Day 10 - The 12 Apostles

Date: 19/12

There wasn't much to see between Devil's Kitchen and the end of the trail at the 12 Apostles. About 7km from the end, I left most of my gear at the hostel I'd be staying at which made for light walking. There was also a nice little wetlands boardwalk between the track and the hostel.

Wetlands near Princetown, Victoria

My first glimpse of the Apostles

The Apostles were interesting, but even mid-afternoon on a Wednesday they are overrun with tourists. I managed a few photos, and then headed off to the visitor centre to get a coffee and something warm to eat for the first time in 5 days.

Well, that's me done then.

Two of the 8 remaining Apostles. There were never 12. 

A few more apostles. One collapsed a few years back.

While snacking on a sausage roll at the end of the trail, I chatted with a family from California and a German woman with a lot of walking under her boots. We talked about great hikes we'd done and I managed to show her an echidna just before she left Australia to return to Europe (no good pics, sadly).

The hostel (The 13th Apostle, in Princetown) was great. The hosts were incredibly helpful and friendly, and the whole thing reminded me a lot of the better hostels along the AT. After 5 days of walking, I wasn't all that social so I mostly just headed to the local tavern for a pizza and some beer and then crawled into bed. It was a busy hostel, and the young'uns were up to party though, so thank God for ear plugs. (Actually, they were loud right up to almost exactly 11pm and then immediately went silent, so it was one of the more considerate backpacker groups I've encountered.)

I did (finally) manage to get a sunset here. Not quite the rugged coastal setting I would have liked, but it will do.

Oh sure, NOW the sky lights up like a painting.

In the end, the Great Ocean Walk was terrifically rewarding. I'd recommend it for anyone looking to do 5-7 days. It's not too challenging, and there is tonnes of natural beauty to keep you going. Altogether a great way to kick off my holidays.

Tomorrow, I shuttle back to my car and head home.

Day 9 - Wreck Beach

Date: 18/12

Well they weren't kidding. The trail did get a lot more challenging today, and I did some damage to my Snickers supply at dinner.

As usual, my early start meant a lot of kangaroos:

Roos in the Mist

How many roos can you see?

At one point, I felt like I was back in Tennessee on the AT.

Déjà vu

The original roos.

Most of the walking was steep descents and then steep ascents. The rewards were non-stop though. Every point I climbed over offered stunning coastal views, and every descent yielded beautiful rainforest like growth and beaches.

Some of the wildlife was exciting, in the sense that I almost stepped on what appeared to be a mulga snake, which is odd because they aren't typical this far south. Just another Queenslander escaping the humidity for a holiday on the south coast I guess. Still, nothing gets your heart pumping faster than one of Australia's native people-killers rearing up into a strike position. I looked into its eyes and there was nothing but darkness there. I guess I backed off far enough to make it happy though, since it eventually just slithered its little soul-less self across the path and out of (my) harm's way.

"Please don't kill me please don't kill me please don't kill me"
(looking closer, I think it's an Eastern Brown)

There were also some more benign encounters.

The rest of the day was less eventful. I managed to hit Wreck Beach just after low tide which meant I could explore it a bit. The ruined anchors and machinery from destroyed ships are a nice reminder of why I don't fuck with the ocean. I made sure to get past any narrow bits long before the tides rolled in and made camp around 5pm.

Pretty sure this one didn't actually land like this.

I swear I'm not just downloading Google Images.

Devil's Kitchen Campground should be renamed Dunnyview, because the toilet block has an absolutely stunning view. If there had been a decent sunset, this is where I would have come to see it. Sadly the clouds ruined my sunset once again, but not before I snapped some beautiful shots of Wreck Beach in the golden light.

'Waiter, could you seat me near a window?"

"Will this do?"

Once again, looking away from the sunset paid off.

Final day tomorrow, which means both the 12 Apostles, and a meal that isn't made of wraps or ramen. To the finish!

Day 6 - Great Ocean Walk

Date: 15/12

Melbourne was a bit of a break from the countryside, involving a lot of eating and drinking and trying not to get washed away in the rains. Yesterday I made my way to Apollo Bay and organized myself for the walk. All of that is to say that you didn't miss much.

