Day 18 – Derwent Bridge to Clark Dam

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Back on the same bus I caught two weeks ago. Toby jokes that I’ll pop back up in Derwent Bridge like respawning at my last save point in a video game.

♥️♥️🤍

I realise I’ve been really bad at taking photos while in Hobart, and this continues on my way back to the trail. I’ll have to rely on my skills as a writer to paint the scene with words.

I wish I’d brought crayons.

I’m going back to the Hungry Wombat to pick things up from there. I’ve lost four days, so trying to go off track through to Lake Rhona again is off the table. As I said, I’ll road walk around the eastern side of Lake King William to Lake Rhona, thus avoiding breaking my line. Don’t ask me why, but it’s a vital component of the venture that I have an unbroken line from north to south. I haven’t had much of a chance to research the new route, but it seems straightforward enough.

Two girls get on the bus and sit a couple of rows back. If we were in the UK they’d be chavs. In Sydney, maybe westies. They play terrible music on their phones and laugh obnoxiously and sing like Australian Idol B-roll rejects. One of them pulls out some perfume and proceeds to marinate in it. It makes me wish I was still bleeding from the head on a remote mountaintop.

In Launceston I catch a taxi out to the park-n-ride at the airport, where I sit in the sun and read more of Wild. The book has been a big help to my mindset, lending me a little of Cheryl’s fierce determination, and I wonder what I’ll read when it’s finished. I have a lot of books on my e-reader.

There’s a luggage scale outside the office. Out of curiosity, I weigh my pack. 13.4kg with two litres of water and seven-and-a-half days of food. I’m either doing better than I thought, or I’ve forgotten something important. I know I haven’t forgotten anything. I know my pack. Everything has a place and everything is in its place. It’s my home, my kitchen and my closet.

Maybe the scales are broken.

Maybe my scales at home are a cheap piece of crap.

Geoff picks me up in the mini bus with a cargo trailer attached. He’s headed out to lake St Clare with me as the only passenger, and bringing back a full load of tired and happy Overlanders. We’ve got a couple of hours in the bus.

Geoff is semi retired and loves driving people to and from hikes. He says he’s never had a dickhead on board. He loves to talk, and he’s a goldmine of local information. He’s done the Overland track probably more times than he can remember, as well as volunteered on track maintenance.

We talk about the creation of accessible tracks in wild areas; most notably the Three Capes track and the newly proposed Tyndall Range walk. I’m sure I’ve heard old-timers lament the improved access to these places that had previously required some skill and hardship to experience, but Geoff has a different outlook. These places need protecting, and the more people you can bring in to experience the wonder and awe, the more are likely to go away with an appreciation for what’s out there and the need for conservation. I recall how snobbish I used to be about “soft” hiking like the upscale huts on NZ’s great walks, until I enjoyed a beer and a shower after a decent day’s hiking. Now I recognise that there’s a place for these things, and it’s unfair to gatekeep all the great places from those who lack the skills or ability or confidence that multi day hiking requires. Geoff also clarifies that the Three Capes is run by Parks, not a commercial outfit as I’d thought. I find that reassuring. I also point out that I was impressed, with about nine thousand people a year walking the Overland, that I didn’t see a scrap of litter. Yep, he says. Give people a good example, and their behaviour will largely follow it.

I mention that I’m keen to see a quoll, and he says it’s likely on the South Coast Track. He also says that I should not just be careful of my food; he hiked the SCT with a woman who had her merino socks and her merino/possum gloves nicked by a quoll. I nervously rest my hand on the pocket where my prized New Zealand merino/possum gloves are stashed.

I tell him about my recent misadventures. He says; at least your rescue was glorious. Mine was very inglorious.

