Tarbourie Village to Termeil Lake

 This walk takes place on Yuin Country

Having done the Saddleback Mountain walk, the weekend before I had already planned to head down and camp and walk-up Pigeon House with my friend Tristan. However the Tuesday after doing Saddleback we had a really cold snap where I could barely find the energy to get dressed and ready for work that morning, due to the cold and the idea of waking up, having to pack down a tent that was covered with frost, after spending a night freezing, walking up it, then traveling home, and to have to unpack my tent to let it dry so it didn't get moldy didn't sound like much fun. So I messaged Tristan and told him this, telling him I just couldn't really hand the cold since my cancer treatment.

He agreed, but I said I would just spend the night at his Sunday night anyway, we could relax and have a few beers and get up super early Monday morning to drive down.

However, Thursday at work I began getting fevers and chills and came down with a severe cold. I did a Rapid Antigen Test for Covid (tested negative) before having Friday off sick and spending all day, blowing my nose into tissues and playing the new Zelda game (Tears of the Kingdom).

I waited to hopefully recover by Sunday, where I was still sick with the cold, but informed Tristan I was still keen to do the walk every with my cold (though I would have definitely preferred to have not been sick).

I headed to his place, and we chatted about a bunch of things, while I continued to blow my nose. He looked on at me in disbelief that I still wanted to go, saying that we could just go another time. I told him I really wanted to do something steep to test my lung capacity before my next lung test (as I had lung damage from the chemo). We chatted into the night, having a barbecue and some beers (Tristan much more than me and my one long neck stout). I informed Tristan that I had also been constipated all day and had really been hoping to poo during the day before I had come to his. It became time to go to bed and luckily, I was able to make myself go to the toilet right as Tristan set me up a blow-up mattress on his floor, and I laid down to try and sleep. Of course, that night there were extreme winds and the howling gale did nothing to help me sleep. I cuddled under my blanket with my jumper and beanie still on, shivering and blowing my nose, trying to daydream off to the land of sleep with no avail. As I tossed and turned, I realised the mattress was slowly deflating and I was no pressed against the tiles below and even colder. I checked my phone seeing it was 2am and the alarm was set for 5:30am. I grabbed the blanket and pillow and moved over onto Tristan's couch, where either because it was leather, or because I was unwell, I began to overheat and sweat through the rest of the night with some broken sleep.

That morning having heard about my night's sleep and with the gusty winds blowing, Tristan seemed like he really wasn't in the mood to head down. I told him I was still fine to, ever ready for the adventure as he told me that I had 'nothing to prove'. I told him if he didn't want to go we could bail, but I was still fine to go. He seemed to reluctantly agree to go, telling me that he would be pissed if we drove all that way and I got down there and was like "I can't do it". I reassured him that wouldn't be the case, or I would bail beforehand and that I would suffer through it. He also said if there were any fallen trees, he would turn us back because he wasn't going to be, in his words "One of those fuckwits who doesn't listen to the warning signs". 

As I hopped into Tristan's car and felt his seat warmers on my back, I told him how good it felt after a crappy night sleep and that my back was pretty sore. He looked at me with completely disdain before once more asking if I was sure I wanted to go. I assured him I did, and we finally set off south towards Pigeon House Mountain.

As we began our drive down towards Milton I started off chatty but, found Tristan not overly responsive I eventually dialed it back assuming he wasn't in the mood or was still just tired. I removed my beanie allowing my head some fresh air after having slept in it all night my scalp felt a little tender. I began to have microsleeps drifting in and out of consciousness. As we approached Nowra I told Tristan about a chicken shop on the Northbound Lane that I had always seen for years but had never stopped at, soon we passed 'Chooksy's' and Tristan said it was quite good there and I should one day stop in. I told him there was also a hotdog place somewhere further South that I always saw and needed to one day stop in at too. We approached the new building of Nowra bridge, our first time seeing it since it's construction and we openly questioned what they planned to do with the old bridge that was now closed for access.

I sort of dozed out again until we were approaching Milton and Tristan made a comment about not being able to see Pigeon House yet. I let him know that Didthul was the Indigenous name for Pigeon House, and that it meant 'Woman's Breast', which I said it looked more like than a Pigeon House, telling him that it was named that by Captain Cook. We turned towards Pigeon House, at 'The Heritage Bakery' in Milton, telling Tristan that the pies there were pretty average.

As we drove the roads out to Pigeon House, Tristan again made a comment about the extreme winds while he pointed out the roads covered with leaves and debris. I told him it would be fine and I started to get excited by the walk, blowing my nose and beginning to get prepped. 

We rounded a corner as I took some photos in preparation for my blog post, but while I was looking out the window when Tristan said "Here's something you can get a photo of."

