would be very weak now. There are some deeper pools upstream where the water may not have much flow but should not yet be stagnant.

Johnny Souey to Tin Mine Cove - no apparent/easily collectable water on the track.

Tin Mine Cove – we had a good look around for alternatives to the main creek that flows between the hikers camp and the bogan (boat) camp but found no alternatives. The water was stained, full of silt and had a deal of funk to it – it seemed to be heavily mineralised – think of Hepburn/Daylesford spring water on steroids. We tried to access the creek from the campsite on top of the ridge but too much bush bashing was required – if there is an easy track, we missed it. I witnessed two boat campers emerging from bushes near the creek who seemed to have left water, or something else, rather than have collected water…

Chinaman Swamp - ample, heavily stained water.

Lower Barry - good flow of heavily stained water. There was some swampy funk in the air at Lower Barry and some areas adjacent to the creek seemed stagnant.

Tracks and navigation
See previous post, however:

Miranda Creek crossing at 5 Mile Beach campsite – high tide was 6:06 am and 2.58m. We waded across just after 7:00 am without much difficulty.

Chinaman Swamp to Lower Barry - as you approach Lower Barry, the track becomes more distinct, is marked with tape and a few poles and is easier to follow but there are still some places where the track is easy to lose.

Lower Barry to 5 Mile Road - clear track in most places but there are some overgrown areas and places where the track is easy to lose.

Toilet paper
There is a proliferation of toilet paper dotted around campsites and along tracks, especially Tin Mine Cove hikers campsite. Sorry ladies, I love ya, but have a bit of respect. It baffles me that experienced hikers entering a wilderness zone are obviously popping out of the tent at night, having a wee and a wipe, and leaving TP next to their tents. Drop dunnies would wreck the wilderness aspect of this hike and it’s easy to dig a little hole in the sand around the campsites. Maybe hikers need to provide a DNA sample before heading out.

Boat campers at Tin Mine Cove
I’m sorry, this is a Wilderness area and all of these bogans MUST be banned. When I hiked the circuit on 30-11-2018 to 2-12-2018, there was a boat camp with eskies, boom boxes, and an unattended fire(!!!). The boaties were using the bank of the creek as an open latrine. I noted boat rego’s and reported to the Prom office. After talking to Andrea, she confirmed that they had not booked and paid.

On 29-12-2018 there were two boat camps and three boats.

I encourage all that go to Tin Mine Cove to note boat rego’s and take photos (without pissing the bogans off) and report them back to the Prom office. If there are fines issued and boats confiscated, word may spread around the boaties that they need to shape up. I also observed several boats that seemed to be fishing in northern section of the Corner Inlet Marine National Park, but they were too distant to pick up their rego’s.

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Mon 28 Jan, 2019 8:49 am
by 8r0wnd09
Trip report 21-23/01/2019.
Mostly unchanged conditions to previous post with the following updates:

WATER
JSCove; The creek at the southern end of the beach (over the boulders) has absolutely no flow. I climbed as far as reasonably possible upstream before the bushland closes out and found no moving water.
The water in the larger creek to the immediate north (when taken ~100m upstream from the beach) was drinkable, tasted ok (filtered) and was significantly better than what’s currently available at TinMineCove.
TMCove; The creek here is flowing but as per previous, it is heavily stained, is foaming in the stream and has a real funky smell to it. It tastes alright a couple of hours into the walk to Lower Barry, but my advice is to load up what you can at JSC and take minimal from here.
Chinaman Swamp; Plenty of heavily stained water available, though I didn’t taste it.

TRACKS
Per previous comments
Chinaman Swamp; the water level is low enough now that you can skirt around the mud and keep the inside of the boots dry.

Boat campers still at TMCove :(

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Tue 10 Dec, 2019 9:00 am
by MicheleK
Has anyone done the Northern Circuit recently and happy to provide some updates on water and track conditions? Considering a pre-Christmas walk next week.

