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Published: February 27th 2024
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We left Heyfield shortly after 9am and found the road from Licola to Jamieson was a good 2 wd track so had no problems reaching Mt Skene, but still took 90 minutes reminding me that we were already in quite remote country. At the junction with the Barkly River Jeep track, we pulled over. I shouldered my pack, and with my full water bottles it felt heavy. By the start of the track we found a food drop container, which made me think I might meet some others on the AAWT, though this container was dated for pickup at the end of January. After a photo and J’s best wishes I plodded off up the track. The weather looked good, clear and perhaps a little too hot, but the forecast was for cooler days ahead.
The Barkly River Jeep track is - I believe - a notoriously hard 4-wd track and the walk down to Rumpff Saddle needed some care. My major concern for this hike was falling and injuring myself, so I was careful on anything steep and downhill.
At Rumpff Saddle there was a small herd of grumpy looking cows hiding in the shade. From here I
made good time to the Mt McKinty Road junction where I stopped for lunch. I had bought cheese, salami and wraps as an easy lunch and hoped this would last me at least 3 days.
From here things got quite a bit tougher. The 4km to Mt McKinty seemed hard work and on the next 5km to Mt Sunday I found I was even making even slower pace. Somewhere around here I see my first snake but I'm not sure which species it was.
My energy was renewed on reaching Mt Sunday, but I failed to check the guidebook and walked on to the summit so had to retrace my steps to find the track down to Low Saddle, adding an extra 0.8km to an already long day. The path down from here was far better than I had expected, relatively easy to follow (I had read that this section could be difficult to navigate, but that volunteers had cleared it recently) and easier terrain. My enthusiasm was short lived as on reaching the reliable water supply at point 127.3km, I messed up finding the creek and was briefly struggling to climb back to the path. After wasting plenty of energy on the hunt for water I gave up (I was close enough to hear the creek had plenty of water in it) and pushed on the final K to the camp at Low Saddle and hoped to find water 0.8km down Low Saddle Road.
The creek search had not only wasted my energy but had taken up time, so I was not camped up until close to 7pm, but I soon had the tent up and with an empty rucksack went off down the track in search of water. On reaching the spot where the creek crossed the track, I was initially concerned that it was dry, but in the creek bed there was a decent water soak, and I could fill up with water. Back at camp I cooked up a not very satisfying pasta meal, followed by a more satisfying mug of drinking chocolate and turned in just as it was getting dark.
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Tot: 0.055s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 12; qc: 20; dbt: 0.0341s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb