The Visitor
St. Arnaud to Boyl
Mile 1279 / KM 2059
Podcast of the day: 'Zeit Verbrechen’
Song stuck in my head: 'White Guilt' by the Bronx
I miss: An ice cold Corona. Is that weird?
I got to 'Blue Lake' hut at 2:30pm and decided that although I felt tired it was too early to be calling it a day. Cami & Alex were ahead of me and when I looked through the trail register I saw that I had just missed them. They had left a note saying that they were camping in 7km, after the pass.
I was debating if I should go or not but decided that I felt alright so I packed up my things and started walking up the hill. If I had studied the topo maps a little more, I would have seen that the trail wasn't casually going along the alpine lake like I had imagined, but that I would have to do quite a bit of climbing before I would even reach the bottom of the pass.
When I got there at 4pm I was looking at a massive mountain, and my gut feeling was that I shouldn't do it. There are worse places to be stuck I thought. I was surrounded by mountains by a beautiful alpine lake without a soul in sight. Fuck yeah! After I had set up my tent, I took a bath, tanned, made delicious mac'n'cheese with extra cheese and peas for dinner and fell asleep quite early. Everything was perfect, but then….
I woke up abruptly when I felt something crawl through my hair. Out of reflex I put my hand up to my head to shake off whatever it was and cried out loud when I felt something furry. A rat! The next thing I know is that I was holding it in my hand, but then I let go afraid that it would bite me. For a couple of seconds panic broke out in the tent and the little creature went flying in all directions, until everything went quiet. I looked through all my things but couldn't find the damn thing anywhere. What I found was the massive hole the rat had left in the mesh of my tent. Bastard! But that was only the beginning. It kept trying to chew its way into my tent all night. I slept a total of two hours while the rest I spent defending my home. The struggle was real. There are holes EVERYWHERE in my mesh now which is like an open invitation for sandflies.
In retrospect I am glad I didn't try to get over the pass the evening before. Although... my tent wouldn't be full of holes if I had. The way up was harder than I had expected. On the PCT there are switchbacks that lead up the mountains, here there is no such thing. The trail just goes straight up. No mercy. I got to the other side and going down it was the same thing. Razor sharp rocks cut through my already dead shoes and I was glad when I reached the valley on the other side. The trail followed a river for the rest of the day, and I walked through a lovely grassy meadow. All in all I did 35km that day and ended up camping with two other TA hikers in one of my favourite spots so far. The night was really cold and again I didn't get much sleep. The walls of my tent were covered with thin ice when I woke up the next day and all I knew was, I wanted to get to town so I could sleep in a bed with walls around me where no rat could chew through. I got up super early, hiked as fast as my tired legs could carry me and made it to town. I even caught up to Cami & Alex along the way.
I'm in Hanmer Springs now which is a pretty little holiday town, and my plans today consist of drinking coffee and beer and walk as little as possible.
Desperate times call for creative solutions. In my case it was a rag and a lot of glue. Lasted for like a day. Desperately in need of new ONs.
Ghetto Zält
Trail communication
2000km down. 1000km to go!
And then I was in Africa.
Camping goals.
No they don’t.
