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hnpccOxfam training walk two started off well when BOM decided that the temperatures would not be as hot as the previous week. After a bit of humming and ha-ing we'd decided we'd walk another two checkpoints, starting from where we'd left off the week before at Lysterfield lake. Dean and I arrived at 7am as planned - because these checkpoints are inconveniently situated relative to where we live, and because Dean needed the car, we'd decided that instead of doing the car shuffle Dean would drop me off at checkpoint two, pick all of us up from checkpoint 4 and drop the others back to their cars at Lysterfield Lake. This also involved some phone co-ordination, which worked well.
There was almost no one at Lysterfield Lake at 7am. Unless you counted people who were obviously doing the walk and preparing to head off on the same route we were. I'm constantly surprised by how many people we see clutching trailbooks en route. Then again, there's 600 teams apparently this year so quite a few of them should logically be training at the same time. The small 24 hour car park just outside the lake was actually fairly busy, with about 7 cars and 12 or so people getting ready to go. None of them were my team though. I wandered over to another woman who was also waiting. "Oxfam?" "Yep. I think the others are running late."
I tried phoning Karena, and got no answer, which presumably meant she was driving. Georgina arrived, having done the same complete loop of the car park we'd initially managed before finding the right entrance. About 7.15 Karena and Priscilla arrived, and we started getting our stuff together. Dean headed off. The lone woman's team mates still hadn't arrived, but as we were about to head off I heard her on the phone: "No, we said seven." Oops.
The first part of the walk was along a fire trail, dead straight and relatively flat. This was good for easing ourselves back into it, and, because it was early and overcast, the lack of shade wasn't an issue. About 5 minutes in we were passed by two running teams, three mountain bikers, a very fast elderly jogger and yet another running team. These runners are nuts.
We crossed Wellington Rd and headed onto Dargon track, which I immediately misread as "Dragon Track". This lead to some discussion as to the nature of of the local wildlife - possible sightings of echidnas, koalas, kangaroos and dragons. Of those four we'd ticked off the echidna sighting last week, and the kangaroo popped up as we came around a corner. It doesn't matter how many times I see kangaroos, I'm still fascinated by them and they still come as a surprise. They're such graceful animals, and they blend into the bush so well. Amazing.
The first slightly tricky bit of the walk came when we left Dargon track (without seeing any dragons), went through a gate and then picked up a new track following the lake. I had no idea this lake existed, but it's obviously popular as a jogging and dog walking spot. I can see why - well made trails, beautiful views, good shade and very close to the edge of suburbia. We headed around the north side of the lake, watching the ducks and the dogwalkers, before crossing to the south side and following the creek to a beautiful BBQ area where we stopped for a break. The sky had cleared a bit by now and the sun was out, but without the bite of the previous week. This didn't stop Karena covering herself in sunscreen again while we snacked on jelly snakes and trail bars.
Starting off again we headed as instructed toward the toilet block - and saw another kangaroo feeding to the side of it. This is real fringe territory, where the bush and the suburbs brush up against each other, sometimes with terrible results. A pug started going bananas at something and the kangaroo first froze alertly and then decided that it was probably better off moving on, hopping away down the creek to the wetlands. We headed in the other direction following a footpath before heading onto the back streets of Belgrave. Walking up Broadway - which was not broad, and bore no resemblance whatsoever to the more famous namesake due to (a) being quite steep and (b) suburban with absolutely no theatres - at least prepared us for our next stage, a walking short cut to the centre of Belgrave. It was also a steep climb for the first half and gravelled (with a large eroded bit in the middle which meant you couldn't walk backwards up it), but did take us past the pool (and a nice looking playground) at the summit and directly to the train station on the downhill run. I imagine it would be very convenient if you lived in Belgrave, although you'd have to change into walking shoes from any kind of office shoes to do it each morning! (Yes, these are the kinds of thoughts going through my head as I stagger up hills.) The train station was deserted so we ignored it and kept going towards the Puffing Billy terminal, which was much busier. This was also our first encounter with the famous purple arrows, which are spray painted on the ground along the trail to help guide you through tricky bits. This bit probably shouldn't have been tricky, but I think we were slightly distracted by watching Puffing Billy, and not paying attention to where we were supposed to turn left. We backtracked about 10 metres, confusing a group of tourists, found our helpful arrow and headed off on the right track again. And then found ourselves walking in parallel to the now very confused tourists who were looking at us as if we were somewhat crazy. Well, yes, we could have continued down the walkway and exited at the bottom - but that's not what it says to do in the book!!
