A Bit of a Drive

Hello!! How was everyones Sunday? Madly busy or nice and relaxing??

We had a gorgeous day driving down to the end point of our upcoming Overland Track hike.
It was a beautifully scenic drive down to Lake St Claire. During the hiking season, hiking traffic goes one way. Starting up at Cradle Mt and hiking down. Hikers can avoid the extra track fee and hike in either direction during the winter season. (brrrr)

Because of the bus inconveniences, we left one of the cars at the visitors centre and hope it will still be there and in one piece for when we finish the hike!!
We put a bag with clean clothes, towels, shampoo in there ready and waiting. We also went to the supermarket and bought some cake, bikkies, juice packs etc to enjoy when we stagger in next week.

Day 7 you can hike the 17km around the lake or pay to take the ferry across. We are being stingy and walking. Actually we just felt we would be cheating ourselves out of doing it properly if we didn’t do the last bit.

It was grey and gloomy today. Not too cold though.
It rained last night. Not the sweet pitter-patter rain. The belting down with a vengeance rain. I was lying in bed telling it to get it out of its system! haha

If you squint you can see in the below photo Jeff and Rachel standing on the jetty.
They were ignoring me jumping up and down waving my arms like an idiot… so I just took their photo.

The drive back up was also really scenic. We did a loop, just to mix things up a bit!

Just outside Lake St Claire we picked up a stray

Katherine from Germany was hitching a ride back up to Launceston. While we weren’t going all the way, we got her to the Bass Hwy where apparently she got her second lift and into where she needed to go. (See? The bus thing! Not convenient!)

Actually it was really great. She was a lovely girl, funny and interesting. (I mean – she hiked Cradle Mt with a HULA HOOP!!! Who does that?? Just fabulous and very unexpected. We were thinking of taking a pack of cards to amuse ourselves in the evenings but now I am feeling a tad boring.)

We fed Katherine cake and got all sorts of first hand information about her experiences up on the hike which has made us re-evaluate a few things of what we were planning to pack/carry.
All in all, a good experience for us all!

Anyway – I am bushed! Time for some bed for me.
The final pack tomorrow and squeeze in a cuppa with Ruby & Margie!

Cheers!