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Wed 08 Jan, 2020 10:17 am
by angusmagic
Wilson’s Prom Northern Loop:

Decided to go clockwise (which seems to be the less popular route) as we wanted to have a rest day at 5 mile beach. Big thing to note that when you are going around 3 mile point (from 3 mile beach to Jonny Suey) the .gpx file is misleading - there is a newer track which is a lot easier to follow. We only found it after getting stuck and bushbashing trying to follow the .gpx file. It is closer to the ocean and seems to match the track on google maps (at least we found it using google maps in the end. This does not seem to be an issue if you are going anti-clockwise as the start of the track turnoff is hard to miss.

Day 1: Five mile road to Lower Barry Creek

Easy walk along the 4wd track to the turnoff to Lower Barry Creek. From there the trail becomes much more difficult to follow. There were lots of pink bits of tape marking the trail which was helpful but every now and then we had to backtrack and find the path again as we had gone down and animal trail. There is a section that goes over rocks but just follows the cairns (stacked rocks) and you will see where the trail goes. Used the GPS occasionally just to check we were on the right track. The track is very overgrown so recommend changing into long pants as our legs got killed.

Water at Lower Barry Creek was great. Stagnant in a couple of areas but we went a little upstream and got flowing water that tasted good. We carried extra water from here as we had heard that Tin Mine Cove water was not the best.

Day 2: Lower Barry Creek to Tin Mine Cove

Similar walking - track is very overgrown and difficult to find. It took us about 4 ½ hours to get to Chinamans Long Beach. GPS was useful as we got lost a couple of times. Again, it was a bit painful to walk through with all the overgrown bushes. It was also helpful being in a larger group as it made spotting the pink tape a lot easier.

Chinaman swamp: There were three bits where it got quite muddy. Not a lot of water in the swap (about knee height at its worst). Once we accepted that we were going to get wet feet it was fairly straightforward just to walk through it. A lot better than I expected (but it was quite dry when we did it.

Once we made it to the beach, things were pretty straightforward. A long walk on the beach and then a couple extra km’s of easy track got us through to tine mine cove.

Water at Tin Mine Cove was not the best - tasted of blood. We went up the creek a little way from the beach but it didn’t really improve - quite a bit of sediment in the water and there were parts where it has a blue oil layer on top. We boiled it for our meals which worked out well but tried not to drink it too much.

Day 3: Tine Mine Cove to Johnny Suey Cove

Retraced our steps from the previous day before coming to the beach turnoff to Johnny Soey. The track starts well but gradually gets worse. It was relatively easy to follow but quite overgrown so again - long pants/gaiters and long shirt would all be helpful. We lost the track once or twice but were able to find it again or resort to the GPS. The .gpx file was helpful. I used it with the app OsmAnd (on android) and it worked well.

We got to the beach eventually and thought it would be easy from there (WRONG!). The beach itself was easy but getting across three-mile point to Johnny Suey Cove was the most frustrating thing ever.

We took the first path that had some pink tape but it was VERY hard to follow and we got lost and bush bashed for a little while. Eventually, we got to a point where we were 250 metres from the beach but could not go any further. We were on the .gpx track but there was no track to be seen.

Eventually, I looked at google maps and saw that the track on there was actually a bit further down. So we backtracked and I went and investigated and sure enough, we found the actual track which was very easy to follow and had been recently cleared.

So the actual track is a lot closer to the ocean then the track on the .gpx file (which appears to be a much older track). So my advice, keep walking further along the beach until you find the newly cleared track. We spent about 2 ½ hours trying to walk this 2km section so finding the actual track is very useful as it will cut out about 2 hours of frustration!

If you are walking the other way (anti-clockwise) this does not seem to be an issue as the track starts at a pretty obvious point.

Water: the creek at Jonny Suey was not moving. We were able to collect water from it and it did taste pretty good but it would be worthwhile filtering it or putting some purification tablets in it.

The estuary is brackish and we didn’t explore it that much to see if it was fresh further up.

Day 4: Johnny Suey to File Mile Beach (quasi rest day)

A bit hilly but it was an easy track to follow (although again there is a lot of brush). It didn’t take long.

