A Dangerous Business

Date: 9th October 2024

Start: Gar Campsite (km 23)

End: Halls Gap (km 48.7)

Distance Travelled: 25.7 km

Total Distance Completed: 48.7 km

Song Currently Stuck in Head: Take My Breath Away by Berlin

Body Parts In Need Of Replacement: both feet, one knee (borderline), shoulders, calf muscles (might be salvaged if I actually stretched them every once in a while.

I didn’t sleep. It was just too damn cold. And I don’t have enough layers in my bag to keep me warm. I may have fallen asleep occasionally throughout the night, but nothing resembling proper sleep by any definition.

As one might expect after all that, I was slow to get away, leaving Gar at 8:45. Still, I thought that was fine, it was only 25km to Halls Gap (narrator: it was not as fine has he had hoped).

First obstacle: my GoPro tripod. It’s seen better days, some of the connections are pretty loose. Normally that’s fine as I carry it in whatever hand isn’t holding my hiking pole. But I have two poles. So it goes in the pocket, pulling it out whenever I want to record something. If I zipped up this pocket, no harm done. But because, in my head, I want quick access to the GoPro, the best thing I can do it leave said picked unzipped. Big mistake. One quick rummage in the pocket later, I felt two of the tripod’s feet… where was the third? Welp, time to backtrack to see if it’s there.

That’s when I can into the ladies I met at camp last night. Thankfully they had seen it, by a rock where I had stopped to remove my jumper. Good to have it back, but the whole endeavour had cost me valuable time, time that I’d soon learn was in short supply.

As I mentioned yesterday, the Grampians are pretty rocky. In the northern section of the GPT, large parts of the trail traverse these large slabs of rock, either to sidle over, climb, or descend down. It makes for slow going, with the constant search for sporadic trail markers and then picking a suitable route to follow them. The 14 km to the first campsite today that I thought I could crack out easily quickly ballooned into a slow, frustrating grind over slab after slab.

So I did the thing I’m not supposed to do on these kinds of trails: I rushed. Determined not to stop for lunch until I reached Werdug campsite, I pushed myself more than I should have. My feet were flaring up and (apologies if this is TMI) the chafing was agonising. In my head though, this was necessary. An easy day (or so I thought) was now turning into a repeat of yesterday, concerns raging about running out of daylight.

I finally reached Werdug campsite a bit before 2pm. Weirdly, I found that I wasn’t really that hungry, having to force down two peanut butter and Nutella wraps if only for the purpose of giving myself the energy I needed to get down the mountain to Halls Gap.

At least the worst of the climbing was now over. All I had to do now was descend 500m to Halls Gap. If you’ve read my TA blogs, you should know that I’m not great with descents, which lead to more fear at running out of daylight. No matter, I have to get down this mountain at some point.

You can therefore imagine my surprise when upon reaching the main descent I was met with chiseled stone stairs followed by a gently meandering path taking me all the way down to Halls Gap. None of that scree or tree root malarkey on the TA, this was a nice, stable path, making for easy walking.

I still went too quickly, my legs and feet in agony when I pulled up to the campsite. As I set up my tent, I thought about what I should get for dinner. Lo and behold, I was bestowed with a welcome dose of trail magic from a couple also doing the GPT who offered me a pizza. I really didn’t see that coming, but it was more than welcome.

Even so, I still didn’t have much of an appetite. It’s probably down to anxiety at how I’m supposed to cope with another 5 days of this when my feet are already more battered than a fish from the fish and chip shop in town. I ate what I could, then went for a relaxing hot shower before going to bed, the last time I’d spend a night in a town until I finish the trail.