Pissed down with rain all night.
I woke up in the middle of the night to find water pooling on one side of my tent. One of the rain sheets had dropped down so it touched the inner tent sheet causing water to drip through and into the tent ever so slowly as I slept. Scooped it out with my cup and checked every few hours to dry the tent out.
Waking I got dressed in all my wet clothes from the previous day. Strapped the bag on and went into full focus and power mode.
Hiked up to Kitchens Hut and dropped my bag off there before being offered advice from a few people telling me not to climb Cradle Mountain. Ignoring everyone I headed up and flew over the boulders like a monkey on all fours, absolutely loved it. Just jumping from rock to rock, thinking quickly and relying on my speed and agility, pure joy up and back.
At the top the mist even cleared for a few moments to look out over the wilderness and take pause of the great landscapes that surrounded me.
Came back down and prepared breakfast at 1pm and had a coffee before heading off into a stinker of a day. Blowing a gale and pissing with rain as I joined onto the overland track. I was powering along and flew past the Waterfall Hut and then paused and thought about lunch but as I stopped I started to shiver so to keep warm I just kept going at double the speed, popped over my rain hood and head down into the stormy weather.
Went past Windermere Hut and then onto the open plains, soaked through yet I love days like today, just me in the wild pushing and thriving.
Left hip started hurting again, can feel it grinding away a little, so made sure I switched to using the walking pole on the left side and at one stop rejigged the weight in my bag to take some off the left side.
Eventually crossed into a forest and found a great little flat camping spot, hung all my gear out to dry a little then headed in search of water.
Put the jet boil cooker on and prepared a meal and warm protein drink as a treat for the night. As I hadn't stopped for lunch I had a bigger meal for dinner.
Hopped into bed calm and so happy.
Can't wait for tomorrow, rain hail or shine it's going to be fun.
Thanks for reading - TazMania
