Day 2 - Hills, Views & an Alpine Tiger Snake

We started our day a little wet as mentioned in 'Come on Honey its only a 2 hour drive!" Tim had his powdered milk & 4 WheatBix and I got stuck into 2 hot cinnamon and brown sugar oatmeal.  We packed up and were on our way by 8am.  There was little point hanging around camp with the sun rising at 6:30am and well, we were damp so it wasn't that relaxing anyways.

I must say though that despite all the nights drama's we both seemed to get an okay sleep.  I found packing on this morning to be exciting.  We were about to do our first full day hiking together and really get stuck into the Australian Alps walking Track, very exciting.  I knew we would be climbing first thing this morning as track notes from John Chapman's book indicated so I really wanted my pack to be compact and packed well.  I still couldn't fit my tent inside so it was still tied to my pack, I hope to resolve this before our end to end adventure.



We made good time out of Red Jacket and headed North/east towards Mt Victor and then onto Mount Singleton.  We took a couple a breaks along the way to test out our morning snacks which included Mixed nuts and a dehydrated fruit mix of Kiwi, Banana, Strawberries, and Apples.  We will definitely continue to bring those items on the main trip.  The fruit is so light and full of energy, I'd bring less mixed nuts next time mind you as they are heavy and dry, salty so it really made me thirsty.
On our way we passed the Historical Survey sign which everyone gets a photo with, too bad some desecrated the original behind it on the tree.  The climb from Red Jacket to Mt Singleton was a healthy mix of visible walking tracks and gravel roads with a couple 4x4 tracks thrown in to give some relief to the feet.

As we approached the summit of Mt Singleton the locals must have heard we were coming an they sent out the welcome party.  He was a 3 foot Alpine Tiger snake and as we were talking away I just didn't see it there and as I was stepping down with my right foot, on a small incline I just saw it.  I hadn't the time to stop myself from stepping down, but thankfully missed stepping on its tail by about a inch!  With 23.1kilos on my back I jumped like a wild man with rabies about 3 feet off the ground and yelled out "SNAKE!"... "TIM SNAKE!"  

We avoided this little fella with Tim having to do some bush bashing to get around him as he wasn't moving.  Ends up being lucky for tim as the trail hairpins about 100 metres up the trail and comes out on the open field where Tim was standing anyways.....should have followed.  Sounded like a nice place to have lunch, so we took out the offcuts of under floor insulation we had brought to give some comfort between us and the grass and chowed down.  We had about 60grams of Pepperini Salami, 60grams of American (orange) cheddar cheese with an assortment of crackers.  Doesn't sound like much but what a pick me up.  In the bush, hiking, mostly with my mouth open.... huffing and puffing up the hills, your taste buds are stale so the taste of salami, cheese and crackers is so exciting.  Its a real energy hit and motivator.  I'm gonna need to try different crackers on the big hike as these ones weren't my thing!

We made or way for a couple km's along Mt Selma Rd until it had a road closed sign so had to take an alternate route along Champion Spur Track.  Its an old Jeep track which took us from an altitude of about 1200m down to about 500m.  There came a time where Tim and I were just thinking the fastest way to camp would be to just fall.  let gravity do its thing.

Looking back up at Tim

It will all be worth wild at the bottom as Black River, our destination for camp tonight is at the bottom which we reached around 5pm.  We just need to cross the river, find the track, find the camp site.  It took us about 45-55 minutes to find our way 300m down the river and confirm the track entry on that side of the river.  We kept jumping in the river, dressed in our jocks, finding the river was too deep not to get our packs wet, bush bash till we could get to shallow water again, jump back in and repeat!  Bush bashing in my jocks was not very exciting..... some deep cuts in places we won't mention.  

Now we have been climbing for about 10 minutes and Tim says "this doesn't look flat enough for a camp site, you sure its on this side of the river"  I proceeded to get John Chapman's book out which we had not looked at for a while and figured out the camp is back past where we arrived at the river....tears..... almost, more jocks only bush bashing through the scrub and river which was easier as we were on the trail longer this time.  Back in the camp.  Set up tents at about 7:30pm and had a great bath in the Black River.  Ate dinner and were in bed at 9pm.  What a day, without checking my notes it was about 21km not including our 2km of searching for the river exit.

Our camp site on Black River