Tristan pulled over and death stared me. "You didn't check?" He asked.
"Why would I check? I never check I just assume walks are open."

We hopped out of the car for some fresh air, and I told him we could just find another local hike to do seeing as we had come all this way. I still had the 'All Trails' app installed on my phone since downloading it during my Saddleback Mountain walk. Walks started popping up all over the place and I named one and Tristan quickly put in the address to that and said that was the one we were going to do while I continued to read him more options. "No, we're already going there." He said and we began to drive to Tarbourie Village.

I commented that everything was trying to stop us doing Pigeon House and that we should have listened to the signs, from the cold to me getting sick, to feeling constipated, to the extreme winds, to not getting any sleep and freezing all night, and finally actually having the walk closed.

We followed a dirt road I had never been down before in my life and soon ended up at Tarbourie Village pulling up in a suburban street, with a sand road that the app said not to go down, instead telling us to begin our walk by heading right past a gate and behind the houses.

While doing a little research (mostly into Indigenous History in Meroo) I learned that Meroo National Park was relatively new, as it had previously been State Forest, but after the severe damage from the bushfires it was made a national park in an attempt to help regenerate the land.

I noticed a house on our right had placed up a constructed artwork (I suppose?), of Abalone Shells. I mentioned something about how I thought harvesting too much abalone was illegal and that I wouldn't be showcasing it off on my property. I then asked Tristan if he had ever tried an abalone. He hadn't and I replied that we might try it one day.

Tristan turned around as I was way behind him, he gave me a 'why are you being so slow' speech and I told him it was a 5km walk I was just taking my time and enjoying the scenery.

There seemed to be a lot of trails branching from the path, and I just kept pointing and being like 'let's go down that way' like it didn't matter. Tristan got anal and grumpy with me, once more bringing up the constant bushwhacking and inability to find the right trail of when we walked Mount Jellore.

Tristan made us stop and took out his phone looking at the All Trails app, making sure we took the right ways.

We came to a first proper fork in the path and the app seemed to tell us we weren't on the right path anyway, so we followed the left path heading more towards the beach, which seemed to be the right way to go.

The app continued to tell us both we were way off the path, and I wondered if it was simply our GPS. "Why would both of ours tell us we are off the path in the same place?" Tristan questioned. We shrugged and continued.

I commented that this was less of a hiking trail and more of like a local beach track, similar to the local ones I would take Orla on a walk through over at Windang Beach near the area I live. Which I stated I would never blog about.

The track soon veered left and opened us up on the beach with a view of Crampton Island on our left.

Tristan facing south towards Stokes Island

I wondered where we were on a map (checking Google Maps on my phone) which is how I learned the name of these Islands. I thought it would be cool to walk out to Crampton Island and explore it, but commented that Stokes Island didn't really seem like an Island, more just some rocks sticking out from the beach.

I questioned to Tristan if we should go back and try and find the path, but he was already walking down the beach. I said we would walk down and see what was around the bend and if there was no sign of the walk we could head back to the track and take another way.

As we continued down, we noticed the built wooden staircase leading back up, and assumed we were on the right track, and if not, we would follow it regardless.

Smile!

We walked up the stairs as Tristan received a work phone call. I continued ahead as I reached the grass picnic area on top, I headed towards the table before noticing a big Kangaroo eyeing me off from across the field.

"I'll fight ya!"

I continued to the picnic bench, keeping an eye on him as he soon hopped away into the bush, I sat down and waited for Tristan to finish his work phone call.

There seemed to be a path to our right (facing away from the beach), I sat enjoying the view over the water, as Tristan finished his work phone call and approached me. "Sorry about the work call dude." He said. 
"Nah, you're alright." I replied, thinking to myself that the way I actually speak was so much more 'Aussie' in vernacular than the way I processed thoughts in my mind or how I write.

I told him that I thought there was a path along the right side of the bushes, but that I was not sure it was the track. He shrugged, saying that we would follow it anyway, and suddenly our roles had flipped and he was the one who didn't care if we were going the right way.

Just as we reached the shade of the trees in the image above the track split left and right. I looked down the track on the left and could see a sign pointing the way to Sunburnt Beach Camping Area.

I didn't even notice the Kangaroo, blending into the scenery until he started hopping down the track and out of sight. I mentioned to Tristan that when we had looked at the All Trails app, the track seemed to skirt around, and never go to the campground, so we continued on along the left trail.

Tristan began to perk up and get a bit more talkative, and we began chatting before the trail came out onto a road right in front of a toilet block. Tristan was psyched to get to do a poo as I wandered around in circles with a walking stick, that I had picked up prior to first reaching the beach.

Nothing more exciting than a photo of a road

When Tristan finished his business, I said that I thought we had to walk the way away from the camp ground once more, before Tristan got out the app and started saying that we needed to follow the road down to the campground. I didn't particularly care and didn't need to argue so I just started walking down the road with him.

