June 15, 2021

Days km: 29.9km
Total km: 142.2km

The two ladies were lovely and we had a good chat in the morning over breakfast. I delayed my start until 9am, feeling an odd sort of peer pressure not to double hut today. In my defence, I figured climbing Mt Cooke would kick the stuffing out of me and I’d only want to do the one hut.

Turns out the Mt Cooke climb wasn’t bad at all, I guess it made a difference getting the climb done first thing in the morning. The trail was a little hard to follow at the top, and on the decent, as it was across large boulders with little to no trail markings. I did actually take a wrong turn once I made it to the top though and it took me a good 5 minutes of walking through overgrown trail before I realised. Still, the sun was out by the time I made it to the top, so I finally got some views, which was pretty nice.

I made it to Nerang shelter by 1pm and after lunch I decided to push on. It was another 16km to Gringer creek, but it was supposed to be “flat” according to the profile on Guthooks. I have been burned by “flat” track before, where the profile is just a straight up lie but this section was actually flat. It was a pretty pleasant walk through the forest on a nice, wide trail. Gringer creek was also close to a service station which held the promise of a sweet drink and maybe some hot food to break may fast in the morning.

I stumbled into camp in the pitch black at 6:30. I was annoyed at myself a little, had I left at my usual time I would have been there before dark.

Caroline, a northbounder, was there and had a fire going. We had a good chat around the fire about politics and the state of things today. Caroline is what I would call a realist and to be honest it was a little bit of a depressing discussion. But then, reality is a bit depressing right?