Five Mile Beach to Sealers Cove

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Victoria specific bushwalking discussion. Please avoid publishing details of access to sensitive areas with no tracks.

Five Mile Beach to Sealers Cove

Postby drpar2 » Thu 19 Mar, 2020 7:25 am

Hi all,

I am interested to hear if anyone has attempted to get from five mile beach to sealers cove (or vice versa) around the rocks of the cathedral at low tide?

I found this trip report, albiet a little out of date, from 1952 where it took them 2 nights to get over the cathedral, which given the bushfire of 2009 I imagine the scrub would be of similar height/density by now.

https://mbw.org.au/downloads/walk_magaz ... 3-1952.pdf

Cheers
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Re: Five Mile Beach to Sealers Cove

Postby Drew » Thu 19 Mar, 2020 10:40 am

I found a trip report online years ago. Since then, every time I've stopped to enjoy view back to Sealers I've looked at the headland and contemplated tacking it. I don't think it's technically allowed these days as no off-track walking is permitted at the Prom. I can't find the page now (it might not exist anymore) but I did save it as a webarchive file! Unfortunately this forum won't let me upload a webarchive. If you feel like being more persistent than me with googling then try searcing for "Tour de Prom" by Travis Easton.

Or I could try emailing it to you if you like. Shoot me a PM.
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Re: Five Mile Beach to Sealers Cove

Postby CaptainC » Wed 25 Mar, 2020 8:09 pm

I have done Sealers to Five Mile going above the rocks a few times. I had a quick look and found some photos from October 2005, not sure if they are the most recent. It's quite doable but slow. We went about 2 hours per km. Near Sealers we went along the top of the rocks but further along we went up into the scrub above the rocks. About 1 km south of Five Mile Beach is a creek that makes a nice campsite. Reasonably open and level. Of course off track walking is banned at the moment at Wilsons Prom.
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Re: Five Mile Beach to Sealers Cove

Postby TheInvisibleLog » Tue 14 Apr, 2020 8:53 pm

I did the walk from 5-mile beach to Sealers Cove in 1970 as a year 10 pupil. A group of four of us chose that as an adventure rather than do the usual Refuge Circuit. I doubt much has changed since then along our route. We started in Miranda Cove area after a dry camp. Water was short when we set off along the beach going south. The sand starts hard packed, but the further south you go, the larger coarser the sand gets, so the last kilometre or two is a slow trudge. Out of drinking water by the time we got to the end of beach. Found a perched lake behind the dune which at the time we thought was fresh. Our original plan was to climb over the Cathedral, but a look at the scrub convinced us to go the coastal route instead. Its not extreme, just slow. About half way round is a beautiful little inlet with creek and fresh water. At this point we discovered that the water we had from the perched lake was brackish at best. It looked like it was an informal mooring spot for boat types. Can't remember camping capacity. Kept walking. We ran out of daylight a short distance from Sealers Cove. And ran out of water again. Continuing in the dark at this point was inadvisable. A steep rock slab plunges into the sea and one needs to climb to find a safe spot to cross the slab. We left that for daylight and slept the most uncomfortable camp of my hiking career, just curled up in a ball wherever we could find some space on the steep slope. Next morning we arrived at the northern end of Sealers Cove in less than an hour. There is a lovely little creek flowing out over the sand there. It would also be a great camp site if allowed. Summary - doable in a long day, but not easy. It hinges on whether you can find water at Miranda Cove.
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Re: Five Mile Beach to Sealers Cove

Postby publicrejoicer » Sun 24 May, 2020 2:16 pm

howdy,

This is our trip report from september 2006.

Our party of 6 gentlemen in 2 cars arrived at the yanakie gate at approximately 7.30 pm on friday the 15th September. With administrivia taken care of we headed for the 5 mile gate car park where we changed into our walking clobber and dumped Matt's car for the sunday pickup. Lots of wildlife on the 5 mile road into the car park.

A cosy ride in the back of johnno's car 6 blokes and packs headed to telegraph saddle. By 8.40 pm we were walking the track to sealers in darkness with head torches. The track was easy to negotiate in single file though we didn't get a visual on the regrowth from the recent fires. We find nightwalking the first night to be pretty cruisy and the 10km to Sealers was an easy walk. The fine weather helped. We reached windy saddle by 9:20pm. We reached Sealers Cove at 10:50 and made camp, boiled the billy then turned in for the night. Johnno and I slept on the beach in our bivvies whilst the others pitched tents in the tea tree. There was not much wind, but in hindsight I should have dossed in the ti tree as well just to get out of the wind as it sprang up later that morning.

We awoke at about 6 am. Packup, breaky, cuppa's and a walk back the track to get some water for the day's toil. As a group we are still slow to get moving in the morning but perhaps that is where the pleasure is.

We departed sealers cove(where the track meets the cove) at 8.00 am and walked the beach. We noted some small campsites in the ti-tree and potable water flowing over the rocks into the cove. The water is about 60m from the end of the beach when you start rock hopping. It would be a good place to camp in future though I suspect the water would dry up in summerlate autumn. We rock hop around to the large boulder we can see from the shoreline, although I suspect we were about 100m from this point when we decided to go inland. At 8.50 am we burst into the scrub and begin our ascent.

The scrub is extremely thick from the word go and our garden gloves and gaiters held us in good stead. We navigated by feel and were roughly heading towards the large boulder face. Every now and then we thought we were on some sort of pad but it would peter out, only to require more bush bashing. We were ascending quickly and the significant physical effort for little distance was preying on our minds. We probably battled away with this thick scrub for a couple of hours before reaching the main spur and vegetation reduced. Once on the spur we had to deal with the many fallen trees that ambushed our upward ascent. Perhaps we were just out of fitness, but with 19 kg packs we found ourselves having to stop every 100m during one particularly steep section.