This morning I finally set out on the Great Ocean Walk. The forecast was for a lot of rainy weather, clearing a bit in the afternoon.

Rain meant I didn't want to take my camera out so it was a (largely) camera free day, which is too bad since the first few kms produced a seal on the beaches around Marengo. I've seen seals before, but I've never been 20m from one just lounging on a rock. After that the walk entered the forests, which were pretty, but in the unphotogenic way that characterizes grey wet days in the forest. I met a few hikers, including a large, supported tour group that is camping with me for the first three nights.

This guy hung out eating in the trees on our campground.

But the highlight of the day, no doubt, was seeing my very first, second, third, fourth, and fifth koalas in the wild! This included one misty silhouette of a koala high in the trees grunting at the other koalas around, and one mother with her joey on her back.

I can finally check koala off the list of Australian wildlife to see.

I had to do 22km today, and wasn't sure how long that would take. Between that and the rains, it was a pretty business-like day of hiking and I found myself at camp around 1pm. This was way too much time to spend at camp, so from now on I'll be taking it much easier. Fortunately there were a number of koala around to stare at for ridiculous amounts of time, much to the amusement of the Aussies who are used to them.

Anyone know what this is? Angler fish? Puffer fish?

Camp was nice and near a beach (which produced this puffer? angler? fish), but pretty foggy. An earlier campsite had not had any suitable trees for hanging a hammock, so I was a bit worried that I had set myself up for a very uncomfortable few nights. Fortunately, this campground had lots of spots for hammocks and so it was all good.

Since I'd decided to carry my heavier camera gear, I had also decided not to bring a stove or pots in order to save space and weight. This means that all of my dinners will consist of wraps with cheese and sausage*, or peanut butter and granola. Under normal circumstances, this would be fine, but tonight it seemed a bit underwhelming next to the tour group's catered dinner of sausage curry stew.

But even a boring meal can't ruin the feeling of sitting on a beach watching the surf come in while I write this.

* I would really have preferred tuna, but it's hard to find the soft foil packets of tuna in Australia. This also means I won't be revisiting Blueberry Crisp's preferred meal of a tuna and peanut butter wrap. Stop making that face. It's much tastier than you think.

NSW and Victoria Adventure

For some administrative reasons, I had to take a lot of my annual leave in December this year, which left me with most of the month off. To fill the couple of weeks before Xmas, I've set out to hike the Great Ocean Walk, a 100+ km coastal walk near Melbourne.

The plan is to take three days to drive the NSW and Victoria coasts before stopping to visit friends in Melbourne for a couple of days. Then I'll head to the start of the GOW, and spend 5 days hiking the beaches, forests, and rivers, terminating at The 12 Apostles. A bus ride back to my car and I'll head back to Sydney, but crossing through country Victoria and the NSW interior.

As with the AT, I'll post each day in sequence. Like a lot my travel these days, I'm treating it as a bit of a photo expedition (see my 500px profile for a recent trip to Vietnam, or follow my Instagram). I've brought my DSLR and will be hauling it along everywhere with some others gear.

I don't have my laptop to deal with the photos so you're probably seeing all of these posts after I've completed. Which means there's no need to panic no matter what I post. If you're seeing these, it all turned out fine.

Onwards!

Keeping Calm and Carrying On

The first sign that you're starting to panic is you hear yourself say:
"OK, man, don't panic." 

One of my favourite things to do in the woods is to visit places no one else does. Places where there are no mapped tracks, and where most people don't even consider going.

But sometimes things don't go to plan.

The Hike (Planned)

The Megalong Valley is a gorgeous area of the Blue Mountains near Sydney that has the shallow meandering Coxs River flowing through it, lots of grazing farms, and hills and mountains on all sides. It's very peaceful, and teeming with interesting wildlife - lyrebirds and goannas in particular.

Years ago, I'd done a short hike in part of it with the Sydney Bushwalkers Club, which involved some off-track walking and some stunning views. We also passed through part of the valley while doing the Six Foot Track last year.

This weekend I thought I'd go back again and look at a different section - the plan was to follow a track part way up to Ironpot Mountain, then pick my way down a spur into a little-known track along a waterway called Breakfast Creek. Follow that to Coxs River for lunch, wander the river a bit, then climb back up over Goolara Peak to Tinpot Mountain and take the ridges back to my car (Clockwise around the blue track, roughly).

