Episode summary:
I walked the Munjip Trail on the south coast of New South Wales in Australia. The 15km (9-mile) coastal path winds through woods and along beaches with spectacular views over the South Pacific. It’s a place where the spirits of ancestors gather, so it’s culturally as well as environmentally important. It seems it’s musically important too; among the eucalyptus trees I met a man playing the bagpipes, about as far from Scotland as you can get! Never a dull moment Down Under.
If you are wondering ‘what does Munjip mean’, ‘why is the Munjip Trail special’ or ‘what are the best walks on the south coast of New South Wales’ then this podcast might shine some light.
Listen to a podcast about walking through Australian nature on the wonderful Munjip Trail.
Transcript – S4 E11: Bagpipes in the bush Down Under
This week we’re hiking along a stunning stretch of Australia’s eastern coastline, with a few pleasant surprises on the way.
Wimbie Beach is one of those coastal paradises that you never want to leave.
It is a peaceful boomerang of sand facing a calm, shallow bay the colour of faded turquoise. The beach backs onto a grassy area and a stand of eucalyptus forest.
This is the southern section of the New South Wales coast, about a five-hour drive south of Sydney, or two-and-a-half hours east of Canberra.
I am walking the Munyip Trail, a 15km or (9-mile) coastal path which winds through woods, along beaches and over rock platforms, and has numerous headlands providing spectacular views over the South Pacific ocean. If I am being honest with you I hiked the entire route a few days ago but I was so enchanted with one section that I have come back to do it again. It’s the short stretch south of Wimbie.
The local council website tells me that, according to a Aboriginal elder called Aunty Loretta Parsley, the name Munyip – which is actually spelt Munjip, with a ‘j’ – means “walking together, let’s go” in the Dhurga language. It’s a place where the spirits of ancestors gather, having come down from the mountains. So, it’s culturally as well as environmentally important.
A welcome friend and a wildlife thrill
I am booted, sun-screened and ready to go but am almost immediately delayed on Wimbie Beach by a friendly Jack Russell who appears from nowhere, sidles up to me and trots along happily at my ankles. Has it adopted me? Is it my Munyip Trail guide for the day? I can’t see any other humans so I wonder if it is lost. I pause on the edge of the grassy area waiting for someone to show up and claim the dog.
It sits next to me and – to my great surprise – nuzzles its head under my arm as if it has known me its whole life. This is a lovely – if unexpected – feeling and instantly makes me want to go out and buy a Jack Russell, or run off with this one.
Eventually a man comes plodding along the sand towards us. I presume he is the owner but the dog is in no hurry to leave my side. I gaze over the glassy bay, the intense sunlight making it glitter like a thousand sequined dresses. Suddenly, there’s a fin!! Grey and glistening. And another. Dolphins!! 10 or 15 of them I reckon. They are moving slowly in a pod, cruising the bay, surfacing and then diving down in a graceful arcing motion. It’s wonderfully relaxing to see. We watch them together – the Jack Russell and me – until it finally moves and hops down onto the sand as the man nears. It turns back to look at me as if to say: “See, if I hadn’t slowed you down you wouldn’t have seen those dolphins.”
Hearing a tune a long way from home
I wave my goodbyes and head up a steep slope into the eucalypt forest beyond the grassy area. By pure coincidence, I am here on National Eucalypt Day, March 23 – yep, the iconic Aussie tree even has its own day – and am soon walking under towering Spotted Gums and over a crunchy carpet of dried bark. I’ve probably bored you with this before but eucalypts shed bark as well as (or sometimes instead of) leaves. Another of Australia’s many nature quirks.
The Munyip Trail heads uphill here and at times runs within a few feet of the cliff edge, which means you can hear the marvellously comforting sound of the waves, down below. It’s calm today so they are faint and another sound reaches my ears. It can’t be, surely?? It is! Bagpipes!! As I climb the slope, deeper into the wood, they get louder and I finally see a piper in a kilt standing next to a tall eucalypt happily skirling away as if he was on the battlements at Sterling Castle.
It’s always beautiful to hear the pipes but it’s totally surreal to hear them here, in such a distinctly un-Scottish setting and on the opposite side of the world from their Caledonian home.
The piper’s name is Andrew and he is based in Canberra. Like me he has Scottish ancestors but – unlike me – is very good on the pipes. Between tunes, he invites me to drop around for a skirl next time I’m in the capital. Beginners welcome.
Drinking in the beauty of the Australian coastline
I leave Andrew to his practice and climb to the top of the hill where the path narrows and I am walking past graceful beach she-oaks – they are casuarinas through whose spindly, almost feathery branches the wind plays soothing, almost mournful notes. I scramble up to a dramatic headland with precipitous drops and sit on the dirt for a sandwich and a turn with the binoculars.
This is a fabulous spot to see whales as they migrate north along this coast to breed and then return south again a few months later with their new-born calves… but I need to be here between May to November for those magnificent marine parades. Right now, in March, all I see is a mass of blue with just a few white surf horses far, far out near the endless horizon.
I was going to walk on, past Circuit and Lilli Pilli beaches to Mosquito Bay but it’s that soporific time in an Australian late-summer day where everything is calming down. The wind in the casuarinas hushes itself, koalas are dozing on eucalypt trees somewhere and I am perfectly content to sit and stare at the very pacific Pacific.
