Despite my early rising time it took me about 2 hours to get out of the hut and start walking again. At the food drop I had picked up letters which my wife and children had written me for fathers day. I was meant to read 1 per day but as I was having a long breakfast I read all of them. Some were drawings or letters from my kids, others were motivational print offs my wife selected for me.
I was so relaxed once I did get on the trail that I neglected to keep an eye out for the Grey Mare trail junction and instead I followed Tolbar to Jacks Rd which added about 3 km to my day. From Jacks onto Grey Mare Trail. Once on the trail I enjoyed my morning with very little obstacles. I kept thinking about how much extra food I was carrying and what I should dispose of, so once I arrived at MacKay's Hut i was pretty certain it was a good time to drop weight. Hayden and Dave would no doubt be coming through and maybe even sleeping here tonight so I decided to leave them a little gift which I hoped would lift their spirits and I knew would lighten my pack.
Shortly after I had left MacKay's Hut I cam across Peter & Lee. They often do short sections they tell me to keep active. They also warned me about a dingo dying on the side of the road about 1km ahead of me. They didn't want it to startle me. We had a brief chat about my plans for the day and they warned me that Mt Jagungal would take me all afternoon if I were to attempt it and still hope to get onto Grey Mare Hut tonight I would be out real late. I took what they said on board and started preparing myself for a long evenings hike.
Sur enough I came across the dingo lying on the side of the road, dead. Or was he! A couple hundred metres up the trail a Ranger truck came past and I told them about the dead dingo, not sure if they clear them of the trail. There response was memorable " Your not talking about that one are you!" and they point back along the trail from where I just came. Sure enough, there was my dingo walking down the trail. Funny.
As I continued I could see Mt Jagungal getting ever closer. I was getting pretty excited to start climbing as its been flat most of the day. I continually checked John Chapman's book to see where the entry to the side trip over Jagungal started and as I got a couple km's from the junction I had this crazy urgent need to use the bush toilet. As a teenager I would call it a pre-game toilet stop. I dropped my pack and urgently located my toiletry bag, raced into some scrub and ....well you get it. Here is the trouble.... just as I started I realise that I already have hundreds of ants all over my legs and by the time I rush to finish i must have had 1000 ants all over me. I raced back to my pack to discover it to was being ant encrusted. They were nipping at me, legs, chest, neck. I scrapped them and smacked them off me and my pack and got out of there. I would get a reminder nip every 10 minutes or so for the next 2 hours just to let me know I hadn't swatted them all. This really shook my concentration and resolve and now I just wanted to reach camp. I stopped at O'Keefe's Hut to gather my thoughts and decided the ants were a sign I should press through to Grey Mare camp without my side trip over Mt Jagungal.
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| Mt Jagungal |
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| Internal walls of O'Keefe's Hut lined with old newspaper |
The rest of the afternoon was basically straight & flat. As you follow the trail you are travelling aroung Mt Jagungal so all afternoon the fact that I didn't climb it was haunting me. As the afternoon wore on I was crossing more small creeks and streams. I found I could jump or walk across rocks to that I didn't have to take off my boots. About 5pm I was broken, my feet were so swollen they were just raw stumps. The blisters were irritated and to be honest I was just cooked. My legs were jelly and I had no energy. It took me another hour before I arrived at Grey Mare Hut which is tuck on a nice hillside that normally I would find appealing but as I was a worn out stump it killed me to get up to the hut.
I prepared dinner but could barely eat it. I was so warn out my insides were cramping with every swallow of food. None the less I knew I need the food so I kept eating. My feet were throbbing and I think a little infected, they were on fire and felt like they were going to split open. I set up my bed and had a fire but I stumbled around in the bush trying to find water with no luck so that leaves me with about 200ml to get me through the night. This was my first really hard night. I was thirsty and had leg cramps most of the night. What was nice was that the hut had a number of bunk beds, one which is right under the window. This is where I slept, watching the stars at night and waking with the sun in the morning.
November 6, 2013 (DAY 6) I woke having had the best nights sleep, not only since being on the trail but for months. In the preparation for the hike I worked long hours to make sure every other part of life was well and truly organised prior to my departure, of course I would also think about the hike and preparations and be unable to sleep. I really felt I had pushed too hard the day before so this morning I told myself chill out and enjoy. I also feel that because I kept my boots on yesterday all day that my feet didn't get the cold refreshing reset of a water/creek crossing. So within the first 2 hours of the day I must have had 7 water crossings and I took my time through all of them virtually freezing my feet providing a great relief from the previous days pains.