The planned track (in blue), and the actual track detours (in red)

The Hike (Reality)

Everything went smoothly until lunch. The descent was steep but largely manageable. Breakfast Creek was mostly dry but a nice place to walk and seems to be where all the lyrebirds go. I think I counted eight, which is seven more than I had seen in my entire life to that point (no photos - the little buggers are very shy). Shortly after lunch I startled a good size Lace Monitor up a tree, and got a nice pic of it camouflaged while it hissed and growled at me in irritation.

This creature was very hissy about me
mucking about with my camera

Danger, Will Robinson

Then came time to go back off-track and explore Goolara Peak and the saddle to Tinpot. After doing the very hard climb from Coxs River, I discovered that Goolara Peak is not so much a mountain as it is a pile of extremely large rocks on top of a hill surrounded on all sides by cliff face. From where I was sitting, I couldn't see a way up or around without some very risky exposure. Worse, I had no idea what the peak looked like on the other side. Even if I could pick my way up to the top, I might not be able to get down.

The alternative wasn't much better. It's always less scary to go up than down, and as I looked back over my route I did not relish climbing back down this incredibly steep hill full of loose dirt and rock. On the other hand, I at least knew that there was an alternate route back to my car that was passable since it was the one we'd used in 2014 (Red track in the image).

Besides the difficult descent, also arguing against that option was that the day was getting on and sunset was coming. Since I would be well off-track for my backup option, this could mean that I would be navigating by map and compass.

Alone.
After dark.

Navigating by map and compass during the day takes a fair amount of brain power, but at least you can see the ground while you walk and make out features of the terrain around you. Doing it in darkness, while exhausted and alone is a bad mix.

In the best case scenario, the wrong decision could lead to a helicopter ride from search and rescue. The worst case scenario is disappearing in the Blue Mountains, never to be seen or heard from again.

So my choices were a) try and climb the rocks and hope there was a way down the other side, or b) race the sun and hope not to get lost in the forest at night.

"OK, man. Don't panic."

My main goal was not to end up like this ex-cow
from the walk several years ago.

Racing the Sun

I figured I'd rather chance a night in the forest than find myself falling off a rock and ending up in a truly bad place. There was still some daylight, so I had a good chance of getting close to the car. I had some extra clothes and food. The river could give me water. It wouldn't be pleasant, but I could get through the night if it came to that. So I started the climb downhill. Or the slide down the hill. It was just as hard as I expected it would be. For the last few hundred metres I was clinging to trees to lower myself without tumbling.

When I finally hit the river, my adrenaline was pumping and I race-hiked to the entry point for my alternate climb to Tinpot Mountain. Before setting out on the climb, I filtered a litre of water into my Camelbak and packed out another 3/4L of dirty water in case I needed it later. At this point, between the mental stress and the massive amount of off-track climbing and descending I'd already done, my body was exhausted.

Every moment of the climb to Tinpot was accompanied by an inner monologue of "Just get to the top of the mountain before sunset, so that we're only navigating ridges." The reply from my body with every step: "You will pay for this."  The bribe came next: "We'll eat the leftover tomato from lunch when we get to the top. I promise."

I made the mountain top with daylight to spare. This was when my brain reneged on the deal.

Brain: "I know I said we'd rest now, but we can't waste daylight. Keep walking until dark, then we'll eat and rest."
Body: "I hate you. So much."
Brain: "I hear you, and I acknowledge your feelings. Shut up and walk."

Each hill was excruciating, and I would decide I had to rest at the top. Then the terrain would ease up and I'd check my bearing for the next saddle and walk on until I hit the next climb. It would be excruciating. It felt like I repeated this a thousand times, but my map tells me it couldn't have been more than two or three.

Then I couldn't anymore. I just couldn't.

The Mind Body Dichotomy

I don't think there was a single one of the 140 days of hiking the AT where I was this tired. As I was climbing the peak to Ironpot Mountain I hit a small track. A small track that was contouring around the peak instead of climbing up to it. My legs stayed on the track. No matter what my brain said, I could not get my body to do what was clearly the smarter choice.

