Gosangs Tunnel and Mermaid Inlet

 After my camping trip out to Young before returning to work after a year and a half off due to my cancer treatment, I soon returned to work 3 days a week. I found myself instantly exhausted and questioning my future, coming home completely exhausted and telling my Wife I needed 'a desk job'. The days off in between work days I spent recovering from the previous day at work, laying on the couch watching movies or making my way through Red Dead Redemption 2 and Far Cry Primal. I began to get an incredibly sore blistered mouth and it soon became unbearable for me to eat or even drink food. Seeing a Doctor I was told I had Graft vs Host in the mouth due to my Stem Cell Transplant.  I began a treatment of a steroid mouthwash and it soon improved. I was told it was a good sign however as late onset Graft vs Host was commonly linked to less chance of the cancer recurring. However I lost 7kg due to not being able to eat or drink properly. 

After returning to a normal diet and my Graft vs Host clearing up, my energy and stamina levels began to improve, and I moved back to 4 days a week at work. After many weeks I began to even feel my energy levels continue to improve. I began to start wanting to get back out on walks or even return to rock climbing. I made plans to go for a bushwalk at Brokers Nose with my Wife and friends Stuart and Megan on the Easter long weekend. However before that I had a lung test booked in at Wollongong Hospital to see if the chemotherapy had done any damage to my lungs (prior to this I had a Bone Density Scan that came back all good). 

2 of my 3 results were fine. However my third result came back poor. I was told that the gases between my lungs and blood were not passing through to each other correctly. Basically my lungs were not able to receive the amount of oxygen I needed, which was probably why while doing the Weddin Mountains out at Young I struggled so much. I was told it was possible the damage could be permanent but to retest in 3 months so see if there was any improvement.

While this upset me I was determined to improve my fitness making me more adamant to go out on the walk to Brokers Nose with my friends.

At Brokers Nose Lookout

I took my friends on the same trail that I had followed with my Dad and I didn't find myself struggling at all (until near the end when I did a run down an extra trail on my own just to inspect what was down there). Arriving back at the car Megan had received her first ever leech, truly an unforgettable experience.

I soon had my one year appointment with my specialist after my Bone Marrow Biopsy and was ecstatic to hear there was still no trace of the cancer.

Elated by having such a great time with my friends and my good medical news, I continued to try to organise a day of adventure with my Dad to visit Gosangs Tunnel and Mermaid Inlet (which we had tried to do numerous times only for various factors such as weather, and illness to get in the way).

Finally we set the date (2/5/22), the second last week of my being 4 days a week before returning to full time.

That morning I got up early, ready to leave. While waking myself up with a cup of coffee in the morning on the couch my Wife returned from her morning walk with our Dog, Orla.
I rubbed her cute little face to say good morning to her and she yelped. I looked at her ear tip (which had been attacked by insects as a puppy and so the tips of her ears have not had fur, but instead been furless, an ongoing issue of us having to treat with bug repellant before putting her outside on days we went to work), and the tip was half hanging off. Alarmed I called in my Wife who had went of to start getting ready for work.
Shocked we agreed I would have to take her to the vet which didn't open until 8 (I was supposed to already be heading down to Currawong with my Dad by that time).

My Wife left for work and I waited around until 8 to call the vet. After a call they said the vet was in an operation, but asked if we could drop her to be left there for the day. I agreed, with my Wife agreeing to leave work early to pick her up from the vet if I was not back from my walk in time. I drove my poor little baby to the vet (she was excited the whole time thinking I was taking her to the beach which is usually why I put her in the car).

After dropping her off, which was heartbreaking as she was so confused as to why I was leaving her and kept trying to come to me as I was leaving I had to go to my Dad's to pick him up and try to set my mind frame into one in which I could still enjoy my day.

I arrived at my Dad's and changed the music on my blue-tooth speakers to the Hamilton soundtrack, to try to help lift my mood. I began informing my Dad about the situation as we made our way south. He began talking about all sorts of things, I nodded along half not paying attention, distracted both by the thoughts about my poor girly, and of the banger Hamilton tunes. My Dad began going on about how good Phantom of the Opera was when he went to see it and I slowly adjusted the volume to be louder, before he soon asked if I could turn it down. Towards Berry I began feeling the urge to wee, proabbly brought on by anxiety about my Dog, and turned off to use the public toilets at the playground just south of Berry.

As we pulled up my Dad began to tell me about how he bike rides up to Blackbutt Reserve in Shellharbour all the time, before I cut him off asking if he could tell me when I got back in the car as I was busting. I quickly jumped out and went to the toilet. As I returned to the car he continued his story about how all the public picnic tables in blackbutt were covered in white stones, so he investigated them and they were all advertisements for a Jehovah's Witness website, he pointed out to me that at this same rest area all the picnic tables were covered in white stones. I noticed he was right. He hopped out of the car and brought me back one, sure enough he was right, they were all down here too.

