False Start and Nearly No Start!

Hello!!
Hmmmm perhaps I should have tilted that photo a wee bit.
Never mind.
So… we were up before 5am last Monday to drive down to Lake St Claire to drop off our car at the finish point, then drive back up to Cradle.
One of my lovely cousins leant us her car so we could do a car shuffle (they were travelling down to Cradle later to collect it)
In itself that’s a big day as you’re looking at about 8 hours on the road driving.

This was actually the day before our official start date on the Overland.
The plan was to collect our passes then hike up to Scott-Kilvert hut for the first night, which is part way down the track, then start officially the next day.

It was HOT! We aren’t used to hot anymore.
We’d booked at this time of year to accompany friends on the journey… but they bailed out and we didn’t really think to postpone. Just stuck with the dates we took.
March/April is our preferred time.

I struggled right from the start. (Can you tell? My photos are STILL crooked haha) The heat was a killer, the early start, a nice dose of anxiety and of course with my foot – not quite as fit as I would have liked to have been.

In the end I just felt awful. I pushed on for a while (because I am stubborn) but we rounded a bend and I saw where I had to go really steeply up and my face must have etched out this picture… Jeff said he hadn’t ever seen that look before and took it upon himself to bail out and go back before heat stroke became a ‘thing’

Very luckily we found a place to stay… (I had looked but nothing was available when I was trying to book a week earlier)
So we got a better nights sleep and set off for round two the following morning – our official start.

So…off we go again. Back on the bus to Ronny’s Creek to try again.
Even though we were on the track earlier, it was still drainingly hot and hard work.
I was looking forward to getting to Crater Lake so I could jump into it.
I wasn’t full of energy, but today it was Jeff that struggled.
He is super fit and ready for this but he just couldn’t get it together mentally or physically! We think the recent booster shot had something to do with that.
We were at the Lake for probably 30 minutes in fierce debate on whether to continue or not!
The biggest problem with going back was transport. Our car was at the finish line and we don’t own phones to just call people to come on a rescue mission… apart from the VERY big ask that would be. And around here? Buses aren’t a ‘thing’
(OK yes, it also would have been a pretty solid ego blow haha)

Finally Jeff said “Lets just go”
I had actually no idea if he meant forward or back – in the end of course… it was onward and upward.

I didn’t have the camera out until we got to the top of Marions and let me tell you… that was one miserable hard slog that day! (The camera is heavy and I didn’t want to think about it dragging on my neck until I had done the worst of it)
You’ve seen the photos before… you know what that climb looks like (if you are new to this blog… link to photos of going up Marions is here )

Basically I go 10-20 steps and stop. Rinse – Repeat. Might not win any land speed records but it gets you there in bite sized pieces.

We sat for a while and had more to drink and a snack and then continued on.

It wasn’t until this point that we both felt quite a weight (metaphorically) off our shoulders and knew we could really do this!
Was amazing the difference.
Of course the camera had to come out – because if I didn’t use it I might as well have shoved a 2kg paperweight into my pack!!

Across the top towards the base of Cradle… it varies between boardwalk and rough stone ground.

Every water way is a refill in our bottles.
A lot drier up there than usual of course. (Except us… we were puddles of sweat.)

I do like trundling across this part.

(Barn Bluff in the background there… I was pretty positive that there would be no extra mountain climbing for us this trip!)

There was a bit of cloud about and it made the hiking that little bit easier when the sun dipped behind them.

I never fail to feel the awe of this mountain when I am right beside it.
It just looms and makes me feel a little bit insignificant in the grand scheme of things. (But not in a bad way)

Its odd to see this path without water! 3 out of the previous 4 times I’ve done this, its been under water and a lot of mud and rock hopping!

A quick look back

It was a pretty season for wildflowers

Starting to feel a lot more remote now as we look across the mountain ranges

No running water.

Most of the tarns up here were dry

A little bit of water in this one made for some nice reflections

I like the way the path disappears into the greenery here

We filled our bottles again here which was good as it was the last bit of running water we saw between here and the hut

We have a Sawyer Mini filtering bag and depending on the source, we will sometimes filter and sometimes not. But its a handy thing to have to make sure you are not drinking anything dodgy.
These bits of water were good for soaking our hats and heads before moving on.

Anyway, I will leave you here and hopefully work on some more photos tomorrow – you’ll get the whole trek in odd chunks this time instead of neatly packaged into days!
Hope you are all having a lovely week so far
Cheers!