Continuing our slavish adherence to the trail map, we crossed the Puffing Billy tracks and started up Old Monbulk Road. Which conveniently had a sign telling us the gradient - 23%. Another climb! In Belgrave! How completely unexpected! We groaned, took a photo of three of us doing a sarcastic thumbs up in front of the sign and continued up the 23% gradient. 23% is actually quite steep, and we soon broke off into two groups - Georgina and Priscilla striding on ahead with Karena and I alternating bringing up the rear. Fortunately the steep bit was fairly short, and we found ourselves on a more normal gradient quite soon and heading towards Dandenong Ranges National Park. This part of the world is seriously beautiful - tall mountain ash, tree ferns, bracken, lush gullies. We turned right onto Coles Ridge track and found ourselves in the midst of huge mountain ash groves on a great walking trail - I highly recommend it if you're out this way at all. Birdlife zoomed around us - no lyrebirds, but plenty of rosellas, cockatoos and bellbirds - and we all agreed that this was way better than last week. For starters it was a lot less hot. For seconds it was a really nice walk, even with the hills. As we continued up the trail we were passed by another two teams of walkers (I didn't notice if the lone woman from the car park was among them!) Karena and I were deep in conversation and realised shortly after that we'd lost sight of George and Priscilla, who obviously thought we were still right behind them. Nope, that would be the other 8 people who'd passed us! We put on a bit of speed and caught up with them at checkpoint three, which was Grants Picnic Ground. As we came into the carpark a carload of nuns pulled up and started getting out. I suppose nuns like going on picnics too - I just never expected to see them in full habits heading off to feed the cockatoos. Heh.
We stopped to snack again and I rang Dean to let him know we'd reached checkpoint three. As a result of running out of water last week I was also determined to find somewhere to fill up my supplies again. This turned out to be tricky, with all the available taps being either disabled, too low to allow me to fill up my camelbak, or with an inconveniently placed basin which also made it impossible to fill up either my water bottle or my camelbak. So I checked how much I had (still at least 1.5 litres) and decided to try some of the other BBQ places on our route. 13.3km down, 10.4km to go!
The next stage started with us crossing Monbulk Rd carefully (it's busy and windy, with lots of cars and motorbikes out for a drive) and heading off into the bush. Clematis track turned out to be a dirt track climbing up the hill. It was fun, even with the associated tree fern and branch dodging (more so for Georgina) and bracken dodging (all of us) with the occasional jump over or detour around a large felled branch. "At least we know there's teams ahead of us - they should have cleared all the spider webs!" We pushed on, occasionally stepping to one side to allow people past including yet another running team. Where do they all come from?! At one point I realised I'd lost sight of everyone on the team - George and Priscilla were ahead, Karena was behind. I can see how easy it is for people to get lost in this kind of bush - there's very few landmarks and the trail is... not necessarily that distinguishable from the dirt surrounding it. Look for the broken spiderwebs I guess. Or - in the case of the Dandenongs - head towards the traffic sounds.
After a couple of km we reached the summit and the track became a road which then headed into the first BBQ area on our route. I checked the taps - same problem as checkpoint 3. Meh. Continuing on we made our first major navigational error of the day. To be fair it wasn't entirely our fault - the instructions, while clear, failed to mention another short track which also pointed towards the track we wanted. We were also not the only ones to make this error - where we turned there was a large purple arrow, indicating that Purple Arrow Person (PAP) had also misread the trailnotes. We realised about a third of the way along that we were in the wrong place (right after seeing the most gnarly tree ever!), and turned back. En route we met another team (called 'Are We There Yet?' - they only had 3 members present for reasons that only became apparent when I followed the link!), who had also just clued in that they weren't where they should be. "But we followed the arrow!" "So did we!" Together we backtracked. One of the other team studied the book more closely and realised that we'd all (including PAP) turned wrongly onto "link track" rather than holding to the left on "O'Donohue track" where we were supposed to be. Off we all set again, with Are We There Yet soon vanishing ahead of us. It was a beautiful day to be walking in the Dandenongs - warm but not hot, sunny and not too windy. Plenty of shade too. We finally found the part of Sherbrooke track we were looking for, and continued on admiring the tree ferns, turning first onto Hacketts track and then Monument track (PAP had been busy along this stretch). Monument track proved to have a fern gully and stream - oh and about a 5 metre drop - on one side, with a steep hill on the other. It was also fairly narrow, with protruding tree roots to trip on, tree ferns to hit you in the head and the occasional fallen tree across it. It was fun, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to walk it in the dark. Hm. We bushbashed our way along, emerging onto Lloyds track, which was seriously a dirt footpath and much easier to navigate.
It felt like we'd been walking for quite a distance - but checking the map we found we were only 2.5km along. It's the windiness and the narrow tracks that make it seem longer. Oh and the hills.
At the gravel car park PAP had again been at it, directing us across Sherbrooke Rd and into the Alfred Nicholas Gardens. At the Gardens we were instructed to follow the main drive and not deviate on to any side paths. We began to get suspicious that the side paths were in fact short cuts that would have gotten us to the bottom of the gardens a lot quicker, which was confirmed when the woman in thongs and her small child who we'd passed at the top of the path were there at the bottom of the path, having come straight down a flight of stairs. We really had come the long way around! The gardens had some spectacular trees, including one that looked like it was covered in filmy drapes. I've never seen anything quite so bizarre, I'll have to find out what it was. At the bottom of the gardens we caught up with Are We There Yet again, who'd stopped for a toilet break and to fill up their water. Yes, we'd finally found a tap we could fill up the camelbaks with. My paranoia assuaged we continued on along the Sassafras Creek Track, which was again beautiful and covered with tree ferns. "This is so gorgeous" said Georgina, "I can't believe I don't come hiking here more often." Same. For something that's really not that far away from me I get out there maybe once a year? If I'm lucky. And yet the hills are alive with tourists, many of whom have come vast distances to see the scenery (and the exotic birds, heh). I really do have to get out there more often.
PAP directed us off the track onto Perrins Creek Rd, with an arrow and a squiggle which could have meant "beware traffic" or "damn, the nozzle on this thing's blocked and I need to clear it." It was difficult to tell.
We carefully walked along Perrins Creek Rd and found ourselves at the foot of Hacketts Road. Or, as the trail book had it: this is THE Hacketts Rd, can you hack it!
PAP directed us on to the road, with an additional "Good luck". We looked up. And up. I swear, Hacketts Rd was the closest to 45 degrees I've ever seen in a road. It also had no end in sight, which was not comforting. To top it off, it was gravel.
I'm only slightly exaggerating here. Really, it was extraordinarily steep. Even the Melways had 'steep' in bright red letters marking it. It was also apparently described at the information night as being "the absolute worst part of the trail". So this was it. We were all going to be... very sore.
Up we started, rapidly falling into our usual pattern of George and Priscilla ahead, Karena and I sharing the rear. Up in the distance we could see Are We There Yet pushing up the hill, stopping briefly to direct a white ute away from the really steep part. I alternated walking forwards, walking on tiptoe, walking backwards, walking backwards on tiptoe. During one of my walking backwards admiring the scenery and trying not to fall on my arse I noticed what had to be another team coming up behind us (no one else would be stupid enough to walk up this hill!) Well, half of a team anyway.
I walked forwards for a bit and concentrated on the beautiful mountain ash surrounding us so I didn't have to look at how far up this road went. I still couldn't see the top. Turning around again the half-team had made it closer, but were still some distance off. Forwards, forwards on tiptoe... Karena and I both stopped under a tree on a relatively flat bit. The half-team (both male) caught up to us and passed us. "Oxfam?" they said with a smile. "Yep.. you walking or running?" "Both - we're not running this bit though!" They continued steadily up the hill, leaving us to climb ever more slowly in their wake. Forwards, tiptoe, backwards, that's some beautiful mountain ash there, forwards, drink 5 sips, forwards tiptoe, backwards, OK all my muscles are now killing me it doesn't matter which way I walk, forwards... is that a glimpse of light among the trees? We'd actually started passing driveways, and now we were inching closer to the top of the hill, passing the driveway to Pirianda Gardens, a clutch of mail boxes at the lowest point a delivery van could reach, and, finally, the top of the road itself. Just before we made it to the tree Georgina and Priscilla had collapsed under two cars came zooming around the corner and covered us both in dust. Thanks guys, we needed the additional grit to go with our sunscreen. At least the second car slowed down when he realised there were people walking. Meh.
