Coros watch: 777.16km +31,594m -32,096m
GaiaGPS: 761.2km +33,673m -33,404m (including Hotham hitchhike and Thredbo chairlift)
It’s simple really. You put one foot in front of the other. As much as possible, you make sure your body has the food and water it needs to keep doing that day after day. You protect the body from injury and disaster so that it can keep doing it. You do this until you reach the end.
They say you also need to know the reason you’re doing it, so that when you feel like quitting you can remind yourself. I can’t speak to that: I still have no idea why I did it. After the second night when I went to bed cold and damp and uncertain, there was no doubt in my mind that barring disaster, I’d just keep going to the end. Without a shred of irony, “Because it’s there” seems as good a reason as any.
They talk about post-trail depression on the really big walks like the Appalachian Trail. It’s easy to see why. The quiet simplicity and freedom of the trail is gratifying in a very primal way. Returning to civilisation is like a slap in the face. There’s traffic and phone calls and mail and the news cycle and work. And the sudden plunge back into all this lays bare the obvious truth of it; it’s all such utter, contemptible bullshit. A gleaming, towering busywork folie à deux built of plastic and bureaucracy, which Babel-like we’ve piled into the heavens, not so much reaching for God as fleeing the terrifying reflection of solitude and the quiet judgement of honest dirt.
Yeah, I can see how going back to that would be depressing.
I haven’t weighed myself, but I have gone down a belt notch. Ron lost 7kg. Tracey lost 12. Like a pregnant woman I crave strange foods and can’t stop eating.
I ran into fourteen southbounders during the walk. Doug overtook Ron and finished the walk in a blistering 20 days, despite (or perhaps because of) losing his umbrella. Ron’s mate Jimmy had to drop out a couple of days after joining the walk at Thredbo, but is doing fine. Where Rod and I failed twice to cross the Murrumbidgee, Tracey and Dave made it across somehow and finished a day or two before us. Matt finished eight days before me, having left Walhalla three hours after me (but certainly not taking as many rest days).
My feet still hurt every time I stand up, but I’m sure that will improve over the coming week.
I’m amazed that I managed to do so many of the things I’d kinda hoped to do; see/walk through snow without it being impassable; find and eat wild mushrooms; catch and eat a trout; find an antler, and summit the highest peak in each of the three states the track passes through.
I didn’t regret any of the side trips I decided to do, and though I’m a bit disappointed about the points where I chose not to do an intended side trip or diversion, I feel like it was always out of a realistic consideration for the conditions, and not laziness. I’m keen to go back and climb Mount Jagungal and the Kerries, and further explore the Main Range, including Mount Townsend and hopefully one day Opera House hut and Siren Song tunnel.
I’m pretty happy with how my gear performed, except for the Platypus bladder, which probably isn’t designed to be squeezed through a filter. My boots… I’m confused how to feel about my boots. Lowa Caminos with goretex for $500. On the one hand, they weren’t waterproof by any real definition; You could walk through a puddle and they’d be fine, but an hour or two of wet grass or splashing had my toes getting wet, almost as bad in some cases as though I’d waded through a river. On the other hand, I barely got a blister. For the amount of walking I did, with the weight I was carrying and the amount of elevation change, I can only say they did as well as any footwear could be reasonably expected to do at protecting my feet and being comfortable doing it. I don’t think I’ll be trying trail runners any time soon, with what I saw from others. Certainly they’d be going in the bin straight after, whereas these boots will probably be good for another 700km or more if I don’t get some sort of warranty from Gore-Tex.
I intended to do this walk solo; to pit myself against the travails and deprivations of the track, to spend time alone in quiet contemplation and the meditative reflection that comes with long hours of walking in seclusion and solitude. I hoped to look inside myself and come away with deep and profound insights I would otherwise have missed.
Instead I made a great friend and spent most of the walk joking, fart-arseing around and generally bullshitting. Swings and roundabouts.
Many thanks to thank Alex and Mick for dropping me off and picking me up in Canberra and posting out spare gear, Ron and Doug for keeping the cost of petrol down, Peter from Bushwalking Victoria for running me out to Walhalla, Emily at Marouka Lodge in Hotham and Geita at Redbank Lodge in Thredbo for fantastic accomodation at very reasonable rates, mum for holding my hand through gear anxiety, John and all the folks at the Canberra Bushwalking Club, and especially Shelle; for holding down the fort and never hesitating to put on the cheerleading outfit.
Gear list:
I include the below as a starting point for your own preparation, and they should not be relied upon in themselves. There were places I lost the trail or took the harder option, so my tracks should not be relied upon. Similarly, the waypoints are there as a guide and should be used in concert with other information. Marked water in particular should not be considered reliable information unless corroborated.
My waypoints (campgrounds, water etc) (.gpx)
