I was looking forward to the walk to Liffey, back on quiet dirt roads winding their way through old and new forests. No disappointments on that front today. The surprise was the long steady climb up Bogan Gap and the sharp drop (see the elevation profile) into Liffey, neither of which I had quite anticipated from the trail notes. Still the weather was good and I enjoyed the solitude.
The fun for today was for the first time trying out my ‘Trekker’s Friend’ and I have to admit to being impressed! (see the separate post.)
On arriving at the Liffey Falls campground about 11kms in, I set up for lunch and fairly quickly decided to stay the night as the next camping spot some distance away. Popped up the tent and tarp and then down came the rain. A good move I thought to myself and settled down under the shelter for the afternoon. I did some writing and reflecting as the showers came and went.
Just as I finished dinner and was about to crawl in for an early night, a car drove up and parked quite close to where I was camped. Hmm… there were actually dozens of other places to set up… The couple started getting organised, so I repented of my annoyance and decided to be friendly and wander over to say hi. A bit of help with the tent and a chat, and I was invited to hang around the fire?? with them.
The reason for the invitation was that the male of the party was dead set on having a campfire. Thankfully the rain had mostly stopped by this point. The problem would be getting a fire going as everything was seriously sodden! Still with a bit of help from my home made firelighters, my new lightweight mini-handsaw for exactly this scenario, and my tiny battery operated mattress pump (for airflow) we eventually succeeded. I was shouted a good glass of SA Shiraz and BBQ sausage for my trouble while being praised as a true ‘man of the bush’. Lots of interesting conversation ensued before we all hit our various sacks for the night. I waved them off this morning, they were going early as they had no shelter apart from joining me under my tarp from time to time before leaving. I now contempated the rain – bucketing down with a thunderstorm in the background, trying to decide on the best time to pack and get back on the road.