We shared the jelly babies, jelly snakes, salted cashews and trail mix of glory. We'd made it! Only three km of this leg to go - and according to our map it was mostly (relatively) flat. I rang Dean to tell him we were about an hour or so out from our pickup point. I didn't mention the covered in grit thing.
"You know 'Are We There Yet'?" said Priscilla "Did you see that white ute? That's their support crew. He was sitting up here drinking a Crownie before."
"They're actually from Bendigo - apparently this is the first chance they've had to train on the trail and they're not sure if they'll make it again. So they decided to do the hard bit."
We looked at Karena in surprise. I can see the logic, but holy crap - Bendigo'd be at least a 3 to 3 and a half hour drive from here. And their driver's drinking Crownies!
We pulled ourselves to our feet and headed off again. At the turn off on to Olinda-Monbulk Rd I noticed a sign pointing down Hacketts Rd: No Through Road. Yes, I would agree - I doubt that the majority of vehicles would have a hope in hell of getting down that last bit.
Following the grassy verge we found ourselves on Old Coonara Rd, and on an uphill rise. "I thought this was supposed to be flat!!" "Relatively flat. Compared to, you know, Hacketts Road." "Crap." We continued along Old Coonara Rd, which is obviously an equestrian trail used by Clydesdales if the large piles of fresh horse manure are anything to go by. Past the Cloudhill Gardens and nursery. Past the Olinda Pool (well patronised). Past the Golf club - and we were at checkpoint 4, the Olinda Reserve. A group of cricketers sat around having what was obviously their drinks break. We found a bench and rested for a bit. Ten minutes later we'd all decided we were hungry so we walked the additional 5 minutes to the Pie in the Sky pie shop, which I heartily recommend. I rang Dean to advise him of the changed location. He'd just hit the Eastern, so we all ordered and had a pie, salad and chips.
"Mmm... I love guilt free chips!"
Dean hadn't arrived by the time we'd finished, so we walked back to the reserve. The cricketers had resumed play. Priscilla checked her pedometer. "36000. Cool! I can sloth for the next three days!"
A couple of minutes later Dean rang back. He was at the pie shop. I told him where we'd moved to. We waited, with me starting to play a game of "That's not my car! [1]" I think reading to my nieces has influenced me somewhat.
"He's probably getting a takeaway pie" said Priscilla, "You can't tell the man we're at a pie shop and then not let him get a pie. He's probably been thinking 'pie' the entire way out here."
Finally it was my car and Dean hopped out, meat pie in hand. Heh. We packed our gear in the boot on top of Dean's guitars and started the drive back to Lysterfield Lake. This nearly went horribly awry when Dean decided to drive down the footpath rather than the clearly marked driveway I was trying to direct him down. The other three laughed at us.
All in all a good day's walk. All of us were a lot better at the end of it than we were last week, which is probably due in large part to it being much cooler. This walk was longer (23.7km) than last week's (21.5km) and definitely hillier - my calf muscles are a lot stiffer than they were last week - but none of us were in the really dead zone that all of us were in when we reached Lysterfield Lake. We were still talking for starters. It took us roughly 7 and a half hours to walk the 23.7km, which was reasonable going considering I go up hills like a geriatric snail. I really need to build up this hill walking quickly! (It took us 32 minutes to drive back. God I love motorised transport.)
Next week is the Australia Day not-long weekend (the actual holiday is Tuesday, so it's not a long weekend... but a huge number of people, including Priscilla, are taking it) so we haven't decided if the rest of us will walk anywhere, or if so, where. I'm guessing our next walk will be checkpoint 4-6, which is longer again (27.4km) but also mostly downhill. It's also the stage where Karena did her knee last time, so we're hoping to avoid that.
The route we walked is here, our team site is here and there will hopefully be some more photos (including the sarcastic thumbs up one, and some of us actually walking - heh) up soon.
