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Published: April 22nd 2017
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Day 12
Mt Wells Shelter to Chadoora Shelter 15.6km
Another shortish, easy walking day with absolutely no hurry. I don't leave till 08:30-ish as I have the opportunity to mess around with my packing technique- there is so much clean space to get everything out and re-roll, re-configure, re-think, and finally re-pack.
Get completely distracted all the way down the hill, it is a beautiful still morning and apart from lots of interesting naturey things to look at there are lots of emerging hazards. Feet need to be carefully placed (see below).
Lethal Death Traps (revenge of the animal and plant kingdoms) (Part 1) 1. Small animal digging holes- sometimes deviously covered by leaf matter- designed to fool you into twisting your ankle, or bare and open which will still get you if you're not paying attention
2. Small sticks- innocuous to look at, lethal to the shins as they leap up and stab you
3. Pea gravel- 3 main varieties- minute, small and medium sized- all will take the feet out from under you
4. Gumnuts- as above- green/white or brown- they all have the same slip factor
5.
Room With A View
Shutters opening out onto the garden full of birds Zamia fronds with their piercing little barbs often at between gaiter and shorts height, or level with fingernail beds, they will impale you any chance they get.
The other very noticeable thing about today is the prevalence of fungi. So many types. They are strong, persistent and diverse. They are also fascinating and take up a large part of my day photographing them. I have included a lot of photos in today's blog but still haven't gotten around to identifying them. DPAW has a great resource page through the link below (I will eventually get around to it).
https://www.dpaw.wa.gov.au/about-us/science-and-research/fungi-research/144-fungus-factsheets Arrive into Chadoora at 14:00. I was last here last October and it was overrun with ticks- not today though- the birdlife has taken over. There are yellow robins splashing around in the gutters of the hut, regular white robins and red winged fairy wrens. Beautifully sunny afternoon. I'm alone right up until dusk when Rob from Sydney arrives after double hutting and another hour or so after him in the pitch black, Hugo, who has done the triple! We are an odd threesome but we click. We sit around the fire in deep
discussion fuelled by Rob's neverending bag of *Allen's Fantales until 10pm- the latest night yet.
*Note- Fantales are a quintessential Australian lollies, developed in the 1930's in Victoria by the confectioner Alfred Allen. Other Allens favourites include the oldies but goodies- Sherbies, Jaffas and Minties, and more recent killer pythons and red frogs. Allens is now owned by Nestle but we still claim them as ours. Apart from sucking off the chocolate then chewing on the caramel for about an hour they have trivia questions printed inside the wrappers to keep you further amused.
Impressions of Chadoora Shelter - Bird heaven in May, the toilet is nice and close (but not too close)
Body assessment- still zero issues!
Total people seen for the day - just Rob and Hugo
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