24/11/22 - Distance: 27km
Left O’hares Creek at 545am. Lots of dew to start of the morning and my pants were now soaked. A chilly one – about 3 degrees. Lots of roos and horses around. There was not track again for most of the day (excluding the walk out to slaughter house creek) and the bush was rather shrubby in sections which made navigation hard, particularily up from O'hares creek. The climb upto a high point at 1219m where you cross the Byadbo Trail was rather steep and pretty shrubby but there were some loveley open woodland forests with many grasses. The climb was about 500m. Lots of orchids again, some pink caladenia I think and some peterostylis which would close its flower on the slightest touch (a mechanism used to briefly trap insects, cover them in pollen, before releasing them). I arrived at the Byadbo trail in good time at 9am. I ditch my hiking pack for a side trip to Slaughter house creek (18km return) along a fire trail. Great views all around and I can now see snow on the mountains ahead, and even Mt koz. The trail to the hut starts of nice then gets very steep, lots of helipad landing zones, perhaps to assist with firefighting. One of the landing zones had a large underground water tank and was almost full upon inspection. I found this at GR 55h 638531 5925246 UTM. Lovely open bushland on way into slaughter house creek with loads of kangaroos around and birds chirping about. It has turned out to be a spectacular day. I arrived at hut at 1115am. A lovely Spot and very remote which adds to its charm. In fact I believe this hut is one of the most remote. It was originally built in the 1960s to for grazing and brumby running. Although this is usually a very dry spot, water was flowing in the creek nearby and the water tank had been replaced and was working (should someone have turned off the tap properly and not emptied it of all its water, then it would be full, given all the rain recently). The hut is a small two room dwelling built from local timber with a tin roof. It currently smells of bird droppings and has a ferw resident birds nesting inside. It has two mangey looking mattresses perched on old wire beds in it. Outside, however, the hut looks splendid, in good condition and in a wonderful open wooded setting. It is a relief to come to such a beautiful spot with a shelter after a long steep slog along the trails. I grab a quick lunch outside whilst reading through the log book. I head off to arrive back where I dumped my bag arriving at 230pm. Now down to the head of sheepstation creek, up to a high point of 879m. There is absolutely no track, although there was some flagging tape for the first 1km or so, most of which lead through thick shrub anyway (I guess it must have grown like crazy since the tape was placed).. I have to zigzag my way down the very dense ridgeline going of coarse many times. As I walk along I feel as though im not making much progress but merely collecting twigs and spiderwebs which tend to gather on my shoulders and back. As I descended down a very dense section, I notice I’m not touching the ground with my feet as the vegetation is so dense, I float and roll over it between big arduous pushes kicking with the legs to get through it till it eventually opens up. Very tiring and very slow as you constantly loose your bearings and drift off and back on course through or around the thick scrub. A big storm starts approaching from the north, I see lightning, hear thunder and see the dense cloud of rain approaching. Oh I hope this vegetation opens up before the storm hits. Im all for hiking in a storm (in fact I find it rather soothing) but not bush bashing or fighting my way through twiggy, dusty thick vegetation whilst its raining (I just get too hot and wet then cold and soggy). Luckily I manage to make it to camp, at high point 879 directly above the reaches of sheep station creek before the storm hit. The vegetation did end up opending up and it turned out to be lovely walking for the rest of the afternoon. I even got a fire going, unusually successfully in dense undergrowth of grasses which I had to cut away to make room for a fire pit, usually these grasses would take off into flames with the slightest spark but today they were soo green and lush it was near impossible to use them to start the fire to begin with. I managed to get a boil some water in time before the storm finally passed overhead. It was a very slow moving storm with minimal wind and stuck around for the rest of the evening. The close roars of thunder and the snaps of fork lightning entertained me like a mini horror show as I lay a vulnerable and at the mercy of nature whilst camped on a high ridge top in the middle of a mountainous storm.
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