Day 14 – Derwent Bridge to Divide Creek

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It’s an odd thing to do, when you think about it. Here’s how you do it. You plot out a course from start to finish, fill a bag with everything you’ll need and nothing you won’t, and then spend every day for however many weeks it takes grinding the number of remaining kilometres under your heels until it reaches zero. One foot in front of the other until the end. You avoid navigational errors that make that number go up instead of down. You keep the body fuelled, protect it from injury and harm, rest it when it needs rest. It’s the simplest thing in the world. And it’s bloody tough.

I still haven’t quite decided what I’m doing today by the time I start packing my bag. There’s no big rush; checkout isn’t until eight and the Hungry Wombat doesn’t open until nine. This is relevant because they’re also the community post office, and I have a parcel to send. Community post offices generally don’t sell stamps or satchels or anything like that. They’re just a pickup and drop off point. I had a pre paid satchel in my food drop. I also learned yesterday morning that this one only handles mail between 3pm and 5pm, but the nice girl gave me mine anyway.

I’ve got three good days of weather ahead, and I’m still trying to figure out how best to use them. I’d like to try to make it to the Gell River, but that might be pushing it. I’d planned to go off track from Derwent Bridge and avoid 10km of walking along the highway, but now I just want to get some good distance under my boots and get to the hard stuff while the weather is good.

I’m barely out of the parking lot with my thumb out when Tim from up north gives me a lift. He’s just in Tassie for a week to do Walls of Jerusalem, and only popped into the visitor centre to hire a PLB. This is excellent. It saves me re-walking the 5km of road I did yesterday.

As soon as I leave the cafe, the morning fog starts to lift. It’s going to be a beautiful day.

Alone with nothing but the metronome of my own feet and the background hum of the bush, my mind pulls out fragments of songs to listen to. I had the chorus of Goanna’s Let the Franklin Flow stuck in a loop for three days. Just the chorus. Other times there’s no music, just a four bar drum beat of bootfall. Dum Ba Da Ba. There’s no audible difference in the tick and tock of a clock’s second hand, but we fashion one in our minds to make music from monotony.

I stop at a creek near the base of the track up King William 1. This was supposed to be camp for the day. It’s not even noon. I had considered continuing around the lake and skipping the first ridge, but it’s s beautiful day ands in making good time. Plus the forecast for tonight is warm and low winds. I might even camp up high.

The track up to KW1 is a steady, gentle climb. Water runs down the track. I check the map. 300m of climb left, but only 800m horizontal. Shit’s about to get steep.

As I’m climbing, I look up to see a figure wearing what looks like a multi-day pack silhouetted on the peak. When I reach the top, there’s nobody in sight.

Idea for a novel protagonist name: Tramp Rambles.

All I have to do is get from here to Lake Rhona in five days. 38km away as the crow flies.

I see a pair of walkers disappearing southwards, in the direction I’m heading. I wonder how far they’re going and whether I’ll catch up with them.

This is it. After 256km, I’ve run out of track. I strap on my gaiters and descend into the scoparia…

… and immediately find that I’m following a faint foot pad. So much for the untamed wilderness! I lose it again. Pick it up again.

At one point I stand on a basketball sized boulder and roll it forward onto my heel. Thank the gods of sturdy leather it didn’t cause an injury. Another time I fall and strip an inch of flesh off my arm. It will grow back.

Generally the walking across the top of the ridge isn’t too demanding. It’s hard in places, but nothing I can’t manage.

I was going to intersperse the story of Alexander Pearce, whose path I crossed at some point today. Instead, I’m going to tell one of my own. I don’t think I’ve ever told this to anyone in the club before. I’m kinda ashamed of it.

When I was in my early 20s and living near Byron Bay, I decided I wanted to go hiking like I had back in my scouting days. I planned out a four day circuit, mostly off track in the nearby national park, packed my army backpack and headed out.

Of course, I did everything wrong. My pack weighed some insane amount. I had a big mag light in there. I wasn’t familiar with the terrain, or the scrub. I wasn’t hike-fit. I made it through the first day. Barely. Camped on a scrap of flat ground by a creek and watched the glow worms in the earthen bank next to my camp.

Next day I continue towards the top of a waterfall. The bottom of it is a view point at the end of a short, popular trail. My plan was to circle around, down to the lower level. But I was so fatigued, I couldn’t keep myself from dropping down faster than required. Things got steeper and steeper, until I lowered myself onto a ledge from which I could neither go down nor back up.

In utter exhaustion, I sat and pondered my predicament. I had no PLB, but I had a whistle, and when I heard voices below, I blew three distinct blasts on it to signal distress, as I had been taught. I told them that I was in no immediate danger, but that I couldn’t get down. Perhaps naively, I thought maybe they’d send someone with ropes and harness.

The helicopter was a hurricane, bending the tree tops and turning the waterfall (of which I had had a rather lovely view) to mist.

A man descended from the sky, slipped a harness around me, kicked my backpack off the ledge, and hauled me into the belly of the hurricane. They were all extremely nice about the whole thing, and for whatever reason, I never got a bill the size of a HECS debt in the mail.

I get to Bayeux Bluff, and the descent. The boulder fields near the top require care, but are at least open and navigable. Below that, the scrub ramps up to Insanity Level. Skins of moss slough off of rocks. Branches give way to unseen drops.

I prepare to butt- slide down a boulder, and half of it splits and gives way. Luckily I’m clear of it. I bang my knee on a rock. I am trying to be careful. I look over at Slatters Peak. There’s no way I can climb that tomorrow, I think to myself.

From the spur above lake Sally Jane, I drop down through damprotten beech forest. My knee hurts when I put too much weight on it. I reach the water’s edge. There’s nowhere to camp. I mean, you’d never find somewhere to put a tent, but even in this jumble of trees there’s nowhere for a hammock. I scramble and climb through nightmare scrub back up to the spur, then begin to descend through thick brush towards the creek below.

I am that twenty-something boy again, in way over his head, tired beyond all reason, attempting a thing he has no context for understanding is way beyond his level.

And yet, I am also me now. Trail-fit and experienced, my pack well-fit and reasonable, even with eight days of food. I am capable.

Eventually I emerge into the button grass openness of Divide Creek. I check in with Garry and let him know I’m stopping for the day. I collect and filter water, and have a very welcome wash in the creek. I am bruised, battered and bloody, but I am where I planned to be. In fact, I’ve put myself a day ahead of schedule.

I cook dinner as the sun sets; cheesy rice and salmon. Tomorrow I will climb Slatters Peak, because that is the path I’ve laid out ahead. That is the way forward.

It’s about 40km to Lake Rhona, not as the crow files, but along the route I have planned. If I do 10km a day I’ll be ahead of schedule. I don’t have to rush, I just have to be safe and careful.

All I have to do is make it to Lake Rhona.

Next day addition: I made it up Slatters. Blog updates are doubtful over the next few days. Perhaps those in satellite contact will comment below to assure everyone that I’m okay.