hnpcc | walking in the sun

We started stage three of the trail training on Saturday, walking from checkpoints 4 to 6. This increased our distance dramatically to 27.4km, but we were confident we'd be OK as most of it was either downhill or flat. This turned out to be partially true.

We started off again at 7.30am, half an hour later than planned as Dean and I were firstly running late to start with and then hit unexpected roadworks in the Mullum Mullum tunnel. Part of the roof panelling looked like it had come down, which is comforting to see when you're driving through a tunnel. Either way it was 40kph all the way, with me texting furiously to say we were definitely en route.

The first part of the trail was quite nice - downhill, shady, cool. After a slight mishap when we had to retrace our footsteps to find the correct side trail that we'd missed taking we settled into a reasonably well navigated wander/walk (it varies!) downhill through beautiful forests of mountain ash and tree ferns. Then we crossed an invisible marker and were suddenly into a different kind of bush, which was drier and obviously made up of lower altitude species of flora. Weird how it does that. We trundled on, and reached the halfway point of the trail about 2 hours after we'd left. Naturally we took some time to take a photo!

To our minor surprise (it wasn't on the altitude map) the trail started back uphill again, but this turned out to be a feint, before the serious work began. Uphill became actually mildly steep, but it made a nice change from the downhill walking we'd been doing to that point.

Then we hit the top of Melba's track and discovered what they meant by "steep incline". This was a downhill steep incline. It wasn't as steep as Hackett's Rd (the section overall was rated 2, compared to the previous section's 3), but made up for it by being alternately gravel or powder dust. We started down cautiously, particularly Karena whose knee gave out on this section of the trail when she did it two years ago. Zig zagging, trying to keep as much as possible to sections of the trail that didn't look like they were going to suddenly slide away underfoot, using the undergrowth at the sides as extra stability we inched our way down the hill. About half way was a small plateau with a bit of a drop on the other side. By this point Priscilla and Georgina were slightly ahead of Karena and myself, and we looked up just in time to see first Priscilla and then Georgina go down on their backsides as they slid off the end of the plateau.

When we got there we discovered why - I picked what looked to be a reasonably stable bit of ground which turned out to be powder and promptly slid a couple of metres downhill on my bum. Then I decided to stay there for another couple of metres as there was no stable ground in sight, so ended up covered in dust from my backpack to my ankles. Naturally we took photos.

Karena - probably because of the high level of caution she was exercising - managed to stay upright through all of this section.

We continued downhill, finally emerging into the backblocks of Mt Evelyn.

"There is a track to the left of the steel gate. Go around the gate then take the track immediately to the right."

Priscilla and I followed the instructions and found ourselves looking at the track which was also accessible from the side of the gate the other two were on - and which in fact had a stile set up specifically for track access from that side. So we told them just to go over the fence and join us in the paddock heading down to the Mt Evelyn reserve. The sun was just starting to warm up as we crossed the paddock and found the steel fence which was on the left, not the right. Hm. It's possible we misunderstood the instructions there, but there was no other track to take! As we started through the back of the reserve I could hear high pitched giggles and shrieks, the source of which became clear when we rounded a corner to find what appeared to be an entire Guide unit on a flying fox kind of set up. Those giggles carry a fair way.

We stopped at the reserve for a drink and some food. This was actually the place where the checkpoint had been when Karena did the walk 2 years previous and the actual point she'd pulled out because of the knee injury. It was a lot quieter (despite the Guides) even with the arrival of another team who joined us for a quick drink and chat. They again had only 3 members (we seem to be unusual in that all of us are managing to make it every week), with their additional member being off in Egypt, hopefully training on the descent into Valley of the Kings or the Pyramids or some such (I suggested Mt Sinai would have the requisite number of steps!)

