Day 238 Howitt high plains to Pine Creek

 VIC Day 14 (238) Tuesday 18th January, 2022 26.7km

4975.1 / 256.8km

I leave Howitt Hut camp early. I feel well rested and as I walk out I only see one person moving about from the horse group. It is foggy but the initial part of the walk is fairly flat.

The Howitt Road

I notice in the fog my beard catches moisture. I wonder how much I can drink if U suck on it a lot? Tried it once.

Howitt High Plains

By breakfast I'm still pretty much in fog. The track is getting rougher as I go down the Butcher Country Track. So named apparently as the cattle duffers would butcher the cattle they stole and transport the meat this way to various mines.

My Breakfast Spot

Still Misty

The colours of the tree

Butcher Country Track

The day is unremarkable as we stay up high. The camp spot is where Pine Creek starts but up here and this side of the range it's a little dry and the water at the head has stopped flowing. I do follow a trickle into the bush and come across a silty puddle with just a small inflow. Enough for me to dig a hole in the mud and let it flow clean then dropping my water bag in the hole and just skimming the flowing clean water. It takes a while to fill the bag then I filter it into a clean water bag. Because I left my 3 litre bag down Dry Creek I can only collect 1 litre at a time. Takes a while but I get enough for night camp.

Looking over Caledonia River Valley

There are cleared grassy spots here and I'm setting up the tent and some of my mesh tears at the stress points. I wonder what I have done wrong for all this to start happening in the last week. I repair what I can with gaffer tape and Fixomoll. I
just need to keep the bugs out.

The repairs. These are the stress tears in the mesh