July 10th, 2021

Days km: 15.3km
Total km: 668.5km

I slept really well, a proper, firm mattress makes all the difference and I took full advantage of it and slept in until 9 a.m. It was glorious.

My wee toe had given me some grief when I took my shoes off last night, but I got distracted by town food and forgot to have a look before I went to bed. Also, if I can’t see it it’s fine ok? Unfortunately, when I looked this morning there was a blister on the bottom of my toe which needed some attention. Annoyed at myself, I really should have checked it earlier, I did my best to drain it and then wrapped it in leukotape. I guess I’ll see how I go.

I was feeling a little sorry for myself as I left in search of food. I’d really like one day with nothing hurting, just one. To cheer myself up I grabbed a delicious brekkie at the Hollowbutt cafe. Coffee, eggs, bacon, hash brown and lots of buttered toast and I ate every single crumb. Also got to speak to the family, which really helped to brighten my mood.

I grabbed a quick resupply at the general store, mainly chocolate, and bought a microfibre towel to replace the one I left in Pemberton. Officially it’s for waxing cars, but it does the job just as well, if not better, as an “official” trekking towel. It was also lighter AND only cost $4.50.

It was 11am by the time I sauntered out of town. I wasn’t too fussed though as it was a short day of 15km about 5km of that took long leisurely loops around and across the highway. I decided to just walk on the highway, as most of the track had huge puddles, I knew my feet were going to get wet, but I wanted to delay it for as long as possible.

It didn’t last. The track paralleled small creeks that had ambitions of becoming rivers. Wading was required on more than a few sections as parts of the track were completely flooded. At one point the water was up to my waist, I couldn’t see when the water ended and a few metres to my right I could see the creek (which to be honest looked like a river) flowing merrily along. I had the sudden horrible thought that I was no longer in the trail and had wandered into the creek. That was not fun. Like, at all.

There was another bit with a small bridge where I almost did walk into the creek. It looked like the road had flooded a bit, as I could see that the trail continued straight ahead out of the water about 10 metres ahead. I was about to take a step when I noticed the top of a railing off to the side, it was a bridge that was almost completely under water. I took that route,  and the water was thigh deep. On the bloody bridge!

Not long after I encountered a much larger bridge, but thankfully only the last half of that was underwater. *Shudder* After that the track finally climbed away from the river. I know the rain was intense yesterday, but this was ridiculous.

When I reached Gardner shelter it was empty, Harry must have pushed on. I stripped off, got into my dry clothes and hung my wet stuff out in the weak sunlight in a futile effort to dry some of it. It is going to suck putting those things on tomorrow.

There is a note in the book here that the Lake Maringup section is closed and that there is a diversion in place. Looks like it’s straight through to Dog Pool shelter tomorrow, which will make for a big day.