Many thanks to everyone who's donated by the way, we really are grateful. If you're thinking of donating to the Haiti cause and would like toguilt trip encourage us to keep going, Oxfam are an official charity for the Haiti disaster. No, I didn't know they had official charities either, there you go.
[1] "That's not my car! It's a motorbike! It's too small and only holds one person. That's not my car! It's a ute! It's too blue! That's not my car..."
There was almost no one at Lysterfield Lake at 7am. Unless you counted people who were obviously doing the walk and preparing to head off on the same route we were. I'm constantly surprised by how many people we see clutching trailbooks en route. Then again, there's 600 teams apparently this year so quite a few of them should logically be training at the same time. The small 24 hour car park just outside the lake was actually fairly busy, with about 7 cars and 12 or so people getting ready to go. None of them were my team though. I wandered over to another woman who was also waiting. "Oxfam?" "Yep. I think the others are running late."
I tried phoning Karena, and got no answer, which presumably meant she was driving. Georgina arrived, having done the same complete loop of the car park we'd initially managed before finding the right entrance. About 7.15 Karena and Priscilla arrived, and we started getting our stuff together. Dean headed off. The lone woman's team mates still hadn't arrived, but as we were about to head off I heard her on the phone: "No, we said seven." Oops.
The first part of the walk was along a fire trail, dead straight and relatively flat. This was good for easing ourselves back into it, and, because it was early and overcast, the lack of shade wasn't an issue. About 5 minutes in we were passed by two running teams, three mountain bikers, a very fast elderly jogger and yet another running team. These runners are nuts.
We crossed Wellington Rd and headed onto Dargon track, which I immediately misread as "Dragon Track". This lead to some discussion as to the nature of of the local wildlife - possible sightings of echidnas, koalas, kangaroos and dragons. Of those four we'd ticked off the echidna sighting last week, and the kangaroo popped up as we came around a corner. It doesn't matter how many times I see kangaroos, I'm still fascinated by them and they still come as a surprise. They're such graceful animals, and they blend into the bush so well. Amazing.
The first slightly tricky bit of the walk came when we left Dargon track (without seeing any dragons), went through a gate and then picked up a new track following the lake. I had no idea this lake existed, but it's obviously popular as a jogging and dog walking spot. I can see why - well made trails, beautiful views, good shade and very close to the edge of suburbia. We headed around the north side of the lake, watching the ducks and the dogwalkers, before crossing to the south side and following the creek to a beautiful BBQ area where we stopped for a break. The sky had cleared a bit by now and the sun was out, but without the bite of the previous week. This didn't stop Karena covering herself in sunscreen again while we snacked on jelly snakes and trail bars.
Starting off again we headed as instructed toward the toilet block - and saw another kangaroo feeding to the side of it. This is real fringe territory, where the bush and the suburbs brush up against each other, sometimes with terrible results. A pug started going bananas at something and the kangaroo first froze alertly and then decided that it was probably better off moving on, hopping away down the creek to the wetlands. We headed in the other direction following a footpath before heading onto the back streets of Belgrave. Walking up Broadway - which was not broad, and bore no resemblance whatsoever to the more famous namesake due to (a) being quite steep and (b) suburban with absolutely no theatres - at least prepared us for our next stage, a walking short cut to the centre of Belgrave. It was also a steep climb for the first half and gravelled (with a large eroded bit in the middle which meant you couldn't walk backwards up it), but did take us past the pool (and a nice looking playground) at the summit and directly to the train station on the downhill run. I imagine it would be very convenient if you lived in Belgrave, although you'd have to change into walking shoes from any kind of office shoes to do it each morning! (Yes, these are the kinds of thoughts going through my head as I stagger up hills.) The train station was deserted so we ignored it and kept going towards the Puffing Billy terminal, which was much busier. This was also our first encounter with the famous purple arrows, which are spray painted on the ground along the trail to help guide you through tricky bits. This bit probably shouldn't have been tricky, but I think we were slightly distracted by watching Puffing Billy, and not paying attention to where we were supposed to turn left. We backtracked about 10 metres, confusing a group of tourists, found our helpful arrow and headed off on the right track again. And then found ourselves walking in parallel to the now very confused tourists who were looking at us as if we were somewhat crazy. Well, yes, we could have continued down the walkway and exited at the bottom - but that's not what it says to do in the book!!
