Day 306 | Birthday Waterhole: another OK campsite
Larapinta Day 8
Thick clouds rolled in during the night so other than a brief but spectacular morning glow in the east all the best views were last night.
Today I passed some other walkers coming the other way, two groups, the first, Poms, had their twin walking sticks make a mechanical clanking noise as they rattled along. The bloke, leading up the hill, was cheery enough and we chatted a couple of minutes until his grim faced partner clanked past, not stopping, no joy there, but the main, mostly vertical, ascent of Brinkley Bluff was just in front of them.
They were closely followed by a party of 3 who also failed to stop to peer over the edge of Rocky Cleft, a vertical drop of some dimension, probably 20 m off the track but clearly signposted and visible.
Everyone I’ve met on the track has been in a hurry, except the dawdling me.
Shelley is on Day 5 and has already sped on to where I’ll be camping tomorrow night which will be my Day 9.
She was a slip of a gal in a hurry, shed warmed up for the Larapinta by walking the Bibbulum Track in Western Australia, basically Perth to Albany, the full 1000 km in 34 days, carrying all her food for the trip from the start. She said she had lost 9 kg.
Some people you just can’t slow down.
Me?
Well, you could speed me up, then again I have done the slowest recorded Mawson Trail trip, 31 days, most people take 14-18.
Dunno.
I like to feel that I have really experienced these places, I’m sure not coming back.
Today I mucked around on the top, then later on down at Stuarts Gap, where everyone camped last night, I wandered up the unnamed creek bed for half an hour and found a pond full of tadpoles and frogs sunning themselves on a rock before returning.
I’d hate to race past all that.