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Journal: |
It was a very cold night and I slept badly on the narrow wood bed
for fear of falling off, or losing my sleeping mat or pillow onto
the floor as I changed position in my mummy sleeping bag. I was glad
when I saw it was 6:30am (actually now 5:30am as Daylight Saving
ended overnight) and time to get up. It was still quite dark and
there was a thick frost on the ground outside.
I packed up by headlamp and ate breakfast, including two hot
drinks, using the last of my supplies. I got going soon after 7am,
Standard Time, wearing most of my warm clothes and enjoyed the
warmth generated by the walking on what was now a beautiful sunny
morning along a pretty snowgum lined trail. The walking was very
pleasant and I was in good spirits with a relatively light pack, and
the prospect of a spectacular day's walking and a day off tomorrow.
I was to follow the Cascade Trail most of the day which followed the
Great Divide. I had 24km to reach Dead Horse Gap and my food drop,
and decided to break it into three 8km sections with a short break
between which I hoped would get me to the food drop by 1:30pm.
That is pretty much how it worked out, with the trail gradually
climbing higher and higher, always easy walking, and yielding more
views and finally some beautiful snow plains, with the backdrop of
Kosciusko and the Main Range. I had some difficulty finding my food
drop and feared for a few minutes that it had been taken, but the
GPS came to the rescue again and all was well. I loaded up my next
five days food, and ate most of the treats as my lunch, before
leaving about 2:30pm for the remaining 4km into Thredbo, the ski
village where I hoped to get a room for the next two nights.
The single-track 4km walk from Dead Horse Gap to Thredbo
alongside the Thredbo River in the late afternoon sunshine was a
fitting end to a very pleasant day. When I got to Thredbo, I found a
room at the hotel at a reasonable price and was early enough to
catch the exciting final quarter of the Sydney vs Essendon AFL game,
have a shower, get a load of washing done and enjoy a very spicy
take-out Mexican pizza in front of the evening news. Thredbo is very
quiet, with almost nothing open.
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