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.
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