18.05km +1432m -1013
I’ll have to be more careful with my phone usage. Uploading blog posts with poor reception in particular is a big battery drain, so I’ll ration those out or wait until I get to Hotham.
When we awoke there was a third tent in the campsite. Neither of us heard him get in at the late hour of 8pm. He’d left Walhalla at 3pm the same day I started. He’s trying for Chester’s Yards today. He packed and left quickly. I was the last one out.
I wave a stick in front of my face to ward off spiderwebs, and incant: Expecto Arachnida!
Which either means spiders beware, beware of spiders, or spit spiders out of your mouth.
Finally, after a week of walking, some views!
I played leapfrog with Rod for a bit then ended up walking together. On top of Mount McDonald we caught up with Matt from the morning and had lunch together.
Walking separately down from Mount McDonald, we spread out. First Matt then I missed the turn and continued down the northward spur. I called out to let him know and we both bush bashed separately along the contours until we regained the track. The scrub was thick and hard going. I dropped pack and ran back up the trail to let Rod know. Not seeing him, and thinking him far behind, I left distinct arrows made from branches on the ground and came back down. I passed Matt taking a break and continued down to a track junction where I decided to have a drink and wait to see if they would catch up. They both popped out of the bush together. Rod had made the same error and had to bash his way through a lot of scrub. Looking at the tracking, it seems there’s a foot pad we all took individually that completely missed the summit cairn and turn.
The sheer difficulty of the day’s walking had me deciding not to try and push it, but camp near High Cone which apparently has water “in a gully to the south-east after rain”. The standing water I’ve been seeing in wheel ruts gave me confidence in this.
Matt went off ahead and Rod and I continued together. We summited the last climb of the day; the northernmost of the two Knobs.
And made our way to the campsite at the base of High Cone.
I was out of water, so I went in search. Rod came part way but turned back citing the steep, scrubby, treacherous slope we’d have to come back up, and the fact that he didn’t need water that badly.
Met a snake on the way down who had no intention at all of moving. Maybe a copperhead?
And continued sliding and falling down 45° slopes through ferns, knee-deep detritus, fallen trees (which balance-beaming my way along where possible was easier than fighting the scrub):
…until finally after 500 horizontal metres and 180 vertical ones, I found water.
I don’t mind saying that the scrub bash back up was probably the hardest of my life. The whole trip took over an hour and a half. I arrived back at camp filthy, bleeding, sweaty and dead tired, but in possession of five litres of sweet life-giving water. I even shared some with Rod.
Tomorrow I’m going to shoot for the hut at Macalister Springs. That will give me some options depending on how bad this incoming storm turns out to be.