I told him about the NSW Rocks fad that people do artwork on and that you collect and re-hide. I opened my car door and tossed the rock out, not wanting to keep it, saying I wasn't a fan of the Judeo-Christian Religions.

We continued our way south chatting with my Dad informing me that my step sister had caught Covid.

We made our way out past Numbaa and my Dad began asking me if I remembered staying at Myola where we had stayed a few times at a Caravan Park when I was younger. I told him I did remember as we had eaten burgers and I was just beginning to get into my love of spicy foods, and I had poured and excessive amount of chilli powder on my mince before eating my burgers and then got fevers during the night after watching the anime TV series Fullemetal Alchemist and had fever dreams about alchemy and all the symbols from the show and me trying to transmute objects. My Dad had blamed it on the chilli, but I never believed it to be at fault.

I told him of my camping down at Currawong during my primary school years, I had went for school camp in year 5 and 6 (2002, and 2003), and we actually passed the camp ground on the way in to the walk.

Finally we arrived at the carpark at Bosom Beach.

I had looked on Google Map, and saw the road leading in to Abraham's Bosom Reserve, where the walk was meant to start. I said it wasn't that far and as we had already pulled up we could just walk from where we were. I was also unsure of the carpark at Abraham's Bosom, and didn't want to park tucked away as cars in spots like that are more likely to be broken into.

As we made our way along the road in to Abraham's Bosom Reserve I was glad to have parked where I did.

I don't believe it would have been good for my car to drive through

Walking through we passed a beautiful green swamp that we wouldn't have seen had we driven through to the carpark.

As we entered Abraham's Bosom Reserve carpark there were far more cars than I had expected given the state of the road in, and it was a lovely reserve. We continued walking up to a bridge that told us we were heading the right way towards Gosangs Tunnel and Mermaid Inlet.

As we crossed the bridge we admired the beautiful tea coloured water below (due to bacteria feeding on iron from clay run-off apparently).

Is it as good as Bushells?

After crossing the bridge a dirt path immediately headed through the bush. Within a few metres upon starting I noticed someone had written on a wooden post for people to not poo in the bush.

We continued walking along the path before coming to an information post, again scribbled on regarding pooing in the bush.

The path he was completely sloppy with mud. To our right was apparently an aboriginal rock shelter Dad and I were both curious to see, why heading down the left most path led to the beach and to an old shipwreck of the S.S. Merimbula which I remembered visiting on my school camp 19 years ago.

As we were about to walk down the middle path that led to Mermaid's Inlet some fishermen came up from the beach and my Dad enquired about how far it was to the Aboriginal rock shelter. The man informed us he had never visited it, as he was not a local, so he didn't know, he then asked if we were going to Gosangs Tunnel. We told him we were and he said it was 'awesome'. We thanked him and continued on down the track.

While walking along Dad and I both commented about how the track reminded us of the walks up at Barren Grounds (near Jamberoo).

We soon came to yet another turn off, leading to Wilson's Beach and Honeysuckle Point, but continued along straight to Mermaid's Inlet.

Not even a few minutes later we again came to another turn off, this time heading down to Lobster Bay.

Continuing on the path didn't improve, but seemed to get wetter and more flooded, which really wasn't surprising considering the tremendous amount of wet weather we had had over the recent weeks.

Dad was almost preparing to take off his shoes to walk across when I noticed that people had stomped down a path through the scrub on the left side.

We made our way slowly through and again continued on the walk, trying to step in the driest spots we could, passing our first turn off to the right to 'Coomies Walk'.

The landscape began to change a little past this point. There were taller trees on the sides, offering a little shade, the ground was littered with leaves and small tree roots grew in various spots along the walking track.

We came to an intersection left to Gosangs Tunnel, and right to Mermaid's Inlet and we thought it best to get to Gosangs first before more people arrived. We could see the ocean just through the trees ahead of us. At this intersection there was a bucket in a tree and my Dad made a comment about it being a donation collection bucket (in jest).

Shortly after turning towards Gosangs we came to another fork in the path with no signage, and I instantly started walking up the left path, assuming Gosangs would be towards the ocean side rather than near the cove we had seen ahead.

This path began leading us uphill through the trees and we saw numerous trails coming off along the way that we were unsure if they were just random fishermen trails or animal trails or the actual path. We followed the most well worn looking one and soon reached the top over looking the ocean.

We continued along the cliff face back towards the direction of Abraham's Bosom, trying to find tracks either heading down the cliff, or the opposite side to lead us to the tunnel, coming out over the opposite side off the cliff face on the picture above.

