2019 Hume and Hovell Track
It’s day nine of our Hume and Hovell Track and I’m feeling much better after yesterday’s bad day. Everyone has bad days in long distance hiking and usually for me it’s on day two. Today I felt much more myself as we covered just on 26 km and at least for the moment we are back on track; when the maps describe a section as hard, they mean hard and with it the average speed drops. The one downside of last nights sleep was I had the weirdest dreams I have ever had (dinner related perhaps?) which Gill thought was quite funny when I told her. It’s so good when you can make your wife laugh!
Another day being swooped by birds but this time it was a pair of Welcome Swallows who had built a nest in the toilet. Don’t know why they didn’t care yesterday but they did today. The magpies on this section of the track don’t seem to care about hikers so at least from that perspective we were safe.
We spent until lunchtime walking a forest road along the shores of Blowering Dam and reached our planned destination for yesterday, Yellowin about 2.5 hours into the morning. There are so many possible campsites along the dam shore that we could have easily walked on yesterday but I was just so exhausted our chosen stopping destination was the right one.
The forecast rain for today only amounts to some very quick showers and that’s a blessing but the red clay soils one the road stick to your footwear which can be annoying. The forecast for rain is easing from now. One thing we notice is the warmer than expected temperatures with sub zero temperatures being the norm just two weeks ago. Can’t not like that.
Immediately after lunch we started a 300 metre ascent up a hill but on a road with a good gradient so it wasn’t as bad as some of those we previously walked on this track. By now we are approaching Talbingo Dam and the only time that I have been here before is to do diving work on the Dam wall; but that’s another story. The scenery is ever changing with different vegetation types being present. A lot of the park-like areas that make up the camp sites along Blowering Dam look like they were planted in the 1960’s-1970’s based on the plant selection. There are groupings of plants I just haven’t seen together for that long.
We finally reach Ben Smith Campsite just before 4.00pm and that’s us for the day back on schedule although we may change it up depending on the terrain over the next few days. As we walk down the valley to the campsite I see one Deer and hear another, the first for this trip. While very cute they are becoming a major pest in Victoria and progressively moving into NSW in bigger numbers.
We set up camp, filter water, eat, and then we are in bed for an early night and to catch up on social media. Thanks to everyone for the support and comments as we progress through this trip; it’s greatly appreciated so keep it up. Time for bed goodnight.
It’s day nine of our Hume and Hovell Track and I’m feeling much better after yesterday’s bad day. Everyone has bad days in long distance hiking and usually for me it’s on day two. Today I felt much more myself as we covered just on 26 km and at least for the moment we are […]