Continuing our slavish adherence to the trail map, we crossed the Puffing Billy tracks and started up Old Monbulk Road. Which conveniently had a sign telling us the gradient - 23%. Another climb! In Belgrave! How completely unexpected! We groaned, took a photo of three of us doing a sarcastic thumbs up in front of the sign and continued up the 23% gradient. 23% is actually quite steep, and we soon broke off into two groups - Georgina and Priscilla striding on ahead with Karena and I alternating bringing up the rear. Fortunately the steep bit was fairly short, and we found ourselves on a more normal gradient quite soon and heading towards Dandenong Ranges National Park. This part of the world is seriously beautiful - tall mountain ash, tree ferns, bracken, lush gullies. We turned right onto Coles Ridge track and found ourselves in the midst of huge mountain ash groves on a great walking trail - I highly recommend it if you're out this way at all. Birdlife zoomed around us - no lyrebirds, but plenty of rosellas, cockatoos and bellbirds - and we all agreed that this was way better than last week. For starters it was a lot less hot. For seconds it was a really nice walk, even with the hills. As we continued up the trail we were passed by another two teams of walkers (I didn't notice if the lone woman from the car park was among them!) Karena and I were deep in conversation and realised shortly after that we'd lost sight of George and Priscilla, who obviously thought we were still right behind them. Nope, that would be the other 8 people who'd passed us! We put on a bit of speed and caught up with them at checkpoint three, which was Grants Picnic Ground. As we came into the carpark a carload of nuns pulled up and started getting out. I suppose nuns like going on picnics too - I just never expected to see them in full habits heading off to feed the cockatoos. Heh.
We stopped to snack again and I rang Dean to let him know we'd reached checkpoint three. As a result of running out of water last week I was also determined to find somewhere to fill up my supplies again. This turned out to be tricky, with all the available taps being either disabled, too low to allow me to fill up my camelbak, or with an inconveniently placed basin which also made it impossible to fill up either my water bottle or my camelbak. So I checked how much I had (still at least 1.5 litres) and decided to try some of the other BBQ places on our route. 13.3km down, 10.4km to go!
The next stage started with us crossing Monbulk Rd carefully (it's busy and windy, with lots of cars and motorbikes out for a drive) and heading off into the bush. Clematis track turned out to be a dirt track climbing up the hill. It was fun, even with the associated tree fern and branch dodging (more so for Georgina) and bracken dodging (all of us) with the occasional jump over or detour around a large felled branch. "At least we know there's teams ahead of us - they should have cleared all the spider webs!" We pushed on, occasionally stepping to one side to allow people past including yet another running team. Where do they all come from?! At one point I realised I'd lost sight of everyone on the team - George and Priscilla were ahead, Karena was behind. I can see how easy it is for people to get lost in this kind of bush - there's very few landmarks and the trail is... not necessarily that distinguishable from the dirt surrounding it. Look for the broken spiderwebs I guess. Or - in the case of the Dandenongs - head towards the traffic sounds.
After a couple of km we reached the summit and the track became a road which then headed into the first BBQ area on our route. I checked the taps - same problem as checkpoint 3. Meh. Continuing on we made our first major navigational error of the day. To be fair it wasn't entirely our fault - the instructions, while clear, failed to mention another short track which also pointed towards the track we wanted. We were also not the only ones to make this error - where we turned there was a large purple arrow, indicating that Purple Arrow Person (PAP) had also misread the trailnotes. We realised about a third of the way along that we were in the wrong place (right after seeing the most gnarly tree ever!), and turned back. En route we met another team (called 'Are We There Yet?' - they only had 3 members present for reasons that only became apparent when I followed the link!), who had also just clued in that they weren't where they should be. "But we followed the arrow!" "So did we!" Together we backtracked. One of the other team studied the book more closely and realised that we'd all (including PAP) turned wrongly onto "link track" rather than holding to the left on "O'Donohue track" where we were supposed to be. Off we all set again, with Are We There Yet soon vanishing ahead of us. It was a beautiful day to be walking in the Dandenongs - warm but not hot, sunny and not too windy. Plenty of shade too. We finally found the part of Sherbrooke track we were looking for, and continued on admiring the tree ferns, turning first onto Hacketts track and then Monument track (PAP had been busy along this stretch). Monument track proved to have a fern gully and stream - oh and about a 5 metre drop - on one side, with a steep hill on the other. It was also fairly narrow, with protruding tree roots to trip on, tree ferns to hit you in the head and the occasional fallen tree across it. It was fun, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to walk it in the dark. Hm. We bushbashed our way along, emerging onto Lloyds track, which was seriously a dirt footpath and much easier to navigate.