We all headed off again into the back streets of Mt Evelyn, the other team vanishing from sight quite quickly (we are really slow compared to quite a few people it seems!) After the bush it was a bit of a shock to emerge onto a very busy, fairly major road which we had to cross at the pedestrian lights in order to pick up the Warburton trail, which was where we'd be walking for the remainder of this leg and almost the entire next two legs. This part of the Warburton trail - a former rail line from Lilydale to Warburton - was shady and pleasant and we chugged along quite happily, keeping an eye out for the "2nd trail to the left" which would take us to checkpoint 5. Just as we were beginning to be certain we'd missed it we found a trail, followed it and found ourselves pushing through patches of thistles to checkpoint 5. I really hope they mow before the actual day.

Checkpoint 5, which is where there'll be a lot of people camping, is basically a large pony club paddock with pretty much nothing in it except horse jumps. We found a handy tree, sat down and had some more food and water. 14.4km down, only 13km to go!

We bush/thistle-bashed our way back to the Warburton trail and started off again. By this time it was about midday, and we were grateful that the trail was shady. As we got further along though, the shade started decreasing. We stopped for a break at Chandler Road, after looking for and failing to find a seat in the shade for the last couple of hundred metres. Chandler Road had a wide tree though, so we had some more food and water and took stock.

"This is seriously boring" said Karena. I actually thought it was OK to that point - yes, there wasn't much in the way of view other than paddocks, but at least it was shady.

That changed. From Chandler's Rd on there was almost nothing. Naturally we hit this part around 2pm, when the sun was quite hot (about 33oC) and we were starting to wilt. I started obsessing over the map I was carrying, noting every little bend, intersection and feature in the hope that this would make us get to the checkpoint faster.

Cyclists came past us in both directions. The ones coming towards us usually smiled. Priscilla glowered. I waved, sort of.

"Why do they keep smiling at us! They're insane!"
"I think their faces are frozen in a rictus of pain."
"Hope so. I can't smile - need the energy to walk."

A bit further on as we struggled through a long patch with no shade whatsoever we saw a group of cows huddled under the shade of one tree.

"See! Even the cows think we're stupid! Look at those morons walking in the sun!"

She had a point.

I realised that my camelbak was completely dry, debated whether to swing my backpack off and open my reserve water or keep going a bit longer. I kept going.

Woori Yallock Creek. The bridge went on forever - for what was quite a small creek at this time of year they'd obviously planned for potential flooding. I had to concentrate on lifting my feet to not fall over the sleepers.

By this point I was down to "look! there's a veer! Only two more to go!" kind of optimistic statements.

We struggled on. More veer. Finally, the brick veneers of Woori Yallock hove into sight. And then there was a tree, that we all gathered under and I managed to get hold of my reserve water and drink.

"How much further?!" asked Georgina.

"Um, see those cars about 250m up there? About 50 metres past that."

We were actually almost in sight of our checkpoint.

We heaved ourselves up again, found the gates of Woori Yallock primary school, struggled around the oval and collapsed to the ground under another tree. What looked like another team was off on the other side of the oval, also under a tree.

"That'd be a really good bit to walk at night - it's boring as, there's no shade and you can't trip over anything."

"Unless we get a lot faster very quickly I don't think we'll hit it at night."

"Bugger."

I rang Dean, who'd just arrived in Woori Yallock and was trying to find the primary school.

"We're under a tree - come and find us."

He arrived within minutes and drove past the car park down on to the oval to get us. Heh. That was the point when we realised the 'other team' was actually a working bee who were getting the school grounds up to scratch for the return of students on Monday. Double heh.

So we survived both a very steep descent and a major increase in distance. Next week is the same distance but almost in reverse - 20km of boring, followed by 7km of massively steep ascents and descents (stage rating: 4). It'll be fun. I hope. Either way hopefully we can start off a bit earlier and miss the heat if it's going to be warm again! (On the positive side, at least we weren't training on Sunday, when it was 37oC before the cool change hit. Small mercies).

I'll add a link to the route when my home computer gets fixed - I'm at the library after the motherboard died Thursday night.

Edit: route here