Mountain Hike

Hello!
oooo – today I have a lot of aches!! I am doing the Old Lady Hobble every time I get up off the chair!!
Yesterday Jeff and I took a much needed day out together.
What better way to spend the day than climbing a mountain??
We drove out to Mt Roland – Jeff got this great pic out the window as we were driving along.

Its a long hike. 17km return. Its also a bit tough on the body… unlike a lot of the Cradle hikes where you go up and down and across – undulating… this is 4 hours of UP followed by 2 hours of down.
Its such a beautiful place though and its totally worth the effort

Jeff taking a few snaps before we get into lunch!
I didn’t take my camera out until we reached the picnic table – I was too lazy 😀 Was just concentrating on getting up the next stretch or around the next corner!

We only saw a few other people on the mountain yesterday! One couple stopped for a nice chat – they were from the UK and enjoying 4 weeks in Tasmania.
Apart from that, Jeff and I had the place to ourselves. It was quite therapeutic as we’ve had little time to just do things together. We just talked about everything that was going on, plans we have, goals for the future (for next week and for in a few years) Very refreshing.

The path could be quite rugged!! I was looking down at my feet a lot over the course of the day!

I had to stop a lot as we were going up!

Finally we were approaching the last bit of the climb to get to the summit.
Seems like there was a bit of a fire around here!

From this point it was a rock scramble up to the trig point.

Part way up I pulled the camera back out out to show you what I just climbed over… then turned to show you what I still had to find my way up over:

Cool huh? (Camera gets tucked away again as I need all hands)

We lingered for a short while on the top to enjoy the views which were fast disappearing with cloud cover that was scudding across the landscape!
It was also cold when we stopped. We were wet with sweat, so the wind did us no favours when we stood or sat still!

Disappearing views!

The hike down was done rather smartly… gravity helps, but the one way pressure on the legs was noticeable! Those awkward rocky paths were a bit treacherous too! Jeff has done a lot better since using hiking poles. He is a bit of a classic at twisting his ankles. They saved him a fair bit.
Me… I went over on my ankle 4 times on the way down!!! Mad, because its very rare I do that even once! Hurt like billy-oh the first time, but luckily no real lasting pain. It was just annoying but it was probably because by that stage I was fairly tired!

Still, we got down in one piece and in daylight!!
Really very much looking forward to our upcoming Overland Hike – as much as I whinge about the aches and pains, I love it and wish we got out there a bit more often!!

Hope everyone has had a lovely week!
Friday tomorrow already!! (Actually I just looked and I am three minutes into Friday already!!)
Cheers!