Day 4 – Koornalla Reserve to Balook

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We wake to chill winds and overcast skies. A pair of kookaburras still patrol the periphery of the campground. No point rushing, it’s going to be a short day.

We follow the track as it winds up the river valley. Lyrebirds and whipbirds sing to us from the flanking forest, and occasional drizzle kisses our cheeks. This is pretty country.

The asphalt road turns to gravel, turns to dirt, turns to a muddy 4×4 track. The private residences and bush blocks peter out, and we’re just walking in forest. Mountain ash and tree ferns command the view. We climb, and climb, and climb.

We begin to notice a strange yellow trail marker. Eventually we reach an interpretive sign which tells us we’ve been following the Grand Strzelecki Track. What a delightful surprise! I should under-plan and under-research all of my walks this badly!

At Robyn’s urging we take a small side trip to see Forget-me-not-falls.

We climb and climb. At one stage I check the map and see we have 500m of climb over 5km. Not quite Stockyard Spur, but it makes me glad I’ve done that walk three times in the last month. We are hard-bitten mountain people and we push uphill at a decent, manageable pace without trouble. Far overhead the treetops whip about in a gusty wind that we’re sheltered from down on the forest floor.

Eventually the track turns off the 4×4 trail and becomes a lovely tree-fern lined — if muddy — foot track.

Nearing Balook we take a long detour to take in the Corrigan Suspension Bridge Tk [care to buy a vowel?]. Towering Giant Mountain Ash (Regnens, like the forest giants I saw down in the Florentine Valley in Tasmania) kiss the sky, and tree-ferns wetly line the path.

The suspension bridge doesn’t photograph well due to the overgrowth, but it’s a nice construction nearly forty years old.

In inimitable style, we reach the refuge of a picnic shelter right as the sky opens and begins to piss down.

There’s a tea-house at Balook but it’s closed for renovations and we’re ten days too early for scones. Oh well, you can’t be lucky all the time. The nice man in the visitor centre gives us some pointers about our proposed route tomorrow, and we settle into making the shelter our home for the afternoon. We make pot after pot of hot tea and hot chocolate and bundle up to keep warm without the internal furnace of walking. The feels-like temperature is 5°. We’re at 650m above sea level, having climbed back up to the height of Canberra from being barely above sea level just a day ago. The elevation and the wind exposure on the ridgeline makes all the difference.

Eventually the day walkers filter out of the parking lot. A couple wander over from the lone camper van and ask if we’ll be camping. I’m not too sure we’re allowed to, but with the presence of toilets and shelter, it’s the least impactful place in the area to pitch up for the night. Vicky and James are hikers, and it transpires that they’re planning to walk the Penguin to Cradle Trail. I’ve met few people who even know it exists, so it’s fantastic to be able to share my insights of the walk with them.

Robyn spreads her sleeping bag and mat on one of the tables like a cowboy with poor table manners, and I string my hammock up between the support posts.

Some of the concerns and consternations of life at home have today finally lost some of the bite of uncertainty. The moon filters brightly through thin clouds and I go to bed feeling happy and trail-tired.