Day 11 Mt Molly / Kingsborough

Tuesday 27th April, 2021   

282.3 / 4816.6km

Spoke a little with Peter Brown a local from Mount Molloy and Lister Perkins the Manager for Font Hill Station who both agreed that after the amount of rain Mount Molloy had had over the last 2 days and the expected showers to come the area around Mount Round on Font Hill would be a swamp and there was no alternative route till after the rain had stopped to get to Dora Creek.

This meant I could have continued into the high ground of the Hahn Tableland.

So Peter offered to drive me round to Kingsborough where the trail comes down from the tableland. Suitable remuneration was offered and off we went. This will still put me 2 days above Mutchilba but I can follow Maps 13 and 14 of the route instead of the highway.

The drive round was interesting in that after we passed through Mutchilba we had to keep going to Dimbulah but the clouds broke up and there were blue skies.

As we headed through Mulligan Station I noticed the creeks were on the dry out stage. There had been no flow for a while and they were getting down to the muddy puddles. Still each creek had some water but it was still and muddy and of course the cows would have stood in all the puddles I could see from the road.

Mulligan Station is a high end expensive station stay with guests flying in by helicopter. I don't see the attraction in the country and think I would spend my dollars elsewhere. The drive out is rough and we go past a failed venture in Tyrconnel Mine, a place you could have stayed in some done up accomodation. They have restored a few buildings but it obviously didn't catch on.

Then we get to Kingsborough these were all places that when the mines were running the township grew and Kingsborough is the freehold township area left in amongst Mulligan Station.

There is only one resident here Ike Sjofors who handmixed all the bricks to make his house. He grows exotic fruit here and when we drove across the causeway of the dam Peter tells me Ike poured all the concrete for the dam and causeway using a hand turned cement mixer. A big effort. I didn't get to meet Ike. Apparently he is 80 now and has closed his area to only campers he knows.

Just up around the corner is where the trail comes through from the Hahn Table land and where Peter Dropped me off.

I got a little excited when I saw National Trail signs on trees that showed the way. These are the second ones I have seen in my walk. The first one down the bottom of the bump track.

So I pulled on the pack heavy with 7 days supply and only 2 days required and set off south again. The trail goes through cattle country and as expected the creeks were barely running.

But I had sunshine and was finaly able to drag the Solar panel out and check if it actually did me any good. Since I charged everything up last night it was just a test to see it was still working.

One water stop was barely a dribble with a lot of green moss getting hauled up in the dirty water bag but as I was sitting there I was positive I saw a crab in the puddle.

I ended up stopping for the night close to a dam where I could go down and get water but far enough away I didn't spook the cattle that came to drink.

It was later that night in the cool of the evening I woke up and thought it was dawn. But with clear skies it was just a full moon. Haven't had a clear night sky for over 9 days so that a novelty.