Today wasn’t a super long day, so we had a pretty chilled morning and left the hut after most people had already gone. Because of the rain, we had decided not to do the side trip to Mt Oakleigh, so we could take our time. We left in our rain gear, but it didn’t actually rain that much. Shortly after leaving the hut, we reached the section burned in the recent fires. It’s amazing how quickly the button grass starts to bounce back. We learned later that day that fire can continue burning away underground in the peat even when it’s raining and then flare up again months later, starting another bushfire. We passed through some rainforest, which had been spared from the fires, then back into the burnt landscape again.
There is track work going on, with some brave guys facing the elements to replace the burnt wooden paths. We also saw huge bags of very heavy stones that had been choppered in. I don’t envy the job of putting those into place. We spent a lot of the afternoon walking through forest, which was quite different from what we’d experienced so far and very lovely. Through the clouds we captured glimpses of the stunning Mt Pelion West and Mt Oakleigh. It was pretty challenging to manage body temperature while walking uphill through the forest!
Pelion Hut is an older style hut in a stunning location looking across the buttongrass moorland to Mt Oakleigh. We again managed to get three bunks in a room that had its own door to the outside, which served as a little shortcut to collect water and go to the toilet. There was a lovely family of pademelons hanging around the water tanks, completely oblivious to us. One had a long bath which was pretty cute to watch, almost as cute as watching my pussy cats have their baths.
It was cold inside, but the heater will only go on if the temperature drops below 10 degrees which it was outside but apparently not inside, so this was the coldest common room of all the huts so far. A French girl whose friend had to pull out after day one with a sprained ankle joined us for dinner and kindly shared her red wine with Jubble who was very grateful to say the least! The ranger told us that snow was forecast overnight and for the next day, and that rain would follow after that, so we decided to leave early and head for Windy Ridge Hut, skipping Kia Ora Hut. We all agreed that doing the side trips of climbing mountains in the rain or snow wasn’t the wisest or funnest choice, and none of us loved the idea of days walking in rain, so we would aim to finish early and spend a few days in Launceston instead. We were in bed by 7:30, ready for an early start.
Kerry's Hikes 