We soon reached the far end of the cliffs and could see fishermen down below as well as the beach we had left from in the distance.

We had checked a bunch of trails by this point and probably spent at least 20 minutes exploring before I told Dad I think Gosangs must have been right at that first fork we had turned left at.

A cool plant I noticed while walking through

We began making our way back through the scrub trying to recall the path we had taken.

We ended up taking ones we hadn't even taken initially and finally found our way to the first cliff-top we had reached but couldn't find the path we had taken to get up there. We ended up following many that came to dead ends looking down into thick scrub beneath us, and eventually we conceded we would simply have to climb down through the scrub and make our way through it until we found the path.

We both went separate ways (mine involved climbing down while Dad's was a more slopped path). Within a few minutes I heard my Dad call out that he had found the path and I proceeded through towards him, reaching the path and following it back to the original fork. In less then a minute we encountered the sign towards Gosangs Tunnel, lamenting the fact we had spent over 40 minutes looking atop cliffs and lost in the bush.

Walking in a short way, we saw our first glimpse looking down at the hole in the cliff face that was before us.

 

We squatted down, trying not to scrap our knees on the rough surface and awkwardly waddled through the cave carrying our backpacks.

There was a constant flow of wind howling through, and I had to use a hand to stop my hat from blowing off my head. My phone began to creep out of my side pocket from the awkward squatting position and my Dad told me I wouldn't want to lose it down the small crack that ran along the tunnel floor.

As the light grew brighter and we were again able to stand and walk out the cave, we got our first view of the open ocean and the side of the beautiful cliff faces on our left.

We inspected around a bit, pointing to a bit of the cliff face to the right of the tunnel (if you were facing the ocean), that looked like a good spot to climb up, but telling my Dad I didn't trust his ability to climb it.

We sat down in the shade overlooking the ocean for a drink and asked Dad if he wanted to have some lunch. He commented that it was too early so we shared some lolly snakes instead.

I noticed that the side of his arm was covered in blood and asked if that had happened in the tunnel or walking through all the scrub. He assumed it was from traversing through all the trees, but couldn't say for sure when it occurred.

After a while of sitting and enjoying the sights, more people began to arrive and we figured we should make our way to Mermaid Inlet. As we went to leave my Dad asked if I would climb up the top of the section I had pointed out before. With the wind how it was I told him I would feel alright getting up there, but that there was no way I'd feel confident enough to climb down it, and that I wasn't sure if there would be a way down on the opposite side.

Looking at the tunnel from the ocean side

Taking in one last look

As we began to make our way past back through the tunnel a young girl came through on her own and my Dad asked if she had made it without bumping her head. She commented that she didn't before my Dad volunteered me to take some photos of her on her phone if she wanted them (which I really wasn't comfortable doing), she turned it down, probably finding the idea of posing for photos while some random took her picture insanely creepy, and I awkwardly told her to have a good day, wishing my Dad had not offered for me to do it. (Offer yourself, sheesh).

As we made it through the tunnel and came out the other side we explored to our left overlooking a little cove.

We looked behind us and saw there was a way up to the top of the cliff and made our way up, stopping for some silly photos at a cool rock hole.

We found the spot at the top of the bit I believed would be good to climb up. We looked down on the area we had sat at to eat our lolly snakes. We made our way back down past the perfect rock hole and back to the 'donation bucket' to head to Mermaid Inlet.

When we got to it there looked to be a path down past the caution sign, but we followed the sign pointing away from Gosangs to Mermaid Inlet. We followed the trail down until it became a little overgrown, not well worn at all. It took us up on top of a rocky ledge with a cove on either side.

The little cove on the right

We continued in making our way through (as the path had disappeared), we bushed through the scratchy coastal plants, making our way towards the sea, all the while looking for the direction to Mermaid Inlet (or any way down to either cove).

As we proceeded through a drone began flying overhead and I could see a couple on the ledge opposite us (across the cove on the left, near my rock hole) and the man was wearing some sort of goggles. I explained to my Dad that it was probably a camera allowing him to see from the drone, which fascinated my Dad so much as he sat watching the guy I had to remind him to keep moving.

I eventually reached the tip and could find no way up or down the sides so suggested we go back as we might have missed the trail.

We again lost the path, (as there really wasn't a clear one in to where we were), but eventually found it again, making our way back to the area with the bucket. While walking through I noticed a poo with toilet paper covering it barely off the path, pointing it to Dad, reminding him of all the 'no poop' writing we had encountered at the start of the walk. I commented to him that I was reading on a hiking group about how the poop etiquette was changing, no longer were you to dig a hole and bury it, but take something akin to a Dog poo bag and take it out with you, as I explained this too him I had vivid flashbacks of my diarrhea episode at Kosciusko). My Dad began on a rant about humans walking the earth for thousands of years, "shitting everywhere", to quote him. I instantly regretting even mentioning it. 