Water at Five Mile Beach is through a little stream on the northern side of the estuary. There was a little trickle that was flowing. I got a cuttlefish bone and wedged it in so that it made it easy to collect water directly into a bottle. It tasted good and was good quality (the estuary itself is brackish).

Day 5: File Mile Beach to Five Mile Car Park

Walked 1.5 km’s along the beach to the 4wd track and then straightforward walk back to the cars. Easy to collect water at a couple of creeks along the way although they are closer to the end of the track.

Conclusion: tough walk but doable provided you have the right gear and are prepared for lots of bush bashing. Just remember that the .gpx is misleading around 3 mile point. Otherwise, the .gpx file was very helpful. Water is a bit of an issue - so suitable purification/filtering is recommended.

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Wed 08 Jan, 2020 9:44 pm
by peregrinator
Thanks for all of the good info, angusmagic. Clockwise does seem like a nice idea. Perhaps getting the hardest section done first means it's easier to relax on the following days. Therefore your comment on finding the track near Three Mile Point is very useful.

Which .gpx file were you using?

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Wed 08 Jan, 2020 10:13 pm
by Belindasucks
How recently did you go Angus?

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Tue 14 Jan, 2020 8:50 am
by angusmagic
We went from the 2nd to the 6th of Jan (2020). It rained a bit towards the end of our trip so there might be a little more water (or the swamp might be a bit deeper).

Anti-clockwise seems to be much more popular (not quite sure why) but we certainly enjoyed it the other way.

I used the .gpx file from trailhiking - here is the website: https://www.trailhiking.com.au/wilsons- ... n-circuit/

I used it on my phone with the android app OsmAnd - which worked pretty well - just make sure you download the offline maps. The .gpx file was pretty accurate for everything except three mile point.

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Wed 26 Feb, 2020 8:53 am
by Drew
Has anyone done the North Prom circuit in the last few weeks? I'm looking at doing it over the Labour Day weekend. I've done it twice before but always nice to know about water availability and swamp conditions beforehand. It looks like the Prom has had reasonable rain in January and February so I imagine it will be okay.

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Thu 27 Feb, 2020 5:52 pm
by paidal_chalne_vala
My guess is that finding water to drink will not be too hard but the swamp crossing will be still a bit sloshy .

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Thu 27 Feb, 2020 6:40 pm
by Baeng72
paidal_chalne_vala wrote:My guess is that finding water to drink will not be too hard but the swamp crossing will be still a bit sloshy .

For future reference, what's required to get a permission to walk the Northern circuit?
Seems like they want you to fill out some form or questionnaire showing you're not a total beginner with off-track hiking and navigation.

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Sun 01 Mar, 2020 7:20 pm
by paidal_chalne_vala
The Northern Prom. requires people to contact the Parks office at Tidal River. You must fill in a form which they will supply prospective trekkers with , one that checks off the necessary skills for self sufficient remote wilderness trekking and navigation.
In short it is the " I kiss my backside goodbye and promise not to call for help" form ;-P .

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Tue 09 Jun, 2020 9:44 pm
by publicrejoicer
Anyone got more recent intel? I am putting together a party for an early July excursion. I will submit our report in due course.

Re: Northern Circuit, Wilson's Promontory

PostPosted: Tue 09 Jun, 2020 10:13 pm
by Tino B
Early July you will probably have the whole Northern Prom to yourselves. Water won’t be a problem on the walk in, Miranda, Johnny Suey, not sure that the water at Tin Mine is ever that good.

China Man Swamp won’t just have the 2 main crossings to contend with - as soon as you step off China Man Long Beach, you’ll probably start to encounter water across the track this time of year. The 2 significant crossings will likely be well over waist deep and, I guess, over 50m long each. It may be worth taking a small pack raft and a few pairs of water booties (your boots will probably be soaked by then anyway) for the crossings to ferry packs across.

Make sure to get the GPX file from Trail Hiking if you don’t have it.