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.