East Ruggedy – Big Hellfire, 15.0 km

Friday, February 15: Some drizzle at first, clearing, rain later on

GPS Tour

West Ruggedy Beach

Got just over half a night’s sleep and was, of course, the first up and about, although I tried hard not to wreak revenge for last night’s events. Donna was up just as I had gotten my stuff together and I was ready to go.

Decided to split the day into four parts of (un-)equal time/distance divisions: 1) The track now leads via West Ruggedy Beach, so that was the first stage, including along the beach to the end; 2) From the beach end to the pass in the Ruggedy Mountains; 3) From there to Waituna Bay; and 4) finally to Big Hellfire.

Rare sign

Some of the track was in relatively good nick, especially the beginning, and a section up to the pass. From there on there were record long sections of mud and I had to take longer, making decisions about how to get across them successfully. Stopped in Waituna Bay to finish the water and collect some saltwater; on the pass there had been a sign saying two hours to Waituna and a further two to Hellfire, and arrived in Hellfire after crossing the final sand dune pretty much after six hours in total.

Washed the boots, then trousers, underpants and sox (hut sox have to be washed tomorrow!), collected some firewood, and had some lunch. Then decided I needed a bit of sleep and unrolled the sleeping bag for a bit of a snooze. Around 6:00 two older Aussies turned up, doing the track in the reverse direction, Bob & Ken.

They were quite talkative of their exploits in NSW, in the Snowies and the Blue Mountains. Bob was a surveyor (should say: used to be; both are retired) and Ken was a teacher of Social Studies, with quite a number of other subjects, at some Catholic school. My dinner was rice with peas; forgot to cook the peas first; not such a good idea. Washed the rice a couple of times; that worked out better.

In the meantime fog and then rain had set in. I had cleaned out the fireplace and Bob gave a try at lighting the fire – which I must say that he as a bushman made a complete hames of. I took everything out again and started it going, but he fiddled with it until it went out. Also, he seemed to have no technique for blowing into the fire.

Possibly some of the wood was a bit damp, or the proverbial possum was stuck up the chimney; in any case it took some huffing and puffing before the thing was going halfways.

Went to bed just after 10:00, the others fiddled around with their stuff for a bit (they have absolutely giant packs) and then all went silent, except for the snorers, both of them.