Posted by Today was not a day to be remembered. It pissed down buckets of rain all day and I have not a single photo to show.
Following the clear skies of yesterday I was hoping for much the same today, especially for the climb up the Viking but it wasn’t to be. The wind persisted through the night but I heard turn more westerly in the depths of the early morning. There were a few drops of rain overnight but for the most part the saddle was protected.
Poking my head out of the tent I notice one thing – thick fog blanketing the sides of the Viking and the summit nowhere to be seen. The one advantage I could think of was the summit massive couldn’t been seen so I didn’t get the sense of seeing the tower above and slowly approaching.
It was a case of slow and steady up the steep sides, one foot in front of the other, slowing gaining ground upwards until out of the fog the famous chimney appeared. A cavity in the rock face with a hole to climb through several metres through. A fixed rope was in place to assist scurrying up and through. There was no way I was passing through with my pack on and didn’t wan’t to pack it up for fear of tearing a hole in the material on jagged rocks. So I scampered up as high as prepared to go without using the rope, hoisted my pack through the narrow gap and tied it to the rope, allowing sufficient room for me to squeeze past and limit the extent of the pack haul. Success! No tears. I never grabbed a photo of the chimney but have pinched one off the web for you. I’m sure I have an older photo at home from when I last did this.
Once through the chimney the fog turned to rain and never relented for the rest of the day. I threw my shell layers on and they never came off.
The views were atrocious from up the top. Nothing could be seen at all but a wall of white fog. Rain penetrating in sideways at times. It was time to move down. This entailed scrambling my way down wet rocky ground for several kilometres. At times the path so vertical and slippery I was on my butt slowly lowering myself down rock faces.
Relieved to be on flatter ground the remainder of the day was misery in the rain, following a series of old tracks and single trail undulating across country, passing the Barry Saddle water tank, East Riley water tank, and Mt Selwyn water tank, stopping at each to top up with water. I was finding the notorious ‘dry’ Barry Mountains not so dry.
The brolly was up and the head down all day. I resolved that I would just walk all day to at least 18:00 to see how far I would get and to move as close to Hotham as possible to make for a shorter day tomorrow, hopefully a half day into town.
By belly was telling me it was lunch time and just like last time in the same situation I scouted for an appropriately sized dry tree hollow. I found one, not the most spacious but sufficient room to sit in out of the rain and enjoy some reprieve from the wet stuff.
In the early afternoon hunter drove past with dogs in the back. His window was down and we both laughed at the predicament we were in, why was wither of us out here in this shite. We had a good old chat for about 10 minutes, me standing by his window under the umbrella, wet but warm an highly envious of the dry 4WD cab. Parting ways I continued head down for the rest of the day to Coghill Creek. The rain never let up once.
Setting up camp was horrible. Coghill was nothing more than a road intersection where four roads came together. I prepared to set my tent up on the only piece of flat ground I could find in the middle of the least likely track to see traffic. The ground was rocky and I barely had my tent out of my pack before the outside was saturated. At least my guy ropes are also highly reflective and would grab the attention of any headlights moving towards – they never did. I did my best to secure it nice and tight to shed as much rain as possible and squeezed myself and pack into the small vestibule to keep as much rain out of the main tent area. I was saturated head to toe but before I could anything about it had to set up my sleeping mat and sleeping quilt inside trying to keep them as dry as possible. Task completed, I stripped completely naked, skinning my wet clothes off and retrieving my dry thermals from the foot well of my quilt. Burrowing down deep inside my cover I was good for the night, dry and comfortable once again and ready to get on with cooking dinner in the vestibule, a hardy concoction on flavoured instant mash and salami.
The rain kept coming most of the night but towards early morning backed off and completely stopped thankfully.
Mick Beckers 