Following Valentine's Trail I soon came across some more Australian wildlife. Walking on the trail in the same direction I was travelling is the massive wild pig. Its back was about 1.2m off the ground and was about 2m long. Here is how the next 4 minutes of the hike went.
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| See the Pig, Took the photo from a distance prior to yelling at it! |
Step 1 - I yell at Pig Step 2 - Pig runs really fast towards me Step 3 - I scream like a school girl Step 4 - Pig jumps into the scrub but stops and waits for me just 1-2m off the trail, I think it was my girly scream....it didn't know what to do either! Step 5, I wish I had on video as it would have been hilarious. I checked my boots were tied tight, made sure all my straps on my Pack were tight and holding my gear snug against me. I slowly creeped closer to the point where I believed he left the trail........then I set the Olympic record for Backpack sprinting. My arms were pumping my feet barely touched the ground before leaping into my next stride. I have never ran with sprinting precision as I did just then. I got about 300m down the trail and decided to look back. There was no chase, I think it was still trying to work out if that girly scream came from me! Anyways, I crossed Valentine creek and climbed up to Valentine's Hut. I definitely will spend a Valentine's here with my wife in the coming years.
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| Picture of my wife ( Valentine's Hut) |
I signed the log book as standard every hut I have gone past and pressed on after a quick snack. I came across a couple norwegian backpackers that had come from Schlink Hut and were staying at Valentine's that night. I myself press on to Schlink Hut where I had a nice long lunch, a water top up and a general chill out. Continuing on the trail I soon came across Whites River Hut which was to be my camp for the night but as it was only 3pm I decided to instead push onto Anton Anderson saddle. So from Whites River hut the track is unmarked. Nothing to follow. So I started off and for the first time could see snow in my track, so I raced off and wrote my wife & kids initials and just started to climb everything I was coming across. All day the local helicopter tours were flying over head, as I was in the Mt Kosciuszko area tours fly out all the time to show tourist the mountains I was climbing and huts I was visiting.
After about an hour I realised I had been having a little fun and not really following any type of navigation guides so i decided to climb the tallest peak I could see and get out the maps. Took me about 15 minutes to work out I had walked virtually back on myself and had not achieved any distance since leaving Whites River Hut. I could almost see back down the Schlink hut. That being said I could see the snow covered peaks of Mt Kosciuszko which was a great marker. From there I could identify Mt Tate which I needed to get over in order to make my way to camp. So I set off, part hiking, part bouldering the large outcrops of granite.
As I feel I am back on track I set my targets on another mountain pass which I believe will take me towards Mt Tate. As I got to the top of this ridge I could see a river system in the valley below. I got out the maps and assessed that I needed to actually be on the opposite ridge to where I was. I was shattered but knew sitting around wouldn't get me to camp so I climbed down into the valley and up the crazy steep other side. Once I reached the upper peaks of this new ridge system I looked at the maps again, in the valley I crossed a very unique shape in the river so I wanted to confirm to myself that again I was on the best route. SHATTERED, I should have stayed on the ridge I was first on which is the eats ridge described in Chapman's book. I have now crossed to the West ridge. Although shattered that all the effort was for nothing I at least could see the consolation prize.... both ridges lead to Mt Tate.
Anyways, it was difficult but by about 7pm I had arrived at Mt Tate and decided that the shelter of the rocky outcrop of the summit of Mt Tate was the best campsite I could come up with this late at night. As there was no trail I didn't want to be walking in the dark on these summits after the day I had. I set up my HMG Echo II shelter, chucked all my gear in, got a couple happy snaps then climbed in for the night. It was freezing cold and I was really beaten up. A couple positives was that all this off track trekking was great on my feet. Nice and soft under my foot tread unlike the 4x4 trails of the past couple days. I also had phone reception for the first time, Optus! Knowing I would reach Thredbo tomorrow and could recharge my phone I spent the next 2 hours talking to my wife, family and friends. With my voice shivering from the cold I told my stories and reassured my loved ones that my Solo adventure was no riskier than in a pair. It was about 10:30pm before I got around to eating dinner and then off to bed. I wore my IceBreaker thermals to bed, used my silk liner in my sleeping bag as well. Nice and warm all night and had a really good sleep considering I was on a slight angle towards the bottom on my tent.
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