Larapinta Trail: Section 9 Serpentine chalet dam to Hermits Camp

Day 14 of 19 Monday

Our first Glimpse of the end destination - Mt Sonder im not sure if I am happy or sad

Well, I hate to start the day off on the wrong note but last night was one of those nights you’d sooner forget than relive but the antics make it worth telling. Upon retiring after our big day yesterday I lay down my weary head to rest and my feet decided they wanted to continue throbbing. Normally washing down some paracetamol and Ibuprofen would have fixed this but today for some unknown reason my feet were not playing the sleepy game. Hours passed and eventually I drifted off to sleep only to be woken with a startle. Well startle doesn’t accurately describe my awakening, more like I shit myself and bolted upright when a thundering crashing noise erupted beside my head just outside my tent. Thinking it was the boogie man coming for a not so friendly chat I scrambled around in the tent to find my head lamp and trusty little folding knife. Objects acquired, I snapped on my torch and flicked open the knife, heart pounding waiting for the inevitable violation of my space. It took a good thirty seconds for my sleep deprived brain to realise that the crashing sound was a one off and another thirty seconds for me to investigate. Crawling out, I found my food bag beside the tent. Shining the torch around I found an army of my furry friends waiting to pounce. Their beady little eyes shining in the torch light were everywhere. They had found me again and were out for vengeance. Securing the food bag again and hanging it with a couple of extra wraps of dental floss (it’s too fine for them to climb down and get to the bag) I went back to bed and there ended the quality sleep. I could hear them scurrying around everywhere, it was a hundred-fold worse than that incessantly annoying mosquito that buzzes around your ear all night.  At one point in time, I thought they were inside my tent or was I dreaming.  Nope I wasn’t dreaming. On packing up in the morning I found three mice holes in my tent and a half-chewed bag of smarties beside my pack. The fuckers had made a meal of my $500 tent and chewed on the cork handle of my hiking pole. Needless to say, I wasn’t happy and wished all sort of atrocities and horrible deaths on them. There’s a thought, I wonder if chocolate is toxic to them like it is for dogs. Poor old Big J, cowboy camping was a devil of a time for him as well, with them crawling all over him throughout the night, but at least they didn’t cause damage to him or his equipment Irish had simply slept through the whole ordeal.

murder on Mt Giles its about here I was contemplating killing Big J for dragging my arse to to the top of this mountain late in the day.

Setting out early, the weather was overcast but it was nice and cool, perfect hiking weather and last night’s woes were soon forgotten - today was going to be one of those days with no real fixed destination. The entire length of this section was 28.9 km so knowing we weren’t going to make that we loaded up on water and prepared for a dry camp somewhere along the trail. Our first destination for the day was Inarlanga Pass and more of my least favourite kind of trail boulder scrambling. Big J hadn’t had the pleasure of this trail torture, so I was keen to have him share the pain. Now, Irish loves this kind of trail so as you can imagine the banter was flowing back and forth with vigour. So much so the 2.3km part of this trail went by in a flash. It’s easy walking and rolls through spinifex country. Turns out the boulder hopping section wasn’t that bad, but it had given Big J enough introduction to boulder clamouring to be firmly in the ‘not my favourite kind of walking’ corner. Coming out of that pass there are rolling hills and several saddles. They’re not that steep but the second one has some steep areas. At one point we were huffing and puffing so decided to flop down in the middle of the path for an impromptu break. We were all having a little moan about this steep section when some hikers stumbled upon our little chin wagging moan session.

Mt Giles lookout - call me king of the mountain cries Big J for I am a god, bow down you peasant and pay homage

Now these guys were sporting massive packs, gnarly sticks that they were using as improvised hiking poles and what made us really feel totally inadequate was that they were an elderly couple and by elderly I mean in their early 80’s for sure. We had a lovely old chat with them, and they were doing the trail again just because they could. My hat went off to them, they were truly machines, smashing any stereotypes that the trail was only for the young and fit.  The trail sports all  manner of people and if I’m that fit at 80 then I’d be way happy.  Hell the way I’m going I’ll probably be lucky to be upright and breathing. I guess today’s lesson was if you think this trail isn’t for the oldies then think again. I’d love to see my oldies do the trail they’d smash it in. They read this blog so Dad you old fart I’m throwing out the challenge.

Camp Windy

Arriving in the middle of the afternoon at Waterfall Gorge we had just done 13.3km and I was feeling a little buggered. We were faced with a choice of camping the night here or pushing on  another 2.3km up to Mt Giles lookout and enduring a  brutal steep  zig zagging  climb to the top of the range at an altitude of 1088m and then ridge line walking for another couple of kilometres to a place fellow hikers have talked about called Hermits Camp. Personally, I was all for camping at the base of this mountain but was out voted. Damn living in a democracy. Under sufferance we pushed on. In all fairness I begrudgingly knew it was the right call, but there was no way I wasn’t going to let Big J know this until I got to the top and boy did he get his fair share of moaning all the way up.  At the top, exhausted we flopped down to take in an amazing view and soak it all up.  This is another spot where you have limited mobile coverage, so we touched home briefly with family and friends then pushed onto Hermits camp.  Hermits Camp is about another kilometre away, you’ll recognise it because it’s the only flat bit of real estate around for miles. It’s pretty exposed but there are campsites amongst spindly trees that afford some protection from the wind and elements.  After arriving we set up camp quickly and were blessed to catch the sunset with an amazing view. I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of “top of the world” moments; it brings life into perspective and rewards you in so many ways. Sure, getting there can be a bitch, but the reward far outweighs that.  It’s addictive on so many levels that words simply don’t do it justice. As I sit here in my lounge room writing this I’m pulled back to those simple moments and smile fondly, it seems like only yesterday and I want to be back there.

ok the view at Hermit camp made it all worth while