Australian Alps Walking Track - Red Jacket to Black River

Day: 04
Date: Saturday, 20 April 2019
Start:  Red Jacket
Finish:  Black River
Daily Kilometres:  25.2 AAWT plus 3.8 on recommended detours
Total AAWT Kilometres:  95.5
Weather:  Cool early then warm and sunny
Accommodation:  Tent
Nutrition:
  Breakfast:  Muesli
  Lunch:  Trail Mix
  Dinner:  Rehydrated meals
Aches:  Both very tired
Highlight:  Finding our way to the Black River despite the best efforts of the guide book, maps and State Forests to send us elsewhere.  Thank goodness for GPS phones and the Maps.Me app.
Lowlight:  For Julie it was when a swarm of bees joined us for breakfast beside the trail.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:

We got away just before 7:30 without being arrested for illegal camping, though it didn't look like anybody used the local roads anyway.  The guide book suggested a firetrail route as an alternative to the official AAWT route which supposedly followed a faint trail up a spur.  It proved a good choice, despite being relentlessly uphill for 5.8km and 2.7km longer than the official route, because when we eventually we reached the point where the AAWT route rejoined the firetrail, the AAWT was taped off and closed for some reason.

Having reached the top, the walking became quite pleasant in breezy morning sunshine with good views of rolling forested mountains through gaps in the eucalypt forest.  Eventually, the trail joined a forest road that had some traffic, being Easter weekend, and the sun was now blazing down on us.  To be honest the road walking, though easy enough, was quite tedious, and we took the opportunity of using a firetrail alternative that passed a cabin I had stayed in, uninvited, eight years ago when walking the same trail.  Nobody was home this time either, so we ate our lunch on their deck, and filled our water bottles from their tank.

After lunch there was more forest road walking, including one big and long hill to Mt Singleton, before we turned north on a freshly-graded firetrail.  There was no shade and the forest was mostly saplings, making this part of the day also tedious.  We had some navigational challenges (see above), but eventually found the right firetrail to take us down to Black River, our destination for the day.  This firetrail was much more pleasant forest walking and our spirits lifted despite the long day, though the final descent to the river was steep, with the mountain goat (Julie) again leaving me well behind.  On this firetrail, which was very rough and narrow, we encountered several four-wheel-drive groups out scratching their paintwork and denting their differentials, though all seemed in good spirits.

At Black River, we made our way upstream, with difficulty, for a hundred metres to find a nice campsite around 5:30.  After setting up camp, we both had a wash in the freezing river before enjoying our meal as the stars lit up the sky.  A very satisfactory end to a long and hard day.  Tomorrow starts with a steep bush-bash up a spur across the river, which we are not looking forward to, but then we have a shorter day and reach our first food cache which has some goodies for us.