Distance: 8.6 km
Time: 4 h 20 min
Side trip: Hartnett Falls, 1.6 km, 1 h (return)
Total: 10.2 km, 5 h 20 min
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| Thundering Hartnett Falls |
Our 6th day on the Overland Track could be best summed up by one word - wet. When we weren't drowning in our tent or sloshing through the rain on the track, we were busy being sprayed without mercy by the Mersey River on a detour to Hartnett Falls.
The storm had ravaged on through the night, and we awoke to find little pools of water in the corners of our tent. It continued to rain and we felt little motivation to get up, so it was already 11am by the time we had moved all our gear into the hut and attempted to pack it semi-drywise, and got ourselves walking. Kia Ora Hut wasn't the most pleasant place this morning, with dozens of morose hikers trying fruitlessly to dry their gear. Our mood wasn't improved upon discovering an animal had come to nibble on our rice crackers in the night, so that all of our lunch for the next few days was either gone or left in an undesirable state.
Once we finally got going, most of the surrounding mountains were covered by cloud. The rain slowly increased in intensity during the first hour, until it became heavy enough for us to whip out the ponchos to protect our packs. Fortunately this coincided with our arrival at Du Cane Hut, an old shelter that is now only used for emergencies.
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| Taking shelter in Du Cane Hut to apply ponchos over our packs |
From the exposed clearing around the hut, the track suddenly disappeared under the canopy of some of the best rainforest on the Overland Track. Throw in a bit of low-lying mist and the scenery was just incredible. These forests are very different to the breed we get in south east QLD - moss covers just about every spare mote of space on the trees and rocks, but mostly absent are the ferns and vines that make Queensland rainforests so distinctive.
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| Emily decked out in all her rain gear |
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| A rare gap in the rainforest offers a glimpse of Cathedral Mountain |
On the advice of John Chapman, we made a short detour to visit Hartnett Falls, apparently the pick of the easily visitable waterfalls rumbling down the Mersey River. It certainly didn't disappoint - the formal track seems to end at the top of the falls, but a somewhat rougher (though clearly well-used) path leads down a steep and slippery slope to the base of the falls, providing fantastic views.
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| From the top of Hartnett Falls |
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| Descending the slippery slope towards the base of Hartnett Falls |
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| Exploring the banks of Mersey River |
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| Hartnett Falls - the view from below |
From Hartnett Falls, the Overland Track winds steadily upwards to Du Cane Gap, the last high point of the hike. Although it wasn't very steep we found it fairly hard going, as it continued to rain and Emily's rope-attached sleeping bag kept coming loose from below her pack. We gave up trying to tie it back into place in the wet, so I just carried it the rest of the way over the gap and down through more brilliant rainforest. The last downhill section from Du Cane Gap seemed to be over quickly as Windy Ridge Hut materialised out of the mist and rainforest before us.
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| The much maligned 'new' Windy Ridge Hut aka Bert Nichols Hut |
Compared to the modest wooden huts we had encountered over the past week, this place was a strange new creature. The dining hall seemed ridiculously big, but it was quite warm inside thanks to people in before us who had probably had the fire going for some time.
One of the great things about doing the Overland Track is the people you meet. Because everyone is essentially following a similar itinerary, you see the same folks at the huts each night. The first few days we dined with a young couple, then after we double-nighted at Pelion Hut, we found ourselves sharing meals here and there with a foursome family from Brisbane (who we discovered had taken the same flight to Tassie as us), an old couple from Perth, and Russell, an AFL fan from Melbourne who was trying to involve us in his cryptic crossword (but without luck, as we totally suck at them). This evening we shared photos of our respective trips thus far, and I was impressed by shots of the scenery at the Walls of Jerusalem National Park.
Day 5 - Pelion Hut to Kia Ora Hut
Day 7 - Windy Ridge Hut to Echo Point
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