I am writing this blog laying back snug as a bug in my sleeping bag and can say that today was tough. We had expected to wake up to the weather clearing but unfortunately woke to rain on the tent and single figure temps. When I stuck my head out of the tent the cloud had descended all throughout the valley. Our decision to stay down the mountain rather than on top was a great one.
We stayed in the tent hoping for a little break in the weather and by 7:30ish the rain had lulled. After a quick breakfast and tea we set off at a hot pace to try and warm our bodies up. It worked to some extent but our little hands were freezing. Next time we will remember gloves! We also had not packed waterproof trousers because we really didn’t expect this weather for extended periods in such an arid climate.
The last forecast we had read said it would break early Sunday however there didn’t look like a patch of blue sky anywhere near our future. The scenery was again different to other days and the valley we were walking down beautiful. Maybe even a little more so due to the low hanging cloud. Tim and I both did laugh and say that we felt as if we had walked through a portal and had been dumped into the Lake District in England, especially on some of the hills with no trees so you couldn’t distinguish the flora.
We ran into a couple that had been on the transfer out of Alice Springs with us. They were dropped off at Stanley Chasm and were going to be walking east to west. When we dropped them off we wet all looking forward to the reunion on the trail so it was great to see them. They were a little wet and cold but still in good spirits though as they hadn’t thought to bring any wet weather gear so after a quick catch up they continued on hoping to make it to Ormiston gorge by the end of the day.
We were making really good time, again mostly due to the fact that we were trying to stay warm but our bodies were feeling good, so other than a few small breaks we found we were eating up the kilometres. A slight issue we came across was wet feet. This section of the trail had a lot of overhanging grass on the trail which was obviously wet. So even though we were wearing gaiters our shoes and subsequently our socks soon got wet. It’s nothing serious it’s just really not enjoyable hiking kms with soggy socks. But there was nothing we could do about it so we kept on.
We found ourselves with only 3kms to go and the light drizzle and wind we had for most of the day had stopped so we were feeling pretty positive when we came across what we thought was a beautiful gorge with cycads growing along the bottom. It looked as if a giant had thrown a tantrum and just chucked massive chunks of rock and trees everywhere throughout. This made it quite difficult to navigate and it was quite a little adventure we had making our way down it. When we came to the bottom there was a sign which stated that it was the Inarlanga Pass which was a gap in the range which allowed the different Indigenous communities to pass through into other lands.
Needless to say the time we thought it would take us to walk the last three was vastly different to what it actually took us. We arrived at camp and were the first ones there so soon had our wet shoes off and our wet tent up drying in the cool wind. Fortunately the rain had stopped and hopefully for good this time. Our mate Ochy from Ormiston soon arrived looking as wet and bedraggled as we were so that made us feel a little better.
Set up complete and into some dry clothes we were soon toasty and sharing stories under the shelter with a cup of tea and digestive biscuits. Hikers from the other direction also soon started to appear and all of a sudden there were 9 of us cooking dinner and laughing and generally having a good time.
The weather made the day pretty tough but we still enjoyed the scenery and the cold weather means that I am appreciating the warmth of our tent and sleeping bags a little bit more tonight. Fingers crossed the sun comes out tomorrow as I don’t rally want to spend another night sharing the tent with stinky wet socks. S