I’d just started work out at Cradle Mountain, he says, and I was saying in the barracks out at Ronny Creek. It’s a few km of boardwalk into work and it’s been pretty cold and icy lately. Well, I know to be careful, I’m no stranger to snow and ice, and I see the patch in question, but I still slip on it and fall off the boardwalk. I know immediately that my ankle is shattered. I’ve got one number in my phone I can call for help, which is my boss, and it’s that or 000. So I call her. She’s resting somewhere with her arm in a cast having slipped on ice the day before and broken her wrist. At first she thinks I’m trying to play hooky, but when she realises I’m serious she sends the rangers out. Well they have a good laugh at my expense, but they get me onto a stretcher that’s like a wheelbarrow, with one wheel, and they get me in the back of the ute and down to the visitor centre where there’s a first aid room.

There’s a big bloke worked there at the time, dreadlocks halfway down his back, and they’re figuring out how to get me into a wheelchair with my shattered ankle supported. He goes off and comes back with a shovel. I can sit on the blade, and use the handle like a splint.

That’s great, says one of the other guys, but how are we gonna get him off the ute?

Well, says the big guy, I’ll stick my thumb up his arse, and he’ll get off on his own!

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I remember that night I met Hannah when I was on about the eighth night of the longest hike I’d ever done, and she was ten days out from finishing her walk from Cooktown to Melbourne. She said; you don’t do a hike like this alone. Even if you do it solo, you can’t do it without the help of other people. Some you know already, the ones at home supporting you. Some you meet along the way.

I stop in at the Happy Wombat, which, lovely as it is, I hope not to see again for some time, and have a slice of mud cake before setting off. I’m beginning to think of this as classic Lake St Clair weather; drizzle with patches of warm sunshine.

When I hit the powerline track I go up and over a spur of Mount Charles. I take it extremely slow and careful on the descent, worried about jarring my knee and setting my recovery back. It seems to be doing well.

I round the corner and Lake King William, cloud-swaddled and grey, stretches out into the fading mountains with its scattered graveyards of skeleton trees, frozen grasping forever skyward. King William is there, somewhere, hidden behind layers and layers of mist.

I am fucking elated to be walking again. Drizzle or no.

I walk along the lakeside for a spell. There’s sections of mud that are just dry enough to support my weight without sinking more than a few inches, but it’s unsettling.

I stumble across a copperhead, and for the first time in the walk I can get my phone out in time. This guy’s eyes are cloudy. That’s because the eye scales have separated from the eyes in preparation for a shed. It’s functionally blind, though it can hear, and also smell in stereo with its forked tongue and Jacobson’s organ just fine. Right now it’ll be feeling quite vulnerable, and it’s best left alone.

The drizzle comes in waves, blown in from the lake on high gusts of wind that cone and go. I manage my layers, venting and cinching as needed. I have been extremely impressed with the Mont rain pants I bought before the trip. The heavy duty ones with zippers up to the thighs that go both ways so you can vent them as needed.

I spend the day mostly listening to my knee. I’m walking carefully, being sure not to jar it on a loose rock. Only towards the end of the day does it start to give me some small twinges. It’s done well. Out here I’m aware of my body in a way that I’m not at home. The dashboard dials and gauges show temperature, hydration, fuel…

I push through a little further. I want to find a campsite well sheltered from the wind blowing in off the lake. On the map, the road in on leaves the lake near the dam and ducks behind a hill. That would be a good place to look.

I get within 200m of the marked campsite, and rising in front of me, the hill in question has been stripped bare. A simple vehicle gate bars the way “danger, construction site. Do not enter”. I sit on a rock to consider this sudden turn. I’m tired, in danger of getting cold if I don’t either walk or camp, and feeling pretty dispirited.

I walk back a little ways and set up camp a couple dozen meters off the track in a grove of some sort of bottlebrush. It’s somewhat sheltered from the wind, but not as much as I was hoping, this close to the lake. It will have to do. My down has been compressed for three days and will need some time to fluff up. I layer up. The forecast is for five degrees overnight, which isn’t too cold, but the wind will steal a chunk of the warmth I generate.

In bed, I eat a few snacks before dinner. I feel a bit of food on my lip and absently lick it in. Then I think better and spit it out. It’s a leech. Nature is an unending source of wonder.

I’m glad to be back in my hammock.