Brain: "We need to climb. This track may not be going to the right place."
Body: "This is flat. It may be going to the right place."
Brain: "It's getting dark, we don't have a choice, we have to climb and be sure."
Body: "If you make me climb now, I am going to kill you."
Brain: "I hear you, and I acknow..."
Body: "#!?$@ you."

We - my brain and body are separate entities now - contoured until we hit what looked like it might be a saddle! Or a spur. But maybe a saddle?

Brain: "I think that's a spur. Turn back and climb to the peak."
Body: "It might be the saddle!"
Brain: "I really think that's a spur. Stop so we don't go too far!"
Body: "Did you say Stop?!?! Done."

A quick check of the GPS coordinates confirmed that Brain was right. It was a spur. I was moments from darkness and instead of heading to the car I had circled around to a track that was heading downhill back to the valley. I'd gone out of my way at a bad time, but there was a silver lining: I was done with map and compass! In the uphill direction, this track is easily followed back over Ironpot mountain and leads directly to my car where a large bottle of sparkling water and two apples were sitting in a cooler. I was still going to be hiking out by headlamp in darkness, but at least I wouldn't need to navigate while I did it.

Other than startling a few kangaroos with my headlamp, I finished my hike with no other excitement.  I gleefully dumped the extra dirty water I'd packed out and drank a litre of cold sparkling mineral water. My plan for around 18-20km in a relatively leisurely 6-8hours, ended up as 29km in a much less relaxed 9.5 hrs.

Some things I learned.

1. Don't panic, even if you're panicking.
2. Exhaustion really does lead to bad decision-making.
3. Even when your brain is making good decisions, you need your body on the same team.
4. Always pack a jumper and rain jacket for warmth. No matter how nice the day is. Just in case.
5. A compass that allows you to fix the correction for declination and saves you having to do arithmetic is worth every extra penny.

In the end, I didn't need search and rescue (or worse). One day I'll head to Goolara Peak from the Tinpot Mountain side, and see what it looks like just for fun. Also I'm really happy to finally get a good shot of a goanna, so it was worth it.

And I discovered a neat "Make Your Own Gear" trick:

I made a tripod out of my
(adapted) poles and a stick

Photo Gear Test

One of the things I always regretted a little bit about my AT hike was that I didn't have good camera with me. Like most hikers, I relied mostly on the camera in my phone which led to some decent shots but mostly pretty low quality stuff - particularly in the low light that often makes for the most beautiful images.

After that trip, I'd decided I would find a way to bring some quality gear with me on hiking treks to give myself better options. A couple of weeks ago, a friend invited me to join a group on a 30km (18mile) hike along the coast in New South Wales (The Coast Track, in the Royal National Park). This seemed like just the excuse I needed to buy some stuff and see what works. Discussion of the gear follows these pics.


For the gear heads, I have a Canon T6i (750D) DSLR with the standard kit lens (18-55mm). At some point I want a wider range zoom, and either a wide-angle prime lens or a portrait prime lens (I'll decide when I figure out what kinds of photos I tend to take more).  Before upgrading the lens, I wanted to figure out ways to carry stuff, so the first two things I wanted was a way to pack camera gear into a bag, and a way to carry the camera around that would keep it secured but also very accessible. I don't want to have to open my bag every time I want to take a shot, and I also don't want to have it dangling around my neck swinging while I walk.

Storage

f-stop's Small Shallow ICU

For the last hike along the Six Foot Track, I had a standard Lowepro bag. It's great for wandering cities and day-to-day, but I could never really get it to be convenient with a pack and poles. I'm not looking to carry a full pro rig or anything, so I settled on f-stop's small shallow ICU insert.  It's still too big for what I own but down the road I'll want to have spare batteries and a charger, filters, memory cards, and probably two lenses.

In the end I didn't really make much use of the insert except on the way to and from the track. The weather was beautiful and dry, and the track has no really technical bits. There were some beach walks where sand concerned me a bit, but never enough to make me hide the camera. I'll have to report back after I've taken it on a longer hike where I need to hide the camera more often (rock scrambles and weather), or have access to more options.

