Maybe, on the other hand, the Tourism Powers That Be want personal interaction with the customers, but it was obvious after watching the foregoing that our request for a straightforward $24 ticket to park down the road came as a considerable relief.
Once we arrived in the car park it was obvious there'd be a goodly number of people out on the track. The first section was chocker, and the second section was filling rapidly. The presence of an overflow section suggested there were likely to be significant numbers of Trekkers arriving after us. That, predictably, turned out to be the case, though matters hadn't quite progressed as far as the Overflow.
Interestingly there weren't any people on the descent as we headed up the first part of the climb, passing people paused to recapture their breath as we went. There seemed to be an inverse relationship between distance along the trail and the frequency with which you sighted younger and theoretically fitter folks paused to recuperate before carrying on.
One of the more interesting sights along the way up, apart from the views back across Coles Bay, which were, of course, stunning and quite magnificent, was a family trio of Mum, Dad and Daughter, who was obviously running the whole show, walking stick in hand. I made a passing reference to Explorer Girl as I passed them the first time, and we toggled back and forth as the younger and fitter trio passed an older climber who was attempting to cover his lack of aerobic fitness by pausing to enjoy the view back towards Swansea. I left them behind, Explorer Girl obviously setting the pace, once those views were removed from the equation.
The absence of descenders was explained around half way up with a separate track heading back down to the car park. That was also the point where the real climbing began.
The ascent wasn't really all that long, or really all that difficult, just a number of flights of steps with a gradual slope in between, just enough to have you pause for breath if you've allowed yourself to fall below peak aerobic fitness. The lengths and regularity of the pauses, of course, vary with the old fitness level.
Once you get to the top, or rather the apparent top (there's a viewing platform offering the optimal perspective on the other side of a further ascent) the view is quite spectacular, almost panoramic once you get to that other platform, and definitely the subject of debate when it comes to comparisons with Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsundays.
Having visited both in the past six months, I can safely say that if you could combine the two, you'd have something that would be absolutely breathtaking because each has elements the other one doesn't.