Today was supposed to be short at 14kms. East Riley Road is the last road Jubbie can get to before the next section where I’ll be out for three or four days, so that was our meeting spot. We had a bit of a sleep in, and I left just after 8am. The day started 200m straight up a 4WD track, the kind that seem to keep going and going. Jack had left an hour before me and had walked off into the mist. That was all gone when I left. My big mountain for the day was Mt Selwyn, which I really enjoyed climbing. It seems to have been spared in the 2019/20 bushfires, so there was plenty of vegetation, the path was easy to follow, and you couldn’t see the summit as you were climbing. There were several false summits, and there was some ridge walking before the top. After Mt Selwyn came South Selwyn, which was a stroll up a gentle hill.
I got to our meeting point at East Riley Road at 12:30, almost two hours before Jubble. I met a couple of guys who were grading the road. They were so nice, asking if I was okay, did I need water, offered that I could sit in their car to wait for Paul if I wanted while they went off road grading. They also told me they were camping at Riley Hut not too far away and said we could also camp there. I had worked out that if Jubble could drive further on to Van Dammes Track, a 4WD track, and I walked to there, that would cut 6km from tomorrow’s walk, reducing it to 19km. That appealed to me because I’ve been warned how tough going the track gets from this point on. The 4WD track was graded medium, so we didn’t know if we’d be able to drive it if not. Lucky for me, we could, and we decided I would walk back from there to the original meeting point, and Jubbie would drive back. While I was getting ready to leave, who should walk up but Jack! After a chat and a very handy app recommendation (Peak Finder lets you point your phone at mountains and it tells you which they are), we both headed off in different directions, Jack south bound to Barry’s Saddle and me north bound back to East Riley Road. That 6km really was a bit of a slog. While the track was easy to follow, it was overgrown, and I had to constantly push head height, overhanging branches out of my face. There were also several uphills thrown into the mix. I saw a big black snake. In fact, my foot came very close to it. Luckily, it was close to its tail, and it moved away from me quickly. I arrived back at East Riley Road to find Jubbie having a snooze in the rooftop tent – apparently, it needed to be dried again, from the inside!
We decided to camp up at tomorrow’s departure point. There was space on the side of the road, and we couldn’t really see the point of camping at that hut the road grader guys had told me about. Chef Jublé made delicious dinner, I got organised for the next three to four days, and that was the day done.
Kerry's Hikes 