A few weeks ago I forfeited Facebook, my mobile, and family all for a 80k hike!
Along with Kit (boyfriend), Maree and Chris (her boyfriend), we did the Overland Track hike in Tasmania in 6 nights and 7 days. This is a map of what we hiked :)
We walked the dotted red line :) We started at Roony Creek (where it says Waldheim) at the top and made our way down to Lake St. Clair, walking around the lake on the route shown closest to the lake. If you see the little cross for Mt. Ossa - that's the highest mountain in Tasmania and the boys (Kit, Chris and Mike - our adopted friend who we met on the first day) climbed it while Maree and I opted for an early lunch at the campsite. This is on Day 4 - which I will write about in more detail later.
This is a Vertical Profile of the hike. The Blue words are the names of the huts and we spent one night at each of these huts (so that's 5 nights), though technically we camped near the huts most nights, and we spent one other night camping near Echo Point Hut, which is inbetween Bert Nichols and Lake St Clair visitor centre (so it was our last night).
So that is almost the conclusion of the introduction to our hike: but I should introduce the characters in this tale of 80k (because we added side trips).
This is me: Manda. I wanted to show a picture of me in all the gear. So you can see my trusty french braids in my hair - made my life so much easier that way. We did re-do them after swimming a few times but still worth it. You can also see my trusty hat. Two things you should know about me before reading about my hike: one: I get sunburnt. Easily. A lot. two: I get blisters. Easily. A lot. So the hat is preventing the sunburn (especially in the part in my hair that is created because of my lovely braids). Unfortunately, you cannot see my shoes in this photo but they were both my enemy and my ally. While they cause my blisters, they were excellent hiking shoes and I do love them. You can also see my water bottle hanging off to the side. You can't see my platypus/camelback but God, I love that thing! It meant I didn't have to stop to take a drink. Lastly, you can see my pack (with my Goretex jacket on top) - god damn that thing! While it was a good pack, I'm glad I don't need to carry everything I need anymore!
So that's me :)
This is Maree :) She is one of my closest friends and is an amazing lady :) This is her in all her gear which looks very similar to mine - we had matching bottles but she opted not for the hat even though she too had French Braid pigtails! She had to put sunscreen in her part though so I got to avoid that!
This is Chris, Maree's boyfriend. I couldn't find a photo of him on his own with all his gear on (I haven't got all the photos from the hike yet as we had one camera between each couple and took it in turns using each camera) so I have opted for a photo of him atop Mt Ossa (the mountain I mentioned before that the boys climbed). He was the only one of us who had previously done the hike (he completed a few months prior with some friends) and this meant that he was continually asked about how much longer he thought it was until the next hut!
This is Mike - our adopted walker! We met Mike on the first day and added him to our gang :) This is him cooking his lunch one day - he had hot meals every meal which meant he had to attempt to NOT light the whole forest alight with his stove. He did try! This is his attempt to look like he has no idea what he is doing. Luckily he did. He was our spokesperson for outdoor gear because he previously worked for Mountain Designs so he knew everything there is to know about what makes up a jacket or could tell what is a terrible hiking boot from a mile away (he was about to do this once - though it wasn't quite a mile away!). He too is from Melbourne.
Last but not least,
Kit - my gorgeous boyfriend. I will say it now - probably could not have done this without him. And I'm not even meaning just because he mostly put the tent up each night while I attempted to tend to my blisters but because he was very patient with me and always let me walk my own pace and played the People Guessing Game (kinda like 20 questions - a game we made up when we went to Healesville) whenever I needed distracting from my feet hurting. This is him in all his gear - you can actually see his hiking shoes - those things never gave him blisters - wish I could say the same about mine! His bag was HUGE because it packed up high rather than wide like mine - luckily he was tall!
So that's all of us! Hopefully I will write up the rest and if I do - please ignore the fact that there were many outfit repeats!
love, Manda
