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Journal: |
There were only a few light showers overnight and I got up in the
6:30am pre-dawn gloom to mostly clear skies. Overhead I could
hear the whisper of a high-flying jet, most likely on the
Sydney-Melbourne route and imagined the bleary-eyed occupants,
having woken to a 4:00am alarm for a 4:30am car to the airport and a
6am flight. A few of the occupants might be looking out of the
window at the forests and mountains below, as I have done on many
commuter flights in various parts of the world, wondering who's down
there and what are they doing? I know where I would rather be.
Knowing that I had another easy day, I took my time breakfasting
and packing up, and started walking around 9am. The guide-book
warned that the next 8km was mostly uphill, but it was a very
gradual climb, not onerous at all, along the beautiful sun-dappled
track through the eucalypt forest. After an hour, the sun was
warm enough to strip down to my T-shirt and I felt fortunate to have
missed most of the rain that had passed through NSW and was now
apparently falling on Sydney and the Central Coast.
Around
11am I reached Norths Lookout, a broad rocky outcrop that gave
fantastic views in a 180° arc from the NE through NW to SW and I
stopped for a short while to enjoy the scene. I then continued
on for another half hour to the edge of the Woomargama National Park
and had lunch in the sun in a broad clearing. Very pleasant.
From there, the trail passed through a pine plantation and, at one
point, I briefly passed through a "No Entry" area where I could hear
ongoing logging operations, but had no problems.
After the
pine plantation the trail again entered eucalypt forest. I was
making good time and it looked like another very early finish.
With just a few minutes to go, I reached a track junction where I
needed to turn off to get to the campsite when I heard a vehicle
approaching. It stopped and turned out to be Warwick, the
trail coordinator, who had some business in the area and guessed I
might be nearby. It was nice to see him again and we chatted
for quite a long time about the Track and the ultra-distance trail
race which is now held on a section of it each year. After
saying our goodbyes I hiked the last half kilometre to the campsite
which was on a lightly forested knoll that would get the sun late
and early.
As I set up camp, an elderly couple (well, older
than me!) driving a 4WD with a camper trailer arrived. I was
glad I hadn't arrived any later because I suspect they would have
set up near the shelter which I had claimed as my own.
Instead, they set up 50 metres away and were quite sociable, and we
chatted for a while about the Hume & Hovell expedition.
After
setting up camp and washing, I updated my diary before another early
dinner and night. I am booked into a cabin tomorrow night but,
despite being another shortish day, there will be some tough trail
to negotiate en route.
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