Day 455 | Yarri Shelter: peace and quiet disappears as 10 people turn up

50 km | Heading west total: 16,407 km

Yeah, at times it’s been a solitary journey.

Not tonight.

I thought there were voices in the distance as I rolled into the shelter. The last 5km had been through some single track, actually a bush bash, I could see the track but there had been an overgrowth of thicket to crash through. Some track maintenance is in order around here.

(Tales of hours lost abound in the hut book for tomorrow’s continuation of the little adventure.)

After a few minutes a group of 15 year old scouts traipsed in on foot, rather weary from their day’s effort. With the sun setting not long after two older guys, Richard and Andrew, appeared on their mountain bikes heading south towards Collie. Some shuffling of bed spaces ensued.

Then once it was fully dark, (why is it that things often occur in threes?), I could make out more voices, but it was just mum and dad paying a visit together with a 20 litre water container.

That’s handy because the water here has been poetically described as “smelling like poo” in the hut books along the way. The leaf guard to one of the water tanks has been ripped away and the eucalypt leaves have been furiously fermenting away in the tank. We all concur.

(After my second visit to Yarri, some months later, it should be noted that this issue has been adequately fixed: the gutter guard is now well secured, the water tank has been replaced and the water is fresh and odourless.)

Mum and dad head off and within 20 minutes there’s silence from the boy’s direction. It didn’t take long to heat and eat those cans of Irish stew. They’ve truly conked out.

So instead of that usual solitary campsite I enjoy some company and even a drop of red.

That’s the way to travel. How come I haven’t thought of that previously?