We arrived back at the bucket and I suggested to Dad that we follow the little trail in behind the caution sign. This trail was thin and incredibly muddy but eventually cleared and we found ourselves on a lower edge from the rock hole but still above the cove, but it seemed to be a way to somewhere as we encountered this sign:

We continued following the path alongside the cliff.

As we approached a bend there was an old steel object built into the rockface, right across from the tip of rockface I had walked to, in between the two coves.

Just before we rounded the bend there was a sign, inserted by Shoalhaven City Council warning about rock fishing deaths, but also informing us we were about to reach Mermaid Inlet.

We rounded the corner and encountered a giant cave in the cliffside.

As we went in to explore there were remains of several campfires, but an odorous stench. We soon began finding many pieces of poo and toilet paper, left by people camping or rock fishers who came and stayed out all day to fish. I decided to leave the cave, and go sit outside in the sun to try and eat my lunch. I looked at my phone with a worried sadness about my poor Dog, as I was yet to hear from the vet, and began to wonder if I was best to call them or not. I attempted to eat my sandwich, but found with the anxiety about my Dog I could not stomach it.

We made our way back once more to the bucket area (beginning to head back to the car), passing through the small muddy path we again crossed path with the girl my Dad had volunteered me to photograph. I awkwardly nodded a hello again, whilst my Dad informed her of the big cave on the other side.

Shortly as we began up the path my Dad was looking in the bush to our left, at what we thought was a trail, wondering if it might lead down to the cove we had seen from the centre cliff. I told him it didn't look very well worn and was probably just random animal tracks in the bush (having already followed so many misleading paths).

I could see he was really curious and said we could follow it, thinking it would lead a short way in and go nowhere.

We followed it in and soon the path began to lead down, and I was proven wrong, as it led us down into that cove (which while looking up, later I found was called 'Little Mermaid Inlet').

The whole biome seemed to shift and it became almost like a tropical jungle down there, filled with a whole variety of mushrooms.

We sat here for a bit, admiring the change in not only scenery but temperature too as we watched the water slowly crash and make it's way up between the chasm.

Off the cliffs surrounding us, water gently continued to drip create a beautiful ambience.

We made our way back towards the car after my Dad had finished his sandwich (I had still not eaten). Just before we reached the section with the turn off to the Aboriginal Rock Shelter I decided to call the vet. They told me my poor girlie had not been seen yet, but that someone would see her soon and asked if I could be there (as my Dog was displaying a lot of anxiety when they came near her). I told them that I was over and hour and a half away but said that I could let my Wife know and she could come.

I then proceeded to attempt to call my Wife, but could not longer get reception. I tried and tried and tried, and even had no internet reception when I attempted to get through on facebook messenger leading to me getting frustrated and angry. I even tried restarting my phone and it was just deciding to not be able to reach. I asked my Dad if I could borrow his phone, and was able to get through to her straight away so that she could leave work to get to the vets on time.

Knowing I now wouldn't need to pick up my Dog, I felt a little bummed that we had not done the Coomies loop walk or seen the rock shelter, but just agreed that it would be a walk for another time.

As we arrived back to Abraham Bosom Reserve we decided to walk back along the beach, and go and see a rockpool right near the car park we had parked in (some guy had told me Dad about it while I was busy applying sunscreen after first arriving).

I wondered if Orla (my Dog) would like swimming in a spot like this. Telling my Dad she didn't seem to like swimming pools, but enjoyed running into the water on the beach, and wondered if it was just the complete drop off into the water of a pool she didn't like, rather than the ability to gradually walk in.

We made our way back to the car, pulling up across from the bowling club and walking over the little wooden bridge to the caravan park/camping area that I had camped at in year 5 and 6. We went for a little walk through and although it looked incredibly different after 19 years I still had a lot of nostalgia flashback to my youth, remembering performing a little talent show with some friends while there, and remembering things I had forgotten about until setting foot there.

Returning to the car my Wife called to let me know our girl was ok. That although her ear tip had come off it hadn't bleed and they assume that tip must have been dead, so they didn't even stitch it and just said it would heal over. I swapped the music over to some White Buffalo to relax to on the way home, eager to give my pup a cuddle and a kiss knowing that she would have had an awful day, and felt the guilt of going out and enjoying my day out before resuming work full time.

Hopefully my cancer stays away, hopefully my lungs can improve, and hopefully I can look forward to more adventures in the future, and can continue to share them here.

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Thanks for reading! - Steven