Day 17 – Stony Creek Camp to Greys Hut – 15.3km

Total Distance – 305km

A Heysen Trail story

It was a humdinger of a cold night last night. Wedged in there between two mountains and right next to a creek. My fingers were frozen solid packing up the wet tent this morning. It’s a pretty dreary job when it’s wet and cold.

My support crew were very keen to point out to me however that I had a large climb straight off the bat this morning, and that that should warm me up quite quickly. If only they weren’t right all the time!

So this morning started with an upward push up a little, overgrown bush track. The change of scenery from the rolling green hills was most welcome, with the wattles well and truly now in bloom and intoxicating with their scent. Boisterous willy-wag tails made themselves known, fluttering around on the path.

The track soon joined a road, and the ups and downs really started. As I approach a monster in the distance, I’m pleading to myself “Surely the Heysen can’t be going up there…Surely…”. Surely it was. If there was a hill, you were going up it.

This was followed by a tricky little creek section. Small and narrow, with steep sides, the usually dry creek was full of water, leaving nowhere to walk in the bed. This meant following animal tracks up and down the sides of the creek to avoid slippery rocks and wet gorges.

I really enjoyed the shorter day today. I’m sitting outside Grey’s hut now, at a proper table and chairs, writing this in the afternoon sunshine. The inside of the hut strikes me as a little “mousey”, so I have set my tent up inside. I’m sure to feel secure! Hopefully it’s just a bit too cold for the little buggers. But we’ll see.

The other piece of news is that Ghost Walker has gone. Disappeared. The last I saw it’s tracks were a couple of days ago. It feels like now, I really am on my own.