A Dangerous Business

Date: 11th October 2024

Start: Barri Yalug Campsite (km 71.8)

End: Duwul Campsite (km 84.1)

Distance Travelled: 12.3 km

Total Distance Completed: 84.1 km

Song Currently Stuck in Head: Ooh Aah by Grits

Number of Rocks On Trail: couple million

I saw an aurora last night. Well, more like 5:30 this morning. Well, when I say I saw it, more like I heard a bunch of people walking about and chatting, overheard the word “aurora”, so I peeked my head out of my tent to look around and noticed the sky looked remarkably purple. I didn’t make the effort to actually get out and get a photo, it was too cold. At least my sleep is (slowly) improving.

The cold has the added effect of making me very slow to get ready in the morning. Matt and I didn’t set off until 9am. Luckily we’re doing a short day just to the next campsite. How hard could it be?

First highlight of the day was passing an old fluke used to carry water to Stawell during the gold rush era. It’s quite a remarkable piece of engineering and included a tunnel through Mt William.

The first climb of the day was to a group of peaks known as the Seven Dials. We’d be crossing 4 of them. Getting there first required climbing up a rock slab with gorgeous views looking back at where we’d come from.

The “fun” started once we ran out of slab. Each of the four Dials we crossed required a substantial amount of scrambling over boulders and through narrow cracks in between boulders too small for us to fit through.

It was quite the struggle to get up and over these peaks, and our pace tanked because of it. I was certainly glad to only be going to the next campsite along instead of skipping one like I’ve been doing so far. It also helped that each peak was like a broadcast to what these mountain ranges could offer.

A steep descent off the Sixth Dial was just as quickly met with a steep ascent up to Redman Bluff. This climb thankfully wasn’t as technical as the Dials, but it still had its challenges.

Yet again, the views up the top made up for the laboured breathing we had to endure all the way up to the summit.

Right, let’s talk about the descent off the bluff. In short, it was brutal. More boulder scrambling, and when there wasn’t any boulders to scramble over, you can be sure that the track would be covered in smaller rocks jutting out at all different angles, leaving no good place to get a decent foothold. The pain it caused my feet was relentless, and slowly I started to lose my cool. The campsite was just a couple kilometres away but it seemed like it would take forever to get there.

I tried my best to distract myself with other thoughts which worked to an extent. Eventually a road came into view, with it the obligatory serviced water tank.

Now that I knew camp was right around the corner I let myself relax a bit and think back to all the good that had come from such a rough track.

For starters, we had smashed the 9 hour estimate, arriving a little over 6 hours after leaving Barri Yalug. And now we had a whole afternoon to rest, mend feet, and get ready for the next day.

As the sun slowly fell towards the horizon, the wind started to pick up and the temperature dropped. A lot. Before going to bed, I threw on as many layers as I thought was reasonable for the conditions, falling asleep to the howling winds outside the confines of my tent.