Beautiful Echoes beach with cliffs so high. The image above was taken many years ago with my old Pentax camera. One of my children lies under the umbrella, surfboards and clothes lying on the ground. Days we shall never forget.

In our early years when camping, surfing and holidaying at Marion Bay, we frequented a beautiful isolated beach. The beach was called Echoes, because of the sound the waves made as they whispered and echoed up against the gigantic cliffs this beach is surrounded by. It fast became one of our favorite spots due to its isolation and the good surf.

Recently the governing bodies, whoever they maybe, decided the descent to this beach was too dangerous and so the 3km road to the beach and the beach itself are closed  and consequently completely overgrown now.

One bright and sunny day we decided we would walk the distance and visit this most spectacular and beautiful beach for old time sake. 

Armed with packs, cameras and food etc, we set off. All good the first hour, but on arrival at the cliffs edge we noted how the old track we had used, was definitely in a much worse condition than before. 

Then as fate would turn on us, my vision went fuzzy and blurry, I was getting a migraine. Usually these gave me a headache, followed by vomiting and feeling very ill. Well we sat on the top of the cliff and waited till I could see again. I took some pain relievers. 

I was not giving up, no sickness would stop me from visiting my old beloved beach. 

So down we scrambled, fell, jumped, hopped, toppled, until we finally made the beach. My legs were like jelly, so I lay down on the golden sand and slept for about 30 mins.

When I awoke my husband had been swimming and so we both idled away the afternoon swimming, listening to the echoes and chatting and resting. 

I would need all my energy to climb back up that cliff.

I did consider how silly we had been and this was probably quite a dangerous undertaking.

As we lay there looking out to sea a small boating vessel passed by, they stopped and peered in at us and we distinctly heard them say. “How on earth did those people get to that beach?”

If I could have yelled back, I may have said, “Sometimes people are silly and insist on taking the track less travelled!”

Most of the afternoon I did keep pondering how on earth we were going to get back up the cliff, especially in my weakened state.

Three o’clock and departure time finally arrived.

We stood back and planned out our route, I gritted my teeth and I used all of my strength to slowly crawl my way back up the cliff. We helped each other over difficult spots and clung to branches or anything secure as we ascended. Exhausted we reached the top and took a drink and rest, however we still had a long walk back. 

As we walked along and time went by I seemed to gather new strength and felt amused at our exploratory activities, maybe as we are getting older we should not take such risks….oh what the heck…”Man who sit and do nothing, experience no excitement in life!”

The image above is of the cliffs that we climbed down and then up again!!

Photography can take you on many unexpected and exciting adventures. Planning is a key, but sometimes situations can develop that throw you off guard. I had to rest to get my strength back to climb that hill.

I actually did take photographs even though my vision was blurry for an hour. We survived and want to go back to this spot again. Maybe we need to rething all our stratagies!