It felt like we'd been walking for quite a distance - but checking the map we found we were only 2.5km along. It's the windiness and the narrow tracks that make it seem longer. Oh and the hills.
At the gravel car park PAP had again been at it, directing us across Sherbrooke Rd and into the Alfred Nicholas Gardens. At the Gardens we were instructed to follow the main drive and not deviate on to any side paths. We began to get suspicious that the side paths were in fact short cuts that would have gotten us to the bottom of the gardens a lot quicker, which was confirmed when the woman in thongs and her small child who we'd passed at the top of the path were there at the bottom of the path, having come straight down a flight of stairs. We really had come the long way around! The gardens had some spectacular trees, including one that looked like it was covered in filmy drapes. I've never seen anything quite so bizarre, I'll have to find out what it was. At the bottom of the gardens we caught up with Are We There Yet again, who'd stopped for a toilet break and to fill up their water. Yes, we'd finally found a tap we could fill up the camelbaks with. My paranoia assuaged we continued on along the Sassafras Creek Track, which was again beautiful and covered with tree ferns. "This is so gorgeous" said Georgina, "I can't believe I don't come hiking here more often." Same. For something that's really not that far away from me I get out there maybe once a year? If I'm lucky. And yet the hills are alive with tourists, many of whom have come vast distances to see the scenery (and the exotic birds, heh). I really do have to get out there more often.
PAP directed us off the track onto Perrins Creek Rd, with an arrow and a squiggle which could have meant "beware traffic" or "damn, the nozzle on this thing's blocked and I need to clear it." It was difficult to tell.
We carefully walked along Perrins Creek Rd and found ourselves at the foot of Hacketts Road. Or, as the trail book had it: this is THE Hacketts Rd, can you hack it!
PAP directed us on to the road, with an additional "Good luck". We looked up. And up. I swear, Hacketts Rd was the closest to 45 degrees I've ever seen in a road. It also had no end in sight, which was not comforting. To top it off, it was gravel.
I'm only slightly exaggerating here. Really, it was extraordinarily steep. Even the Melways had 'steep' in bright red letters marking it. It was also apparently described at the information night as being "the absolute worst part of the trail". So this was it. We were all going to be... very sore.
Up we started, rapidly falling into our usual pattern of George and Priscilla ahead, Karena and I sharing the rear. Up in the distance we could see Are We There Yet pushing up the hill, stopping briefly to direct a white ute away from the really steep part. I alternated walking forwards, walking on tiptoe, walking backwards, walking backwards on tiptoe. During one of my walking backwards admiring the scenery and trying not to fall on my arse I noticed what had to be another team coming up behind us (no one else would be stupid enough to walk up this hill!) Well, half of a team anyway.
I walked forwards for a bit and concentrated on the beautiful mountain ash surrounding us so I didn't have to look at how far up this road went. I still couldn't see the top. Turning around again the half-team had made it closer, but were still some distance off. Forwards, forwards on tiptoe... Karena and I both stopped under a tree on a relatively flat bit. The half-team (both male) caught up to us and passed us. "Oxfam?" they said with a smile. "Yep.. you walking or running?" "Both - we're not running this bit though!" They continued steadily up the hill, leaving us to climb ever more slowly in their wake. Forwards, tiptoe, backwards, that's some beautiful mountain ash there, forwards, drink 5 sips, forwards tiptoe, backwards, OK all my muscles are now killing me it doesn't matter which way I walk, forwards... is that a glimpse of light among the trees? We'd actually started passing driveways, and now we were inching closer to the top of the hill, passing the driveway to Pirianda Gardens, a clutch of mail boxes at the lowest point a delivery van could reach, and, finally, the top of the road itself. Just before we made it to the tree Georgina and Priscilla had collapsed under two cars came zooming around the corner and covered us both in dust. Thanks guys, we needed the additional grit to go with our sunscreen. At least the second car slowed down when he realised there were people walking. Meh.
