Journal:
I got up
at 6am after
a good night's sleep with the intention of being on
the road (at least to the bakery 500m away) by
6:45am, but ended up stuffing around trying to pack
my gear in the most efficient manner. This
always happens at the start of a hike and I'll have
it down pat in a few days. The pack was heavy,
with three days food and 1.5 litres of Pepsi Max,
not to mention the discretionary laptop and other
electrical gear, but not overly so and I was sure I
would adjust. I would guess it's about 20kg.
I finally did leave around
7:15am and
wandered up to the bakery (adjacent to last night's
supermarket) where I bought some breakfast and ate
it on a bench, somewhat disturbed by the guy
cleaning the parking lot and surrounds with an
industrial strength leaf-blower.
At about 7:45am I set out westwards along the edge
of the main road which I was sharing with plenty of
early traffic. Apart from local commuters,
this road was also the link from Yass to the Hume
Highway, the main road between Sydney and Melbourne,
so was carrying some long-distance trucks and cars
as well. After a couple of kilometres, I was
very happy to turn left onto the much quieter Black
Range Road which was to be my route for the
remainder of the day. The traffic went from a
vehicle every ten seconds to every ten minutes and
the traffic noise gradually abated though, for most
of the morning, I could occasionally hear the
distant low rumble of big trucks tackling the hills
on the Highway out of my sight to the right.
The road was sealed at first which made the walking
quite easy, though I didn't want to use
my trekking
poles on the hard surface and so missed out on using
my arms to share the heavy load with my legs.
The road changed to gravel later on and I enjoyed
the very peaceful rural countryside. Cars
became even less frequent and, although I passed
plenty of farmhouses, felt like I had the place to
myself. Some of the farmhouses bordered on
being mansions with huge gates, drives and machinery
sheds, while others obviously dated from many years
ago feauturing old verandahs, corrugated iron rooves
and weatherboard cladding surrounded by rusting old
cars and farm machinery and adjacent to tottering
farm sheds. Not much had changed for them
recently. I imagined that, in years gone by,
swagmen would have travelled this road as I was and
visited these very farmhouses looking for work and
food.
I stopped at a "Rest Area", comprising a single
bench off to the side of the road, for lunch around
noon and savoured the peace and quiet in the shade
of large gum trees on what had become a pleasantly
warm day as I read the Sydney paper I had picked at
breakfast.
The rest of the afternoon was spent travelling along
Black Range Road up over the Black Range, a gentle
winding climb and descent along the gravel road
through very dry grazing country (I sense another
drought is on the way) past sheep and cattle.
Apart from these
animals the only other signs of life were the flocks
of native birds - cockatoos, galahs and parrots -
which occasionally circled overhead or, in the case
of the cockatoos, seemed to want to lead my way up
the road from tree to tree. This is how I used
to think of the real Australia when I lived overseas
and it hasn't lost its charm or attraction to me.
About 3pm, I reached The Captain Campsite, my goal
for the day. It was a nice little treed area
set off the road, designed for foot travellers and,
as I expected, I had it to myself. It already
seemed that the sun was going down and I set up camp
and washed in the next hour by the orange rays of a
setting sun before writing up my diary then having
some dinner. I also tried, again
unsuccessfully, to call the guy at the Burrinjuck
Store who I need to ferry me across the Burrinjuck
Reservoir tomorrow around noon. I left another
message and hope he's available. I also called
the small pub at the hamlet of Wee Jasper and booked
myself a room for tomorrow night. By 6pm I was
wearing three layers of clothes as the air cooled
and, by 7pm there was a spectacular starry night sky
with the Milky Way highly visible and an occasional
satellite tracing a line through the stars.
Lower down I could see occasional moving flashing
lights which I suspect would have been planes
descending towards Canberra Airport. The weather
forecast is for more of the same tomorrow and I'm looking
forward to another great day.