Hello! Saturday and its steadily raining. A good day to stay in my nightie, catch up on the blog and maybe do some soap later!
Well… the latest hiking adventure! Mt Murchison.
1275mt (4183ft) above sea level including a climb of about 700mt within a 2.5km space.
In otherwords – a bit relentless haha
Below was the flattest part of the hike. Crossing the road to the starting point.
Straight up into the bush.
(apologies in advance for all the Jeff-Butt photos haha)
Just so you know what you are in for.
This area was so pretty
The river track is good for keeping up the fitness but it doesn’t prepare your legs quite enough for this. I stopped a lot but keep reminding myself we are not doing this as a race. We are meant to enjoy it as well!
We were late getting to the start because there were so many roadworks slowing us and stopping us on the way – so we were a little unsure on the timing.
Finally we broke out of the bush and got some of our first views
From this hike you actually get a good view of the Overland Track, but we couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact mountains from this side. Still… was great to see.
We didn’t actually check the map carefully to see which mountain was the one we were climbing. At this point we didn’t know if we would be swinging about to the left or heading straight ahead.
Love the geological formations
Already so far above the road
That tarn was looking awfully inviting! We were sweating quite a bit!
Some of the track had fairly steep dropoffs.
We found out a bit further on that we were actually heading up to the right and the summit was hidden behind what we were climbing. We met some people coming down who told us. They had a dog with them too! First time the dog had been on such a climb and he was looking pretty pleased with it all! He was firmly attached to his owner – the rope climb part must have been a challenge for them!! 😀
Some great rocks up here too! Jeff believes there was zinc in the quartz.
Still going up up up and no sign of the summit!
We were keen to find some water too.
We found water but lost the track!!
Actually we lost the track a few times so I can certainly understand the warnings for this climb in bad weather.
Sometimes there were little yellow markers on trees or scrub but they weren’t obvious or many.
What we mainly looked out for were the rock cairns.
I am not sure who did them all – rangers or a cumulative effort by hikers, but they were really great in keeping us on track or getting us back on track!
Anyway, we finally found the right way to go and continued on up.
So many times I stopped just to look around (and rest) and enjoy the view.
Heaps of fat grasshoppers everywhere – all colours too!!
I’ll pause here – time for a hot drink maybe?
Be back soon with Part Two!
Cheers!
