Australian Hiker

I timed my run into Donnelly River to ensure the general store would be open and due to some bigger than planned days, I was running ahead of time. I was expecting to have decent internet signal so I could catch up on my posts but while I could get phone and text messages out, I had no luck with the internet. I was advised to stand outside of cottages 10-12 for my best chance of success.

I had heard Donnelly River was all about the pies and while I had already had breakfast, I couldn’t say no even though it was still fairly early in the morning. So after navigating my way around the tame emus and kangaroos, I made my way inside to what is a store from the past. It just has that old world charm and the wood stove was going. It would have been so easy to stay there.

The pies definitely lived up to expectation and while not cheap I was tempted to have a second one.  After charging some of my electronics I decided to head off because the rain had already settled in for the day and I didn’t want to get too warm and cosy otherwise I wasn’t going to leave.

Donnelly River is a key resupply point for many walkers and the store manager had indicated a number of people who had previously dropped off food parcels had come and collected them again due to the wet weather, deciding to do their walks later in the year.

From Donnelly River I headed off to Gregory Brook campsite and was startleted when I was sitting down for a break in the afternoon and another north bound hiker overtook me.  This was Kyle who I had been chasing for the past few weeks and knew I was likely to see him at some point. He was staying at every campsite while I was moving a bit faster on a daily basis. He had left Donnelly River after me and being less than half my age, was moving at a quicker pace even if he wasn’t doing the big distances each day.

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