Day 10 – Kia Ora to Pine Valley hut

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There’s an air of parting ways over breakfast. It seems the bubble is breaking up, with some going the 9km to Burt Nichols hut, and others all the way to Narcissus. I’m going to do the 20km to Pine Valley hut, then consider my options from there. I’ll be curious to see if anybody else ends up at Pine Valley.

I feel privileged to have shared this section of trail with Ali and the others, and to have been part of their Overland walk. It’s the nature of these sorts of things that you get to know people briefly and shallowly, but sharing in the journey produces a particular feeling of kinship in a short period of time.

My pack feels light. I am lithe. There’s a spring in my step. I splash out and put on my third, as-yet unworn pair of socks (the other two are drying on the back of my pack). I walk.

The morning air is cool and fresh, and finally dry enough to suit my Canberra lungs. it’s a beautiful day for walking, and it is right and proper to have a path stretched out at my feet.

I pass Ali’s pack at the turn off for D’alton falls, and continue through the forest to Hartnett falls, where I leave my pack for the short side trip, taking only my phone and a water bottle. It’s always nerve wracking doing that.

I think there are King Billy pines growing though here, but I’m no expert, and the foliage looks kinda eucalypt.

On the walk down to the falls I think I see a juvenile white lipped snake. It’s too quick for a photo, but the colour tone seems wrong for a tiger or a copperhead, with a greenish undertone.

I run into Ali down at the falls, and we walk together.

Down from Du Cane gap, into mixed myrtle and eucalypt rain forest to Bert Nichols hut, where we have lunch in dappled shade overlooking The Acropolis, Mt Geryon and the Du Cane range.

We keep dropping down. The day keeps heating up. We talk about his long distance bike rides, Adelaide to Melbourne, and getting caught in Victoria during the recent bushfires. I tell him things about Tasmania I only learned a week ago. There were emus here, but we ate them all. Pademelons on the mainland too. Same fate.

It’s a day for dipping your hat in cool streams, and we cross many.

Into a section of snow gum sclerophil, where, if it weren’t for some of the species making up the scrubby understory, you could be forgiven for thinking you were walking near Canberra.

And then the turn off for Pine Valley. Ali and I part ways, and again I’m walking alone through the bush.

The apocalypse… the acoprolapse… the procopelipse…

That log would have been the old crossing.

The forest is full of life. A snake slithers off the track. Insects buzz. Pademelons skitter into the brush. I blow my nose, and there’s a tiny spider in the handkerchief. I choose to believe it was there before.

The last few hundred metres to the hut are boardwalk following an idyllic stream. Huge myrtles reach their roots down the overhanging banks into the cool, clear water. A ten inch fish flits lazily in a pool.

Pine Valley Hut is a rustic affair, with a coal heater and warnings about mice written on the wall.

If you see food bags hanging in a hut, for the sake of your delectables, do the same.

I’ve been watching the forecast closely and getting updates from home. Tomorrow promises rain in the afternoon and snow above 1300m. I’m going to try and get going early and make a speed run on The Acropolis (height 1480m), then probably make for Narcissus hut and sit out the 12th, which looks horrible and cold. If you’re reading this, you know I at least made it to the top of The Acropolis.

I eat dinner early and I’m in bed by 7:30. Last night I started reading Cheryl Strayed’s book Wild (upon which the movie was based that I watched before starting). For a book about walking, she sure spends a lot of it talking about her mother.