The camping spots we walked past looked like ok spots, besides the lack of grass, as I'm not a fan of pitching a tent on rocky, hard soil. Tristan began another work call as I followed a path along wandering by all the different camp sites. As we approached the beach once more the path curved around to continue South, and I noticed a little path down to the beach that I decided to quickly walk down for a look while Tristan was on the phone (assuming the path to the beach was not the right way).

As I was halfway down the path I stopped in my tracks, noticing a Swamp Wallaby in front of me.

It saw me and quickly hopped away into the scrub. I looked out over the beach for a while before turning to head back to Tristan and noticing he was right behind me.

"Did you see that Swamp Wallaby?" He asked.

I told him I did and that I thought this track wasn't the right way, but he said we should walk down it anyway, again swapping who cares about which is the right way and who doesn't.

We walked along the sand as Tristan asked me how my mental health was going, aware of my recent issues with anxiety (which he witnessed first-hand at his, the night before, when his neighbour started chopping wood and the sound triggered an anxious response from me) and depression.

We continued discussing it while he gave me advice about what he thought while asking me questions as we crossed the sand and followed the rocks around the headland, admiring all the rockpools, bubble weed and rock formations.

"What's this gross orange stuff?" I asked.

Tristan shared his opinion that some of my depression may be stemming from career dissatisfaction and asked if I would ever get back into doing Bush Regeneration again. I told him I would never get a job doing it, because I would be unwilling to use most chemicals (such as Glyphosate), since my cancer. He told me that if I told him that, there would be no way he would hire me to do bush regen work. I said I believed you could do regen without spraying, as I found it to not be that effective. I referred to my own time working and talking about spraying things and having the glyphosate just fasten the lifecycle to go to seed faster and how we would spray massive areas and it wouldn't help at all. I said it felt like just spraying toxins around with no purpose compared to when I had worked with Green Army at Killalea State Park, drilling and filling African Olive which was an actually effective treatment. I said I wasn't against the use of chemicals that could be necessary, in that fashion.

Tristan began defending the use and saying that it just needed to be done right and the right chemicals needed to be used. We rounded the bend, and as I was watching my footing Tristan pointed out some Dolphins swimming off-shore.

He commented that it was a nice day and that seeing Dolphins was a positive. I agreed saying it had worked out well, exploring a place we never would have come to otherwise and that it was probably for the best to not be walking up Pigeon House while sick.

As we reached the sand I noticed a little lagoon in the distance, but also saw a staircase off the beach out the corner of my eye.

As we followed the path up, we assumed that the track we were following would now head back, as we passed a sign facing away from us I turned around to see we were at Termeil Beach.

As we followed on I noticed a tree with orange berries and tried to remember some of my plant knowledge, asking Tristan if it was Wombat Berry? He said it was a 'pittosporum undulatum'. He began saying they were a weed, well, not truly a weed, that some people liked them because they were returning places where they were back to rainforest, but he then began to start going on about how they create a monoculture and how it can be bad because nothing else grows and you will just get areas of them and nothing else growing. With my lack of sleep, I felt my eyes begin to glaze over and told him he would have to fill me in on it later because I wasn't in the right place to absorb any knowledge.

We came upon a information sign about Meroo National Park and camping at Termeil Point that we stopped to read. I commented that it would be cool to see some Middens which brought on the topic about me adding about the land on which the walk I blog about takes place. I said about all the different tribes and that there were Wodi Wodi in Dharawal and how I sometimes found it hard to be sure so I just acknowledged the main 'country' that the walk took place on, lest I stuff up and do the wrong thing.

We continued past some more campsites on our right, with some people camping, as I mentioned something about my blog.

"You're blogging about this?" Tristan asked, assuming that I wouldn't be.

"Yeah." I simply responded.

"Won't be a very long blog." He said.

"Good." I replied. "They don't all need to be, sometimes it's nice not to have to write so much."

As we continued, I could see bright blue from the left corner of my eyes and noticed a beautiful lake to my left and realised that must have led in to what I had thought was the lagoon.

As we continued on the trees cleared and I could see a path down to the lake. I asked Tristan if he wanted to walk down and he agreed, as we approached, we noticed a big rock, but from the distance we couldn't quite tell what it was and I asked if it was a Ram's head, before reaching closer and seeing that it was just a rock.

We stopped and admired the view of the lake that was quiet, serene and just peaceful. The wind was gentle here after a short while I told Tristan we would get a photo of the two of us, placing my phone down against the base of a tree and putting on a timer for 10 seconds.

