Day 4
The third day of walking.
We woke up with first lights of dawn without difficulties and prepared for the day.
Weather was good and we were able to start our walks early.
It was only 10 minutes past 7am.
Without realizing what was stored in the course of walks ahead we were very much hopeful of our smooth walk and earlier arrival at the next hut.
This was a creek crossing day.(37 or 39 times ???)
Suze read me some information about the emergency contigency track from the booklet
the day before.
If the creek water was chest high we had to go all the way back and joined Birds Nest Link Trail which meant to do 10 hours or more strenous uphills and downhills walks.
We shuddered even at the thought.
Due to La Nina it had been extremely wet this year but luckily rain stopped the day before our walks so even though creek water was high it seemed ok for us to proceed.
Last time I hated my hiking boots soaked in water all day long so we wore hiking sandals with gaiters.
But this time we decided to walk through creeks with hiking boots like real seasoned hikers.
As soon as we left the hut too soon the very first creek came along around the corner and our comfortably dried walking boots submerged completely in one second.
As we came out of creeks, waters still retained inside the shoes so much we walked heavily with constant squelching noises.
Suze was funnily worried about her wrinkled white feet after a whole day soaked in water.
There were still a lot of cows grazing around this area back in 2016.
Their fresh and old large poos were everywehre even though it was already not any more private lands.
But this time there was none of them seen and the whole area was wilder than ever with overgrown grasses, and broken trees etc which made me reminiscing about old memories.
We encountered one big young cow and she suddenly started climbing up the small hill upon seeing us.
It was a shock and a litle bit of fun that she was scared of us.
Three hours we alternately either walked between deep grasses along the creek or walked in the creeks.
And then suddenly we turned a wrong turn and ended up at a different creek and kept on going up the stream with the water got thinner.
I expressed my doubts wihtout too much conviction to Eddie frequently by saying it didn’t seem all right.
He strongly beleived that we were following the creek(yes but the right one!!!) which was the right way.
I didn’t know there were three more diffeent creeks but in my memory we were crossing wider creeks until the end.
Anyway after lots of efforts to pass the creek and bush bashing around it he regained his sense and checked his GPS finally.
He found we were following a smaller wrong creek.
We stopped for lunch at the top of a small hill.
We wasted around one and half hours(???) and lost our optimistic spiritis from the morning.
Suddenly it dawned on me that we were all alone well and truly in wild and deep mountains which was like two sides of a coin.
We liked our own companies but if something happened it was harder to get a help too.
Now once we climbed down from where we had lunch we were able to get back on the right track.
It sounded easy but the whole process was an agonizingly slow and tough.
I asked Eddie to check GPS again and again now as I didn't want to end up spending night out in the bush failing in arriving at the destination.
We did bush bashing millions of times before but this was different.
Our tall and heavy backpacks were not helpful either.
Whenever I put my one foot on a spot to stablize myself, fragile dirts and rocks fell down under my shoes.
Then I lost my balance instantly and slipped and fell so many times.
We got scared but encouraging each other we tried our best.
One step at a time we made it to the bottom of a hill gradually and agonizingly.
Eddie wore a short shirt and pants so he had serious scraches and bruises all his arms and legs.
Even though me and Suze wore long sleeved shirts and pants, Suze's new expensive fancy leggings
were ripped and we had numerous bruises too.
I was genuinely surprised when Eddie apologized to us profusely for his mistake.
In fact he did his best except he didn’t check GPS once.
(So please listen to your wife next time!!!!)
It was a scorching hot day with extra involuntary up and down hill training(???)which made us hot and exhausted.
We soon arrived at Green Gully Cannyon around 2 pm where we were supposed to have lunch.
Happily we heaved down our heavy packs, took off our clothes and shoes including all the stresses.
It was a real treat for us to release our tension and enjoy swimming there.
Suze looked she couldn’t enjoy it much with unspoken anxiety all over her body (poor thing!!!) but Eddie was floating around the area freely enjoying the moment.
Eddie said he saw a water snake while he was swimming around.
We saw a crawling black snake between rocks later on.
OK…we couldn't stay there forever...had to pack up and walk.
Last part of track was also covered by overgrown grasses as if deserted or forgotten from humans for a long time compared to before.
We finally arrived at Colwells Hut around at 5:30 pm.
It took us more than 10 hours or so from Green Gully Hut to reach there.
The short cut to the creek was blocked with trees but it was worth it walking down a long way to the creek for washing after a long exhausting day.
Night came quickly as we arrived there late.
We had a very peaceful cosy night in a relatively smaller hut after a quite dramatic day.
Day 5
Last day of walking
Finally it was overcast after 3 days’ fine hot days which was in fact comforting as we were climbing up over 500 metres for first 3 kilometres.
It was insane.
OH MY GOD.
It was crazy going up and up and up.
It was cool and refreshing in the beginning but we got hot and sweaty with this endless ascent.
My ears were blocked from time to time just like symptoms of airplane ears.
After 3 hours’ strenouous inclines we were nearing the forks to my huge relief where we saw people having lunch on our first walking day for their last day.
Eddie rushed to go there(HA HA HA) before first day’s people occupying the place just in case.
It was a perfect spot for lunch.
National Park people put tree logs just like chairs here and there.
There was no other suitable spot at all for eating lunch on this management trail actually.
When me and Suze got there puffing we saw Eddie already cooking lunch and two other first day people were hovering there too.
Soon other 4 members of their group arrived and they didn’t leave soon enough.
We didn't want to mingle with people if we could in this covid era to be honest.
They enjoyed not-so-rushing way of chit chats along with trying to ask us some questions about our adventures and finally when I thought they would leave they asked Suze to take their memorable(?) group shoot.
They must have found it a bit weird when Suze answered flatly to their curious question that she saw snakes a couple of times all right.
Eddie mentioned there were 3 more smaller creeks other than Green Gully Creek on Day 3 omitting the details of our getting lost.
They looked very excited(of course) with their hiking gears and clothes flashy and shiny.
I dont know if they wanted to have lunch there to no avail but they could have had it just like us on the grass at the Heli pad.
Not long before this hike I wached a TV show on which wildlife monitoring and surveillance cameras were used to mainly gather information in some of National Parks.
And voila...I found one near the tree on the trail.
Obviously I felt I was being watched.
Especially regarding one very crucial business which was about going to bush toiletts.....OMG.
Lunch was yum and enjoyable thanks to Eddie.
Mostly I hated walking on the management trail but from the creek experience the day before I learned it was boring but there'd never be a chance we got lost.
It started raining around 1 pm and we put on our rain jackets.
At the end of our 4 day hike it finally took its toll and we felt dead exhausted.
Suze hastened her pace to reach our final destination quickly.
Eddie stayed with me and walked together slowly and steady until the end.
As we turned around the last corner and saw the lodge far at the end of the alley I was so happy to yell out HOORAY.
Rain got steady and strong to splash cold rain waters all over my face but I didn’t care.
Like the first day we arrived here it was freezing cold again with this rain and wind.
Eddie made a fire first before everything else asap while we took a warm shower by turns.
I prepared our last feast and it was so good feeling a mix of the most pleasant tiredness and the biggest sense of accomplishment.
Fire was so powerfully warm enough to dissolve our tiredness and we definitely enjoyed our last night there.
