Day 225 +226 Cowombat Flat to Native Cat Track

 VIC Days 1 & 2 (225&226) Wednesday 5th and Thursday 6th January, 2022 22.7km

4501.1 / 597.8 km

I went to sleep fairly early. When it started raining I went into the tent to set up the bed and promptly went to sleep. I felt a bit bad when I woke up again about nine thirty and all was quiet. I didn't socialise with people that had given me cheese and an apple. But I managed to fall asleep again.

The neighbours

In the morning the ladies were up and I was able to say my thanks and be on my way. It's a fairly simple climb back up the Cowombat Track to Limestone Creek Road. The AAWT turns off before the Junction and my bucket is a couple of hundred metres past the AAWT turn off.

The track Out

Some Water

I get to the carpark and there are six cars here. I know of four couples so wonder who the others belong to. Further on I come to the AAWT turnoff and there are a couple camped here with clothes hanging out. I have a chat and they have been doing the AAWT from Walhalla in mid November. This was there resupply points and they tell me an animal has chewed through and their clothes have been damaged and waterlogged. I panic a bit but it turns out their food that was in a plastic bucket was OK. They wrapped their clothes in separate plastic bags and wrapped that in gaffer tape. Still the animals chewed through and wrecked his socks. I've learnt to wrap all smelly things away including soaps as any different smell the animals look for. I've made a mistake of leaving my chewies in my shirt pocket only to find rodents keenly interested.

The Carpark

My resupply bucket

The area they were camped was the best of a very damp area so I decide to fill with water and go get my bucket. It turned out OK and untouched. I was looking forward to the fruitcake and I thought my other treat was some Daryl Lee chocolate but it turned out to be a pack of Sour Patch Kids. Isabelle put me on to these. I like shoving a handful in my mouth and going through the contortions as the sourness and flavour fight with each other. The pack didn't last long.

A clearing beside the wet track

So the next decision was how far to go. The next camp spot is about 23 kilometres away and a large rain band is moving in. On the end I walk but keeping an eye out for a suitable camp spot that's level and not under trees. Hopefully before the rain hits. When I get to Limestone Creek Road there are another 4 cars parked up. In the end I did about 8 or 9 kilometres before I found a good spot. I set up and climbed in the tent as the rain started.

Set up for a rainy day

And it didn't stop. I ended up cooking in the tent and at 5 am it was still raining so I decided to take the day off. I didn't have a good forecast and signal on the phone wasn't helping but the last forecast had the rains easing Saturday. So I was hoping this was the main band and give it a day I will walk through the last of it on Friday. I had to wait till Belinda got out of bed and she gave me the good news that it was a lot of rain and there are flood warnings for creeks and rivers in my area. I will cross the Tambo River now on Sunday. They expect the peak Thursday night. So hopefully a zero day here will help.

The wet track

Problem though is I've lost all my downloaded books on Kindle. Don't know how or why. I've been reading all trip so unless my nipples have played up again who knows. Although Kindle is Amazon so they might have a thing that makes you go back. I haven't been online or in signal range since Thredbo so I can only put it down to me. Although I wouldn't have thought it would be that easy to inadvertently delete 10 or 15 books from the phone.

Anyway nothing to read. Did get a couple of hours sunshine before a new batch of rain moved in. Very relaxing day. Should be able to do 30k tomorrow. Omeo is 5 days away.