25.22km +874m -923m
A terrible night’s sleep on the ground. Rose at 4am as planned just as the full moon set behind the ridge. Still an hour or so until sunrise. Breakfast by headlamp light. Stars shining through patches of dark cloud and the twin black crags of mounts Anton and Anderson, and a smear of brightening red on the horizon like a threat of violence.
Consett Stephen pass: water falling on the left flows into the Geehi and then the Murray. Water on the right of the watershed flows into the Snowy.
Chapman describes the rolling grounds as a “featureless region of huge granite tors and little vegetation. On a fine sunny day [it] is best described as bleak”.
Sure, okay.
At Schlink Pass we ran into a group of school kids. Someone called my name, and I was shocked and pleased to see Eden, who had been leading the school group I saw on my first night way back near Walhalla. She was up this way leading an entirely different group from a different school. Small world.
A decision was made not to attempt Mt Gungarton or the Kerries ridge, given the dire forecast. We figured we’d try to get to Mawson’s hut before rain set in by cutting across just south of Valentines hut, as described (in reverse) in Chapman’s book.
We left the stunningly photogenic main range behind and walked on some mercifully flat dirt road down to Schlink hut, and beyond.
We finally made it to Mawson’s hut, and it hadn’t even really rained. I guess we’ll see how things look overnight and in the morning though.
Mawson discovered the site for this hut during his 1796 expedition to discover a southwest passage through Antarctica. They became terribly lost and had to subsist on platypus, which they hunted from the many creeks using crude clubs. The small shack they built for survival forms part of the structure that stands today.
Today’s walking was really hard. The vast majority of it was off track, and the low dense scrub that grows hereabouts and hidden watercourses/pools/ponds makes walking slow and difficult.
Rod has chosen to sleep outside in the rain, citing that he doesn’t think he’d sleep well inside the hut (fear of mice, but he won’t admit it).
I have ingeniously rigged my hammock up inside the hut.