Accessibility

Doubles as a perfect bracket
for shooting your feet.

On the Six Foot, I had to constantly open my Lowepro bag and take the camera out whenever I wanted a shot, then return it to the bag when I was ready to walk again. For this trek, I picked up a Capture Clip from Peak Design. This clip attaches to your shoulder strap and allows you to suspend the camera (lens down) from the pack directly at chest level. A little release button is all it takes to pop the camera up and start shooting.

I loved it! The camera was always either in my hands or on the clip. It was super quick and easy to go from hands free to shooting. I did have to be a bit more cautious when putting the bag down, but that wasn't hard to remember since the camera was in my face.

Stability

Is that an MYOG monopod in your pocket,
 or...?

One final problem I need to solve is how to get a tripod without carrying a tripod. As a hiker, I generally dislike carrying anything that has only one purpose if I can avoid it, and a tripod does not have many other uses. I had seen some people talking about turning their trekking poles into monopods as a compromise. This also had the added appeal of being my very first make-your-own-gear project! I ran off to the local hardware store and picked up a small 1/4" thread bolt and two matching nuts, along with some epoxy. Half an hour with a drill and I had what I needed - thread the camera onto the protruding bolt at the top of the pole et voilà: Monopod! I was surprised at just how strong it was - most people are using them with small point-and-shoots, not DSLRs. My camera was solidly attached.

Cost: $4.

It was a very bright day, so there was no call for a monopod. I tried to force it a bit but any time I used a slow shutter speed, the shot came out badly overexposed. My sense was that the poles I'm currently using (Black Diamond adjustable poles) don't really provide the stability that I'd need with a heavier camera. I'll have to test it more fully when I get a better opportunity. I also don't love that I have to remove the Capture Clip baseplate before affixing the monopod. If this is going to work as a monopod, I might invest in some sort of mount for the top of the pole to avoid that minor irritant.

In the end the Capture Clip is my favourite thing ever, and I'm pretty sure the f-stop insert will be just right for my purposes. The monopod is still a work in progress. But gear aside, I had a great walk with a really eclectic mix of people (we were 17, including a Swedish former tennis pro, an American teaching English in Hong Kong, and a Welsh doctor).

For more of my photos, look at the following:

• @serjepedia: I'm least picky about photos on Instagram. Pretty much anything could end up here, but usually only one or two related to any event. More of a "this is what I did today" thing than a photography thing.
• Flickr/dimthoughts: Most of my good shots end up here. Lots of pics othat are good, but probably not of interest to people who don't know me or weren't involved in the events. The amount of post-processing varies a lot.
• 500px/kryptych: My best stuff goes here, usually after some more serious time in Lightroom/Photoshop. So if you want a small set of more highly curated photos, this is the place to go.

Paralympic Flashback

My post for August 6th in the White Mountains was titled More Of Same. Here's the whole post, reproduced for you:

Not much to note today really, except that I dodged two rainfalls by hanging out in huts where I met lots of nice families. Unfortunately, I left my map at the last one so I'm now mapless until Hanover.

That's it. I didn't get into any details, even though, in many ways, this was one of the most interesting days on the trail.

I think I was just too tired to get into details.

But today, a year and a half later, I'm going to fill one of those details in.

What I didn't mention is that one of the families I met and chatted with at length at one of the huts was Dannelle Umstead's. Her kids were wearing Australia green and gold caps, and when I asked about it they explained that it's because their mom travels a lot.

She travels a lot because she's a visually impaired Paralympic skier. She skied for the US Paralympic Team in Vancouver and Sochi and has three paralympic medals to show for it.

And today, she skis again representing the US at the Pyeongchang Paralympic Winter Games.

So I've decided to revisit that blog post just to say how cool it is that I met a paralympian. As much as I love the Olympics, I find the Paralympics about 10 times more inspiring. All olympic and paralympic athletes achieve levels of athleticism that most of us can only dream of - but paralympic athletes do it toiling in relative obscurity and with a tiny fraction of the financial support that other olympians get.

So I'll be watching the Paralympics again this year, and though I'll obviously be cheering for the Canadian athletes first - I'm also looking forward to seeing Danelle at work.

And just because I didn't include a photo last time, here's one I took that day: