Day 26 – Condominium Creek to Junction Creek

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I wake in the night to the sound of scampering. I lean out of the hammock, ready to smack a possum on the nose, but instead I see a gorgeous little Eastern quoll! It’s gone by the time I get my phone out.

The last known Eastern quoll on the mainland was run over by a car in Sydney in 1963. It now lives only in Tasmania and also Mulligans Flat near Canberra where it’s been reintroduced (fact check required).

We all chat over breakfast and while moving through the unthinking tasks of preparing our hiking packs for the day. I love the way hikers do this; so easily and naturally falling into comfortable social groups for a fleeting moment in passing, before diverging trails take us again our separate ways. You meet the most wonderful people this way. That, or you don’t get to know them well enough to know the truth. Perhaps Mia and Roux are travelling serial killers? Now that I think about it, they do have a bit of Mickey and Mallory about them… Good luck Mike!

I wash one pair of socks and hang them on the back of my pack to dry while I walk.

I shoulder my pack, light as it is with only half a day of food in it, wave goodbye, and start down the road.

Hey Mia and Roux, if you’re reading; go to the website MYOG Australia (powered by monkey puzzle fabrics) and order some tyvek for a tent footprint. There are two thicknesses. Get the thin one.

If I was smart, I would have got up before the dawn and crushed these miles before the trucks had even warmed their engines. But in this land of the 9:30pm sunset, I’m enjoying my sleep-ins.

I have the Captain Planet theme song on loop in my head. If you don’t know it, I encourage you to find it on YouTube. You’re welcome.

Edgar dam is where all the commotion is going on. I seem to recall that the “restore Lake Pedder” folks were citing upcoming expensive work needed as an excuse to drain the dam. I guess the government decided it would rather spend the money on a big heap of gravel and concrete than have a gorgeous lake with a long pink beach. The campground is temporarily closed during the works. Apparently it’s quite a nice campground. Pity. Beyond, the road is blissfully free of trucks.

The cut on the side of the road reveals alternating layers of burgundy and cream shale. I wish I knew enough geology to know why these two seem to have been deposited alternately over what looks like a very long period of time.

I take a short detour and walk up to the crest of the dam. Then it’s back down and into Huon campground.

I locate my resupply bucket, again just one step off the track but invisible, and carry it to a picnic table. This campground is lovely, nestled in gorgeous forest. If it wasn’t so early in the day I’d be tempted to camp here.

I have a whole jar of mango slices in juice! I thought those were in my next drop! I savour them. I enjoy a single chocolate, and a can of Coke, and put the rest in my bag for dinner. I divvy out six days of food from the eight I’ve got stashed, and put a bunch of stuff in the prepaid, self addressed post satchel I have in this drop. I’ll have TWE.travel pick up the spent drop and pop the satchel in the post for me. I’m sending the wire mesh possum pouch home. After carrying it all this way, I don’t need it for a Western Arthurs side trip, and I can keep my food safe in camp without it. I’m sure I’ll use it for a future food drop though. A bunch of other stuff goes home too; maps, a pair of gloves I haven’t worn, the tracking tags from the last two food drops.

All that done, and my pack heavy again, I walk back down the road from the campsite, then turn off down the Port Davey track. I’m finally leaving all roads behind. I’ll be entirely on walking trails for the thirteen-odd days remaining on this trip.

The track to Junction Ck starts out lovely, winding through myrtle and sassafras forest and button grass plains, narrow enough to be intimate but well maintained enough to present no impediment to walking.

Eventually it leaves the forest for the plains, and the Western Arthurs rise indomitably before me. The clouds have cleared, the sun is hot. I’m sure that Mia, Roux and Mike are having an amazing day on Mt Anne.

The track gets a little muddy. I’m sure that’s not a trend that’s likely to continue. The advice is to walk through, to avoid widening the track into a bog. I’m sure the acidic mud is doing terrible things to my leather boots.

The track gets quite muddy.

I’m told that once you’re through the Dead Marshes and the Swamp of A Thousand Sorrows, it’s pretty much easy walking until you get to the Endless Bog of Despair. And that’s pretty easy as long as you don’t give into the Sadness like Atreyu’s horse did. I recommend whistling a jaunty tune, like the theme to Neverending Story.

I just reopened the wounds of my entire generation’s childhood trauma.

Junction Creek is a largish campsite with a number of places to put tents hidden amongst the trees. Chapman says it floods easily, but there’s a drier spot higher up, and another campsite 500m further along. I camp by the creek.

The forecast is saying I’ve got three beautiful days ahead, then one of rain. I’d like to try to be in Melaleuca by then. It could be a pretty intense three days, plus there’s a boat crossing near the end. And I’m sure the mud is only just beginning. The poor leather of my boots! I’m going to owe them such a cleaning and waxing.

I’m so happy I saw a quoll, but it was just a fleeting glimpse. I’d love to see another. Maybe even the significantly larger Tiger, or spotted-tailed quoll.