We shared the jelly babies, jelly snakes, salted cashews and trail mix of glory. We'd made it! Only three km of this leg to go - and according to our map it was mostly (relatively) flat. I rang Dean to tell him we were about an hour or so out from our pickup point. I didn't mention the covered in grit thing.
"You know 'Are We There Yet'?" said Priscilla "Did you see that white ute? That's their support crew. He was sitting up here drinking a Crownie before."
"They're actually from Bendigo - apparently this is the first chance they've had to train on the trail and they're not sure if they'll make it again. So they decided to do the hard bit."
We looked at Karena in surprise. I can see the logic, but holy crap - Bendigo'd be at least a 3 to 3 and a half hour drive from here. And their driver's drinking Crownies!
We pulled ourselves to our feet and headed off again. At the turn off on to Olinda-Monbulk Rd I noticed a sign pointing down Hacketts Rd: No Through Road. Yes, I would agree - I doubt that the majority of vehicles would have a hope in hell of getting down that last bit.
Following the grassy verge we found ourselves on Old Coonara Rd, and on an uphill rise. "I thought this was supposed to be flat!!" "Relatively flat. Compared to, you know, Hacketts Road." "Crap." We continued along Old Coonara Rd, which is obviously an equestrian trail used by Clydesdales if the large piles of fresh horse manure are anything to go by. Past the Cloudhill Gardens and nursery. Past the Olinda Pool (well patronised). Past the Golf club - and we were at checkpoint 4, the Olinda Reserve. A group of cricketers sat around having what was obviously their drinks break. We found a bench and rested for a bit. Ten minutes later we'd all decided we were hungry so we walked the additional 5 minutes to the Pie in the Sky pie shop, which I heartily recommend. I rang Dean to advise him of the changed location. He'd just hit the Eastern, so we all ordered and had a pie, salad and chips.
"Mmm... I love guilt free chips!"
Dean hadn't arrived by the time we'd finished, so we walked back to the reserve. The cricketers had resumed play. Priscilla checked her pedometer. "36000. Cool! I can sloth for the next three days!"
A couple of minutes later Dean rang back. He was at the pie shop. I told him where we'd moved to. We waited, with me starting to play a game of "That's not my car! [1]" I think reading to my nieces has influenced me somewhat.
"He's probably getting a takeaway pie" said Priscilla, "You can't tell the man we're at a pie shop and then not let him get a pie. He's probably been thinking 'pie' the entire way out here."
Finally it was my car and Dean hopped out, meat pie in hand. Heh. We packed our gear in the boot on top of Dean's guitars and started the drive back to Lysterfield Lake. This nearly went horribly awry when Dean decided to drive down the footpath rather than the clearly marked driveway I was trying to direct him down. The other three laughed at us.
All in all a good day's walk. All of us were a lot better at the end of it than we were last week, which is probably due in large part to it being much cooler. This walk was longer (23.7km) than last week's (21.5km) and definitely hillier - my calf muscles are a lot stiffer than they were last week - but none of us were in the really dead zone that all of us were in when we reached Lysterfield Lake. We were still talking for starters. It took us roughly 7 and a half hours to walk the 23.7km, which was reasonable going considering I go up hills like a geriatric snail. I really need to build up this hill walking quickly! (It took us 32 minutes to drive back. God I love motorised transport.)
Next week is the Australia Day not-long weekend (the actual holiday is Tuesday, so it's not a long weekend... but a huge number of people, including Priscilla, are taking it) so we haven't decided if the rest of us will walk anywhere, or if so, where. I'm guessing our next walk will be checkpoint 4-6, which is longer again (27.4km) but also mostly downhill. It's also the stage where Karena did her knee last time, so we're hoping to avoid that.
The route we walked is here, our team site is here and there will hopefully be some more photos (including the sarcastic thumbs up one, and some of us actually walking - heh) up soon.
Many thanks to everyone who's donated by the way, we really are grateful. If you're thinking of donating to the Haiti cause and would like to
[1] "That's not my car! It's a motorbike! It's too small and only holds one person. That's not my car! It's a ute! It's too blue! That's not my car..."
