I think yesterday’s experience must have been a bit traumatic for me. I lay in bed last night for at least an hour with my heart beating faster than normal and I couldn’t stop picturing water crossings! We slept in this morning for the first time this trip which was so delicious. It was cold and windy outside and so toasty warm in our nest. Jubbie strung a clothes line up and all our clothes mostly dried in the wind while we were having breakie. Last night we were going to stop at a place for camping called Volkswagen. We missed the turnoff in the dark and ended up going way to far, but by a very nice stroke of fate ended up at a beautiful campground at Macfarlane Saddle instead. I was keen to see what we missed, so we backtracked this morning, found the turnoff and headed down a massively overgrown 4WD track. The “campsite” was a tiny grassy clearing and that’s it. We actually went past it before Jubbie realised we’d missed it. So poor old Extreme Juber had to reverse back up the track to the “campsite” which was the only place to turn around. We were definitely lucky to have missed it last night and our car has a few more scratches on it this morning.
The first 5kms of today’s walk was along a 2WD dirt main road so I decided to skip that part and catch Extreme Juber to the first off track section. Today was so lovely and stress free. No working out where the path was, no river crossings, no blackberries. Just peaceful walking along a sometimes leaf littered, sometimes grassy trail with a bit of grassy plains and 4WD tracks thrown in. I love love love walking through alpine areas and today didn’t disappoint. It’s such beautifully understated country. It might be my favourite walking.
From the alpine plains the trail descended to sparsely wooded bush and down to an old logging track. I came out of that onto Dingo Hill Track and could see Camp Jubbie way down near Shaw Creek. He’d picked a great campsite, so great that unfortunately we ended up with company, but they were two old fellas who were quiet and kept to themselves. No surprises though because it is Good Friday and there are 4WDs everywhere! Funny thing is that I have not come across one other hiker and during my hikes have only encountered one hunter and three people camping at Mayford Flats. Funny considering the trail is so accessible. A bit later we were joined by three more cars, this time with young couples. After setting up they built a fire and listened to music and drank until quite late. The sound of the river right next to us almost drowned it out though and it was pretty unoffensive. Hopefully they won’t mind when we’re up tomorrow at 6am!
Kerry's Hikes 