A Dangerous Business

Date: 10th October 2024

Start: Halls Gap (km 48.9)

End: Barri Yalug Campsite (km 71.8)

Distance Travelled: 22.9 km

Total Distance Completed: 71.8 km

Song Currently Stuck in Head: Reach Out I’ll Be There by Human Nature

Feet Update: no worse than yesterday

I don’t know whether it’s due to the cold, my tent, sleeping bag, or any mixture of them, but that’s now two nights in a row where I’ve really struggled to sleep. This night was a definite improvement over the first but it’s still not great. None of this helped to raise my morale in the slightest. In a way, the last two days have been a bit of a reality check, in that I really shouldn’t be attempting TA-esque distances. But now I have to, I’m locked into the itinerary I’ve booked and I’m not exactly overflowing with confidence at the moment.

Bag packed and devices charging, I walked into town to grab coffee and breakfast. I managed two very reluctant bites of my banana bread before I had to throw it out. It was perfectly fine, but my nerves had sapped all of my appetite.

But then a familiar face appeared.

Yes that’s right, Matt is joining me for the rest of the trail. I figured since I was down in Victoria I ought to invite him, although he’s only able to do the last 5 days. His presence brought a great deal of encouragement to me after a couple days of hard walking leaving me feeling rather I’ll equipped to finish it.

Righto, onto the trail. Starting off was a steep climb up to the Pinnacle, passing by a swathe of day walkers along the way. Even with our packs filled to the brim, we still ended up being faster than a lot of them.

The track was a mixture of slab and stairs, all very steep.

Nearing the top we passed through a section known as Silent Street. It’s a thin gap between two rock faces where no wind blows and provided no one is talking, it’s completely silent. Towards the end the gap was almost too narrow for us to squeeze through.

Finally, the top of the climb was in sight, and we could look down at the valley we had come from and the lovely town of Halls Gap (right shame I didn’t get to spend more time there).

After chatting with a few of the day walkers, we left the crowds behind and descended into a forest. Honestly there’s not much to speak of during this bit. Matt and I just passed the time catching up on the last few months, and before long we had reached Bugiga campsite. It has quite the unique design, with circular camping platforms and a semicircular communal area open on both ends.

Now here comes the hard part, a climb up past 1000m of elevation to Mt Rosea. The gentle forest walk gave way to more slab climbing…

…and then to boulder hopping and scrambling. Progress slowed right down, but now that I wasn’t alone it didn’t faze me all that much. Nearing the top, we passed by the Gate of the East Wind, a narrow gap between two cliffs that is traversed by a short bridge, but previously required more adventurous means.

A little bit more scrambling and we stood on top of Mt Rosea. You could not have asked for a better view. 360 degrees all around the national park, no wind, clear skies. Simply magnificent.

It’s quite interesting at how prominently the Grampians stick up out of the surrounding region. Look past the mountains and all you can see is flat farmland (and quite a few wind turbines).

Back to the trail, the descent continued where we’d left off; boulders, scrambling, but now downhill.

But that only lasted for 1km. From then on it was a pleasant forest trail where we made excennet time on. I’m afraid I don’t have any pictures from this section as both Matt and I were in what can best be described as Sport Mode.

As consolation, here’s a kangaroo posing for us just before the campsite.

Barri Yalug was our destination and is one of a handful of campsites along the trail to not have a shelter, substituted for an outdoor communal area with windbreaks.

Jury’s out to whether they actually work or not. The more important thing for us to do was to get our tent’s set up and dinner eaten before the sun dropped, because when that happens, so too does the temperature. By the time I got to bed at 8pm, it was already freezing outside. I threw on as many layers as I could and prayed I could finally have a good night’s sleep.