Back Again!

Hey hey!!
How is everyone?? Doing just fine I hope!

Well… clearly my friend Nardia and I got back off the Overland Track in one piece and in excellent spirits!!

Just thought I would swing by with some of the random photos I’ve post processed and tell you a bit about how it all went!

So… Nardia’s husband, Jock, drove us down to the finish point and we dropped off Nardia’s car ready for collection in a weeks time.
Back to Cradle, we took a room for the night then wandered down to the restaurant for a decent meal (and drink) before heading off into the wilderness

And there we are… starting off in true Overland Style… RAIN

All the forecasts totally sucked by the way!

We looked like bank robbers!
It drizzled at first… then it got colder, windier and snowier!!
The best bit was the stinging hail to the eyeballs!!

We were complete muffins and didn’t put our rain pants on until the shelter at Kitchen Hut where we stopped to sort that out and grab a quick bite to eat – and at this point Nardia was probably reconsidering her life choices as our fingers had gone a bit numb!!
(Thanks to Nardia for the above photos)

I’ll pinch more photos from Nardia later as day one wasn’t a good day for me to be using my camera due to the weather. But we made it to the hut in good time, dried out as best we could and watched the sideways falling snow from inside Waterfall Valley Hut.

The next day, heading to Windermere was mostly pretty lovely… a lot less rain anyway.
A LOT of water on the track.

As always, pretty in any weather

Adopting my ruffian look

The new hut at Windermere is well under way. But estimated to finish in Nov. or Dec.

Day three was excellent as usual… changing terrain made things so interesting.
Nardia was loving it

I must admit… it was a long slog through mud for most of the day!

In the end Nardia got the hang of it and started charging straight through the mud and water like I was doing. Saves a whole lot of time and the potential to fall in while balancing on dodgy planks and rocks

Poor new shoes!!

Was really fun having a new Overland Buddy – the only probable drawback was our mutual love of Japan – which meant a lot of discussion of our favourite Japanese foods, which at that point was a LONG way out of our reach!

We bucked the system of taking lots of energy laden dehydrated foods and subsisted instead on cup-a-soups, cheese, bikkies, sourdough bread, chocolate, our friends nut and fruit slice and lollies.
The one real meal I brought I honestly couldn’t even get through quarter of it!

And another great thing about hiking with Nardia… she’s pretty keen on getting millions of photos so neither of us would feel guilty about stopping all the time to get photos.

Selfie! There! Aren’t I glamorous????

We squished two days together. Skipped Kia Ora hut. Nardia went up part way to the Mt Ossa Climb to see ‘The Japanese Gardens’ and we met at Kia Ora, then continued on through the forests, checked out one of the waterfalls and hiked the last hour in the dark with our headtorches on into Burt Nichols Hut!!

We then mutually agreed we wouldn’t take ‘The Ferry of Shame’ back and finish the whole walk on foot.
So we skipped Narcissus and did the extra 5kms to Echo Point where we camped our last night.

A beautiful stretch of the track but had its fair share of squidgy muddy bits!

Was lovely to finish up and get that free five minute shower at the end – we were NOT fragrant hahaha

There is my little proud moment, announcing I’ve now done the track six times!

And here we are together feeling pretty good about getting over the mountains and back in one piece.
Bring on that yummy end of track burger and chips!
Cheers!