Day 404 | Punsand Bay: but now heading to Wilsons Prom

46 km | zzOz total: 11,598 km

Finally to The Tip.

That shortcut track over to the main road from Punsand may only have been 7 km but I ended up walking the bike, without luggage, for further than previously encountered on 99.99% of the journey from Alice, including the entire Telegraph Track, it was quite a sandpit, akin to riding over sand dunes down at some local beach.

But the long series of tracks on my transcontinental ride from Cape Leeuwin to Cape York have now come to an end.

Here’s a secret: The Tip is a little underwhelming. There’s a sign on an odd bit of rock, you look out to a couple of islands and somehow doesn’t feel like any particular extremity of Australia.

Groups came, took the photos for celebration, joked, laughed, one lot cracked some pink champagne, two long, thin guys with cowboy hats and guitars came down and sang a song as they recorded some promotional video, three yachts lowered their sails and were swept on a mighty current through the channel, waving as they passed.

Eventually I was on my own as the morning influx receded, I just watched the sea from a rocky place, convinced I’d see a floating log that would turn into a large croc. Instead I spotted a Green Turtle head, up periscope style, big 1.5 m shell, maybe more, visible briefly, flippers flapping, and so I waited an overly large time for intense concentration, 3 minutes or so, for its next breath, and then a third time.

I kept watching and was surprised there were now two except they were a different, non-turtle shape, and I soon realised they were a pair of Dugongs doing some synchronised swimming. That made it all worthwhile.

But Cape Reinga it ain’t, NZ’s most northerly point where two different coloured oceans smash into each other in a dramatic fashion with low scuttling clouds whizzing past the lighthouse at pace.

Anyway, they say it’s all downhill to Wilsons Prom, the Australian continent’s most southerly point, from here. It’s just east of Melbourne, a few days from the termination of this expedition.