I commented that it reminded me of some of the locations they would be placed at, in the survival TV series 'Alone'. Tristan mentioned he had been meaning to watch it. I began talking about how the show works and told him that if he was going to watch the recently aired Australian version, to at least wait until after watching the currently released US versions (general consensus among fans if that the Australian one was disappointing in comparison, and I didn't want him to be turned off). We made our way back uphill to the road and continued our way back, passing the last of the campgrounds.

Walking along I pointed out at least 3 Glossy Black-Cockatoo's sitting in the casuarina trees. Tristan got instantly excited saying that they were rare to see. I commented that the information sign we had based not too long ago had said they were in the area. He replied that just because they were in the area didn't mean we would necessarily see them, which to be fair is sound logic as you don't often see all the local animals on a walk.

I felt like Tristan's mood had greatly improved which made me feel a bit better about not being able to do the walk we planned, and feeling bad for having him drive so far.

We came upon a sign letting us know we were on the Tabourie Village Track, and we were glad that we were going the right way.

We continued the track along with Tristan at one point pointing out a Sundew.

"Drosera?" I asked, the name popping in my mind.
"I don't know the species name." Tristan said.

"Yeah, there's heaps of them at Barren Ground." I told him, before looking up and seeing that there were heaps here too.

"Looks like an infection." Tristan said.
"The Last of Us." I replied.

"Never played it."
"Neither, but I watched the TV Show. It was ok. Nothing special. If you've seen 'The Walking Dead' or any other Zombie type show or movie ever it was pretty much the same (yes I know they're not Zombies, but like, they totally are really).

We rounded the bend and the path began to get all muddy and sloppy. I looked up and saw the path ahead was covered with water.

"Damn." I said, as Tristan simply walked along a path that was to the left of it that I hadn't noticed.

Soon we appeared at the fork in the path before the beach were we had initially turned left and found ourselves coming out from the right side of that, knowing it was just the straight track back to the street where Tristan had parked.

As we got into the car for the long ride home, I commented that we could just do Pigeon House in July.

"I'm not doing it in the middle of Winter." Tristan responded.
"It's already the middle of Winter." I retorted.
"It's June." He said, "The start of Winter."
"What about August then?" I asked.
"I've got a lot on in August."
"Well, I'm overseas for the whole of September in Iceland." I said, with us agreeing Pigeon House would have to wait until October.

I was a little upset, wanting to do a pretty steep hike to test out my lung capacity before my next lung test (having lung damage from my chemotherapy), and I started to think of other steep challenging walks I could try to do before I had that test.

As we headed home we drove along the Princes Highway past Lake Tabourie where I commented that it looked like a beautiful spot. I told Tristan that travelling along the south coast reminded me of my childhood, reminiscing of the times we would travel down and stop in at those old fish and chip shops with the plastic strip curtains and how Dad would either buy us a Paddlepop or a Bubble O Bill ice cream. (I have a particular fond memory of the now discontinued Paddlepop Mud Puddle while spending time at Sussex Inlet).

He said it sounded like a good childhood. To which I simply replied, "Some of it."

We continued North past Dolphin Point and Burill Lake, both beautiful, and I questioned how we got so far South, saying the drive from Milton towards Pigeon House and then to Tarbourie Village had not felt like so long a drive. We finally came to Ulladulla as I looked out for 'Funland Ulladulla' having more good memories of going there as a kid. As we approached Milton I mentioned that there was always a big statue of a Dinosaur that always excited me as a kid (as a massive Dinosaur nerd). I wondered if it was still there, and it was, and as we drove past it I found that the memory of it was more impressive than the actual thing.

"Is that it?" Tristan questioned, "Doesn't look very good."
I agreed, but still have fond memories of just being excited by it as a kid.

I didn't take a photo and was unable to find a photo anywhere online of it. I convinced Tristan to stop in and get a pie at Milton's heritage bakery. "They're pretty average but it's one of those places you just have to get a pie from, like Robinson Pie Shop." I told him.

We went in and I had a look at their pie options, hoping for a chilli pie. None of the options stood out to be and with a price tag of $7 I decided against buying one while Tristan bought one with a coffee. As he sat to eat it I asked how it was. "Pretty average."

The more he ate the more he seemed to like it though, saying it was probably worth that price tag.

We continued home as I felt how sick and tired I was, as I had not been paying attention to my body on the walk. As Tristan dropped me on the street before pulling into his driveway, so I could jump in my car and go home to nap, he thanked me for the walk and said we would catch up soon, I agreed and said we would go see Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny that was due to come out at the movies that week, before getting in my car and driving home with very tired eyes. 

I went in to work the next day and had to go home before lunch because I was just too sick and rundown. I managed to go in for the rest of the week but my cold continues even as I finish typing the end of this blog post on the next Sunday, but I can feel myself coming through the other side of it, and I look forward to a steep harder walk to test my lungs before my test.

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Thanks for reading! - Steven