Journal:
I had planned
to sleep in until 7am, but was awake at 6:30am and
got up. The campsite was in a shallow valley
where there had been rain overnight and a heavy dew
and it didn't look like the sun was going to reach
it for a while, so I sort of dawdled over breakfast
and packing up but finally gave up on the sun and
packed and left with a wet tent at 9am.
My pack now had five
days of food in it so was a lot heavier than
yesterday, but it was a beautiful morning for
walking along the foot trail through the sun-dappled
forest in the cool morning air. The morning's
walking continued like this, passing through
eucalypt and pine forest on a mix of forest roads
and foot-trails following shallow valleys and
crossing broad clearings. It was just magic
and I forgot about the increased pack weight.
Towards noon the trail climbed higher and higher to
reach a broad mountain shoulder where I had mobile
phone coverage so I took an hour off in the sun to
post my diary to the web and dry out my tent and
parts of my sleeping bag after last night's rain and
dew. It would have been easy to stay longer,
but I still had a fair way to go.
The next few hours were also exceptional walking.
For a while the track followed a
narrow forested ridge with occasional spectacular
views to the south, east and north. Then there
was a gradual but exhilarating descent across the
face of a steep open grassy mountain where I had
continuous views in multiple directions. Far
below was a road along which passed a number of
large logging trucks going to and from the forests
somewhere and straining loudly up the hills.
Finally the track descended to the valley floor and
crossed private farmland to a creek where I looked
in vain for the usual snazzy Hume & Hovell Track
suspension bridge and finally manouvred my way
across a series of rocks balancing with the aid of
my trekking poles and thankful for my high profile
Goretex boots.
There
followed more pastureland walking which was
occasionally difficult to navigate because the cows
seemed to have enjoyed knocking over the little
white posts (possibly good for scratching).
Yesterday's long walk together with today's heavy
pack began catching up with me around 3pm and I was
looking forward to reaching the campsite. This
fatigue probably coloured my view of some of the
last kilometres which were pretty much cross-country
following Lankeys Creek upstream through cow
pasture. The stream meandered around, it was
sometimes difficult to negotiate steep banks, and
the setting sun was directly into my eyes making it
diffcult to see where I was going. I made slow
progress and it was 4:50pm before the trail crossed
the creek and joined the road which was on the other
side. After another 3km I reached the Lankeys
Creek Campsite, partly damaged by a recent flood, in
rapidly diminishing light.
Adjacent to the Campsite is a private property with
a number of old rail carriages being used as
accommodation. This would be the Lankeys Creek
Bunkhouse which, by reputation, has been a welcome
stopover for previous H&H hikers. However, I
hadn't called ahead and, now that it was dark, I
couldn't be bothered making contact and
investigating the possibility of unbooked
accommodation. At the end of another long day,
I just wanted to set up camp, eat and go to bed, so
that's what I did on what
was becoming a very cold night with a sharp breeze.
After doing my diary, I headed gratefully
for bed at 8:30pm. Quite a lot of rain is
forecast for the next two days.