Our first good view was a group of large scalable boulders that had a flat upper area. It was not the highpoint of the mountain but it did provide relief and fine views across to sealers and back towards windy saddle. We probably spent 20-30 minutes here getting photographs and footage. We thought we would push on and get to the highpoint for lunch. Once again we came across a lot of fallen trees and we found hiking the ridge through the ti-tree pretty hard going. We reached a small spot near some rocks which overlooked Sealers cove at 1 pm and had lunch. Boots were removed and we ate like kings. Weather was fine, sweaty shirts were hung out to dry. Later, our Nav man Matt K calculated that were on the highest point of the Cathedral. 2:10 pm we departed following our planned route. There was some discussion of sidling the ridge then going straight down. vegetation keeps us on the ridge top. Walking along the ridge was much harder than anticpated, we expected it to be more open and as such easier walking. The ti-tree was really thick and at times difficult with packs on our back. When confronted with some of the large boulder formations we skirted them on the right hand side and found this path really tough. I suspect we reached the cleared top of the larger peak (540m)at about 3.30 pm. It was such as respite to have a small clearing allowing us magnificient views across sealers and beyond. We were all pretty satisfied for 10 minutes. The sun was setting and there was pressure to get down to 5 mile beach. We also had to walk the beach to miranda creek before our walking day was done. Back into the ti-tree and we dropped just off the ridge line about 10-20m looking for our spur down. There was a sense of urgency in the group and as such not much dv or many still photographs were taken. Matt K was the only one who got photographs of 5 mile beach and action shots of the society on our way down.

Following the spur down was pretty easy as you can see the beach to the right or infront of you. Vegetation at times is pretty thick. We strayed off the spur at one stage and righted ourselves by navigating through a gully, tough call but we were rewarded with a good small stream of water of which we filled our bottles and then continued. As we got closer to the beach losing elevation we tended to drift off the spur and just gunbarrelled towards the sand. Our blokes on point, got us to the beach at 6.15 pm. We dropped to the sand elated at our efforts. After a 45 minute break on the beach we mustered our energy reserves and began the 5 mile hike to miranda creek. It was now dark and many of our party tuned into to radios or mp3 players for the long haul. The beach section was no fun. The steep beach and inconsistent surface taxed all members. We were fortunate that we had mild weather, when we stopped for breathers the wilderness was beautiful and confronting. Our party strung out according to abilities and stride. We communicated via uhf radio. By 9 pm our man on point made camp at miranda creek and sought water for dinner. The rest of the group shuffled in at 9.30 pm. Tents went up, boots were cast aside, clothes were changed and meals were prepared. The physically long day was not conducive to eating and a few members cooked their meals but after a couple of bites retired.

Sunday saw the party having to negotiate the relentless jeep track back to 5 mile gate. The group shouted themselves a sleep in and readied themselves for a 10-10.30am departure. Everyone ate a good breakfast, making up for a dropped meal last night. Spirits were good. The campsites in the ti-tree are delightful, we enjoyed being out of the wind. On our way out, as we rounded the inlet we saw our nemisis shrouded in cloud. Collective satisfaction. Not much to report on the jeep track, it's as dull as ever and from the beach to chinaman's creek the weather was hot and walking was a tad uncomfortable. One of our party was feeling poorly so we divided up gear amongst the 6 of us. Lunch was had at Chinaman's creek, where there was good water and bountiful mozzies. We arrived at the carpark at 5 pm. A great walk now that I look back at the photographs and very satisfying. The views are superb.


I made a walkumentary you can watch it here. https://vimeo.com/20424396
"solvitur ambulando"
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Re: Five Mile Beach to Sealers Cove

Postby Joynz » Mon 25 May, 2020 11:29 pm

Great video on the Prom walk.

I couldn’t stop at one - ended up watching the Fearhertop video too.
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Re: Five Mile Beach to Sealers Cove

Postby publicrejoicer » Tue 21 Jul, 2020 11:07 am

Thanks...Its a bit of a niche tendency to watch our walkumentaries and we make them so that we can do the trips again in easy chairs as we age...

Good thing is capturing the vegetation changes over the years...

Glad you enjoyed them. I knew there was a reason for stopping all the time to film ? :)
"solvitur ambulando"
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Re: Five Mile Beach to Sealers Cove

Postby neilmny » Tue 21 Jul, 2020 11:41 am

publicrejoicer wrote:Thanks...Its a bit of a niche tendency to watch our walkumentaries and we make them so that we can do the trips again in easy chairs as we age...

Good thing is capturing the vegetation changes over the years...

Glad you enjoyed them. I knew there was a reason for stopping all the time to film ? :)


I've been watching your B&C walkumentaries for some years now.
It's interesting to see the "maturing" of the crew, does Platt ever lose his mojo and as for Johnson, machine.
Thanks for all the work involved, great stuff.
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Re: Five Mile Beach to Sealers Cove

Postby JamesMc » Thu 23 Jul, 2020 9:19 pm

I've walked between 5 Mile Beach and Sealers Cove several times. My preferred route (coming from the north) is through the forest just above the rocks for about a kilometre to the major creek, then up and over. Last time I did it was about 10 years ago, shortly after a bushfire. The walking was not too hard at that time but may have changed significantly due to regrowth.

PV stopped issuing permits for off-track walking following the 2011 floods, citing a risk from unstable erosion gullies. Last I heard, they were still not issuing permits. Best to send a letter to the chief ranger and ask. Then let us know how you go.

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