Australian Hiker

A longer day as I head into Nelson for my rest day. The day started out just like the previous day but in this case I am walking along the river cliff tops getting a view of the highest limestone cliff sections of this river. They are pretty impressive and even though I moved from river level up to the top of these cliffs apart from the odd small section, you don’t notice the elevation change. The trail organisation has placed a number of seats along the way at strategic points just to sit and take it all in.

At my morning tea break I decided to see if I had phone/internet signal and boy did I with my phone figuratively blowing up – I typically get about 400 emails a week! I thought I would call Gill and she indicated from the Garmin map that she was following me on, that if I made a short detour I was only around 1km from Nelson. Apparently some people doing this trail discover this as well and just skip this section. It’s an option, it’s your hike, so do your own thing.

At this stage I asked Gill to check out accommodation options for me in Nelson and we ended up choosing Casuarina Cabins – the owner Dave is friendly and the accomodation is comfortable. It also suited my need to hand wash my clothes and also hang them on the deck railings to dry. Off I go again!

One comment I would make here is that the guidebook has been very well done and you pretty much know where you are from the succinct descriptions. I strongly suggest you get the map and book package when planning and walking this trail. I’ll do a review of this resource the week after I get off trail.

Close on midday I crossed into South Australia for a distance of 4km and it was really obvious; not just the sign but the landscape changed almost instantly. Along this section of the trail there were a number of what are called huts but for any body else these are not huts and are very lavish!

When I stopped for lunch I decided to spend around 30 minutes catching up on my Instagram posts so another reason for my extended day but I felt very rested when I started up again.

There was no sign I could find to say that I was heading back into Victoria but there was a distinct change in vegetation again and when I got my Garmin Inreach map out, it told me I had just crossed the border. It was at this time I decided to check the weather and discovered why I was struggling today – the temperature had hit 28.5 degrees Celsius. I don’t do well in the heat and this is my main reason I prefer to hike in July-August, rain be dammed. It and would explain why I was taking so many breaks. I could have checked this on my Garmin but just didn’t even think about it, duh!

I passed Simon’s Camp which is just out of town. This campsite provides an opportunity to have a ‘full camping experience’ if you don’t want to have a town stay. The good thing here is that it meant I had around 1km to my chosen accommodation.

Accomodation wise there is so much choice in Nelson and I was happy to ‘wing it.’ However, next weekend is an event on and I would have been camping with everything booked up. Keep this in mind if you are planning this trip.

Now for the down side. While Nelson provides a large array of accommodation it lacks in the food department. The kiosk which is mentioned in the guidebook no longer exists. The locals typically travel the relatively short distance into Mount Gambier for their weekly shop because there is limited choice in Nelson. I ended up walking the round trip of 2.2km to the BP service station to get what I was hoping to be a pizza only to be informed that pizzas are off the menu at the moment. I did however manage to get my Weiss bar (two actually) and Coke No Sugar (1.25 litres) and two crab sticks that were actually quite nice. I then purchased something for breakfast. I need to head back down and get a frozen pizza for ‘Linner’ and something else to drink but I’ll do that around midday tomorrow.

Theres is an opportunity waiting for someone here for consistent good quality takeaway. Apparently the service station is looking at doing a bigger range of food staples but that hasn’t happened as yet so keep this in mind.

The rest of today was spent doing social media before having my latest night on track going to bed around 9:30pm.

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