Distance: 22.8km
Elevation: +314m -318m
Time: 7:00
Total Distance: 151.1km
The sky was the colour of Television, tuned to a dead channel.
– Neuromancer
We set out under a grey sky with the promise of sunshine ahead on our longest day so far. About 22km to Hainsworth hut. The group flies along when given a decent track to walk on, and the first half of the day was this.
The last two times I’ve come this way I’ve been caught short without a crossing stick, and there are no trees anywhere around by the time you get there. So I found a good stout one and carried it in anticipation.
And carried it.
The crossings were further down the track than I remembered.
With the recent rain I was a bit worried about crossing the Tantangara and Murrumbidgee. Turns out I worried (and carried the stick) for naught.
Three of us crossed the Tantangara without getting our feet wet. The other two opted for a shallow wade. I’ve now crossed this stream in three places; the ford, the first set of rapids you come to upstream, and the second set of rapids. I suggest the second set (where we crossed today) since the creek widens here and becomes more shallow.
A shot nip up the hill and down to the Murrumbidgee for the second crossing. This one mocked me with its ease. Barely shin deep. You want to cross at the downstream end of the eroded red earthen bank (which may take a slight scramble to get down).
A relaxed meal to celebrate our continued survival, and it was up the hill and along a series of horse tracks to Millers’ Hut. The wind kicked up, trying hard to blow the last of the cloud away, and patches of sun started to appear.
After lunch at M’illers Hut (which looks like the sort of thing I might build if left alone for a month with a pile of rusty tin, a bent 3/8ths wrench, and too much grog) we had an easy 6km road and track walk past Ghost Gully. There’s no need to worry about staying here, since it’s only a name. Ghost Gully is actually a shallow valley, and not a gully at all. Pretty full of ghosts though.
Hainsworth Hut is another fabulous old rustic hut, surrounded by black sallee trees, some of which are larger than any I’ve seen and Chapman reckons must be 400 years old. (For anyone confused who this Chapman person is, he wrote the AAWT guidebook, which I brought along for everyone to have a read of in camp.)
With the sun finally out and plenty of afternoon to spend, there was opportunity to do laundry and have a quick wash in the frigid creek. Then it was dinner and toasting the last of the marshmallows and off to bed. A cold night ahead and another longish day tomorrow, but the weather for the rest of the walk is looking fabulous.
