Day 9-10 Cotter Dam Track- Murrays Gap
31AUG-01SEP2019
“The Marathon”
This section of the AAWT was to be different in two ways. Firstly, instead of the two brave warrior women, it is now just one brave warrior woman- me.
Secondly, this time I would push through in an attempt to cover off a bigger section of track. I would not be tempted by side trips and other meanderings. I would hike in 21 km on the first day and 21km back again the next. Hence the “marathon” of 42km. (Disclaimer- people who routinely hike these distances will not find this a big deal).
So I started off early on a lovely winter day, the last day of winter to be precise, knowing that I would be going and going all day. Breaks were short, the pace was slow and steady. My first reward was the sight of Split Rock, standing high above the pretty snowgrass flats of Cotter Gap. Patches of snow here and there gave a nod to the fact that this very spot marks the beginning of the subalpine world. No photographs can prepare the eyes for the sight of that massive rock, split in half, dominating the view, demanding to be climbed to, a delightful campsite at her base. But I bravely walked past, on to my goal.
Soon enough I came to my next reward. Between the trees, a wide distant mound on the horizon revealed itself, white with snow in the shining blue sky. Bimberi! That distant guide since our first day on Mt Tennent, was now so close. I hadn’t considered snow as a possibility for this weekend’s adventure as it had been very warm lately. Some peaks can be seen from town that will sometimes have snow, but they had been brown and bare. But here I was, heading to the white stuff.
Boots off and across the shallow but deeply cold Cotter River. Past the Cotter Hut (locked) and then the ascent to Murrays Gap, a continual, relentless Up. And then, the snow. Now, at this point I was following a track, but it is not a snowpoles and signposts type of track. It’s an overgrown trail that is little used, laid across with fallen branches and trees, that was now covered in hard drifts of icy snow. So that was making me a bit nervous. Also, I had been walking for some seven or eight hours now, and I was getting exhausted. Soon enough, I couldn’t see the track anymore.
Now I had been passing and being passed by a young pair of hikers all day. When I saw their footprints in the snow over the covered tracks, that was good enough for me, and I followed along. If the tracks were not there, I may have considered making camp where I was. Such is the way of thinking of the exhausted parent/hiker type. Instead I gratefully followed the footprints of my fit, young, faster occasional companions, crossed a few slushy creeks with the aid of a sturdy midstream teatree or two, and I finally made it to Murrays Gap for sunset. The Gap is a beauty, A big, wide mountain pass overlooked by crouching Bimberi, and along the edges of the poa plain the white trunks of the snowgums were lit with pink fire.
In fading light I pitched camp, when immediately the howls of the wild dogs penetrated the dusk, and my trembling soul, as the howls were so close, just on the slopes of Mt Murray. I grabbed everything up and ran around looking for something that felt safer, despite knowing logically that was kind of futile. I wanted to be nearer to "The Sign", which really was just a sign, a small wooden thing that said Murrays Gap. Yet suddenly it held some kind of protective man-made power, like a force field, for anxious, exhausted solo-hikers to shield from marauding packs of dingoes. I camped near to the sign, and strangely I was much happier straightaway. Snug and happy in my bivvy, I could hear the boobook owl, and the dogs, and also the frogs, which sang for a long time until their pond turned to ice in the night.
In the morning things were slow to pack up as I had not brought gloves, and my hands were useless with pain from the cold, though I had been toasty all night in my nest. My water bottles also were fine in the bivvy with me overnight, until I put them outside where they immediately turned to crunchy, brain-freezing slushies.
I packed up and head off on the long haul again. As a special treat, however, I allowed myself a full hour on this morning of the first day of Spring by the Cotter River, boots off and warmed through by sunshine, bees buzzing and baby Currawongs singing a plaintive tune. Then it was slog all the way home.
Sunset lit the Belfry in gold, then darkness, as I trudged along the Orroral Valley at last. I was still going after nine long hours, my toes wrapped in extra wool for the last two hours of firetrail pain. I was considerably late in picking up Miss 8. But I made it. And I ventured somewhere I may never have , if it wasn’t for the urgings of that tortuous, meandering, arbitrary line of the AAWT. I am now into New South Wales and the Kosciusko National Park.
Annual Review
June 2020
OMG did you see the part in my last annual review where I said "lets see what 2020 will bring?" 😂
Well, the entirety of what I have walked so far on the AAWT is now burnt. This section is not planned to reopen until September of 2023-over three years from now.
That is how devastating the fires of January 2020 were.
Am I so pleased that I managed to see this whole section, walk it and love it before it burnt down? Yes. Am I wracked with grief that it has been so badly burnt, for all the plants and animals that live there? Yes. Am I feeling depressed because I cant do what I want and go there again for three years? Yes. My next section of AAWT, the Northern Plains area of Kosciusko, is also inaccessible right now, due to fires, Covid and locked winter roads.
I miss going to these places like I miss eating. Like regular people miss the football. Or concerts, or any other large hideous extroverted gathering.
Bushfires, hailstorms, homeschooling, Covid and family illness have all played their part in this tale. And did I mention the part where I couldn’t go to Kosciusko, to walk and see orchids I found and help to monitor them and sleep in a small nylon bag and listen to wild dogs at night?
And what about all the horses? Those beautiful, out of place creatures will be all over my next section of the trail. They are a bit scary. Especially when they stamp their hooves at me, threaten me, and scream and fight right near where I’m sleeping. You know, it’s a matter of time before someone gets hurt by a horse out there. Lovely animals, but do not belong in a fragile wilderness. Their removal may also play a part in ongoing park closures.
2020-2021. What will you bring? Will I get to go to the Pocket Saddle Road, cross the Goodradigbee, look at the mighty Bimberi from the other side? I hope so.
