Day: 11
Date: Saturday, 27 April 2019
Start: Selwyn Creek Road Junction
Finish: Mt Loch Carpark
Daily Kilometres: 24.9 AAWT plus 3.5 detours plus 2.2 to Davenport Village
Total AAWT Kilometres: 235.1
Weather: Very cold early and late, but mostly sunny.
Accommodation: Asgaard Ski Lodge, Davenport Village
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Muesli
Lunch: Trail Mix
Dinner: Chicken parmigiana, salad & chips, warm chocolate pudding and ice-cream
Aches: Julie has a blister and sore ankle, while I have some heel abrasions.
Highlight: Julie says the highlight was getting to the lodge and having a hot shower and washing her hair.
Lowlight: Packing up the frozen tent fly-sheet to start the day's hike. There was so much ice on it, it folded to more than twice the usual volume and weighed twice as much. As the day progressed, I had a constant drip of ice cold water onto my calf muscles as the ice melted.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
It was a very cold night, but keen to get to tonight's lodge, we forced ourselves to get up at 5:30 and pack up in darkness so we could be walking by first light, soon after 6:30 (see above). It was still very cold and everything was frost-covered, but the skies were clear and it looked like being a beautiful day.
We were still following the Barry Range towards Mt Hotham (1868m) the second highest peak in Victoria. The AAWT alternated between following the Twins Track, a firetrail, and following the ridgeline as a faint trail where the Twins Track did not. This meant that in places there was an option to follow the Twins Track for a less mountainous, but longer journey and that was what we did, adding 3.5km to our journey. It was easier walking and the views were still incredible.
We made good time along this section, occasionally encountering trail-bikes and 4WD groups, and only taking a couple of breaks, during which we tried to progressively dry out our saturated tent fly-sheet in the cold sunlight and icy breeze.
Eventually, the Twins Track reached the main Mt Hotham Road and we had 8km of uphill road-walking with a passing parade of tourists and cyclists to observe our progress. The climb up (and descent from) Mt Hotham is popular with cyclists and at one steeper uphill section we were passed by two cyclists barely travelling faster than we were.
The higher we went the colder it got as the afternoon wore on, and by the time we reached the last 1km to the summit of Mt Hotham, which left the road and followed a single-track trail, it was bitterly cold with an icy wind. The summit was obscured by cloud, so after a quick selfie, we headed east and downhill for the few kilometres to Davenport Village where we had booked a room in a ski lodge next to the only general store/ hotel/ post office on the mountain out of ski season. There was no-one else at the lodge, including the manager, but she had texted instructions on access and our room, and turned on the heater in our room, which was very welcome. We were frozen. Before showering we nicked next door to the store and bought some chips and drinks and collected our food parcel for the next four days from the Post Office (closed, but no problem). Later, we had a pub meal next door before adjourning to the lodge, which we have entirely to ourselves.
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