Perry's Blog

It's amazing what a night's sleep can do, especially when you sleep the sleep of the dead (exhausted)!

Perry wrote:

Morning!! Good night sleep, some night walkers.
Finished the bacon and eggs we bought yesterday. Not a lot of water left.

Talked to an interesting woman who did a long trek every year (she said). She may have intended to be encouraging, but it seemed discouraging - said the walk ahead was harder than yesterday. We'll see... She also carries 18kg packs!

We were surprised at the number of early morning bush walkers/runners going past our tent site. Seemed oddly incongruous having spent 3 days feeling like we were a long way from anywhere much and then there are all these people doing their morning jog!!

Had a very tasty breakfast of bacon and eggs that we'd dragged up the hill yesterday in a cool bag; obviously not cool now, but not off either.

Sandi wrote:

Horrid, horrid, horrid clouds of sand flies and camp this morning, most unpleasant, at least we can be glad we brought aeroguard and stingoes!!

Great views of sunset. Bizarre thinking you're in the middle of nowhere then someone walking a dog past! Two people with torches walked past later in the night, woke me up. very odd.

Hard to get going again now, but I know I must, food all wrong today. Bacon and eggs really yummy for breakfast, but no sugar there when we needed it and felt really bag going up the steep part. Terrible!

7:55am Leave Camp Site
We left the campsite, in pretty good spirits after a good breakfast and followed the track along the top of the terrain , the vegetation remaining fairly stunted on a sandy soil. The bush has that "hot" smell already. The map has a creek marked about a third of the way to Cowan, from which we hope to get some water, although we thought we'd be pretty right until we got to the shop.

We fill out another track register not too far along: it makes some interesting reading again -- not too many people do the walk.

The track descends down to what seems to be a creek hopefully; but we don't find anything too drinkable so we have a wash and keep going: it's still only morning but it feels very hot.

It was a bit of a scramble up the other side and I had to call a halt as I had a horrible feeling that my ankle was bleeding from a sand fly bite that was being gouged by my socks and boots.

The view was great, although it was difficult to pin-point us on the map exactly. And there was a park bench!! That seemed so odd, but can only mean that civilisation is not too far away.

From here it was not a hard walk along the track up into Cowan, which became suburbanized surprisingly quickly. Sad: the closer we got to suburbia the more weedy the track became.

And finally, in the midst of weeds we stumbled onto the Pacific Highway, and only 200 metres to the shop!! These signs sometimes proved exhilarating and sometimes depressing: 8km to Berowra Waters!! We felt much more exhausted than just 8km worth.

Perry wrote:

Well, the walk down and up into Cowan was hard, but not as horrid as led to believe. Had to stop quite a bit and had a longish stop at the top to put a band aid on a sand fly bite that had lost its top: but it was a good chance to look at the view and get our bearings on the map.

10:04am Cowan General Store

We dumped our packs at one of the shaded outside tables and stumbled into the shop to order an ice-cold milkshake. Apparently it's to climb to over 30 degrees today (it already feels past that!)

Sandi wrote:

That lime milkshake at Cowan was beautiful, simply gorgeous. Sure needed some sugar.

The day was hot, too hot. I don't think we meant to stop for a long time, but after the first drink we just had to have another; and we just didn't feel like getting up. It was somewhat disconcerting that we were only halfway through this day: what happened to our Track Fitness??

Perry wrote:

What a day the forth day was - turned the Great North Walk into a great stagger. The climb down and up to Cowan didn't seem too hard, but it affected us a lot. Then we had a long stop with milkshakes and drinks.

We picked up a few provisions that we needed and headed off, somewhat reluctantly. Bought some new batteries for the camera, which the shop assistant assured me had only come in the day before so were very fresh (the batteries we'd bought at Berowra Waters were already reporting as low).

I'm concerned that the camera will have enough power to keep functioning, so I'm trying to limit the photos a little and certainly not take flash shots.

11:45am Track Head
Felt very odd walking down the Pacific Highway, back to the track again, crossed the railway track and headed north to the bridge across the expressway.

The track is not in particularly good condition (it seemed to be following a water course), and have to be a little careful with our footing. It's very hot, but soon the tall trees encompass us with their shade and we're surrounded with the perfume of boronia and mint bush.

Perry wrote:

The walk down to Jerusalem Bay, although all downhill and surrounded by the most gorgeous display of boronia and mint bush (with wonderful scents) wasn't easy. The track wasn't good so had to be careful of footing. Had a swim at the Bay before the hard climb out.

12:22pm Jerusalem Bay

Sandi wrote:

Jerusalem Bay was beautiful and I so enjoyed my swim in the natural, really cooled down and I'm sure that helped me for the horrid walk up to follow. Extremely picturesque.

We stopped for half an hour or so, I found the water a little too cold to stay in for long, but Sandi was frolicking joyously in the cool water for ages!

Getting dressed again into our hot, smelly clothes was somewhat interesting to say the least. The tramping towel that we borrowed from Keren worked very well, although I was sorely tempted just to get dressed without drying...

The track after Jerusalem Bay follows the edge of the water course, which provided wonderful cool air. Not far along the track rounds a point of sorts, that looked like a great camping spot although there were "No Camping" signs every where, and provided some great views up the bay. Then all too soon the track crosses a wee creek and starts the assent that we'd been warned about as being "tough".

Perry wrote:

But the climb had a huge impact, we had many stops, and even resorted to calling a lunch stop (muesli bar) at one point [we were so exhausted].

I'm not sure how much the hardness of the day was influenced by our diet (bacon and egg sandwiches for breakfast, milkshake morning tea, muesli bar late lunch)? When we were toward the top of the steepest climb I took a lolly that we'd bought at Cowan and it had an immediate effect: suddenly I had energy and I could walk at a normal pace! I was plodding, but now it was a brisk walk (especially on the flat), even up inclines we moved at a good pace. Still puffing, but with energy.

We'd worked out our diet pretty well before we left with muesli + milk powder for breakfast, date and vegemite sandwiches for lunch and dehydrated meals for tea. That went wrong when we forgot the bread (we substituted muesli bars), but then doubly wrong in our selection of breakfast (I think, it would be good to have expert opinion here). Anyway, our diet for the next three days is pretty "normal", so it will be interesting to see how we go.

After the climb out of Jerusalem Bay we were exhausted and my feet were in extreme pain, disconcertingly so. The track seemed to just keep going and going, and we degenerated into a tired trudge. The scenery is absolutely beautiful, but we feel too done in to enjoy it really.

The track down off the ridge into Brooklyn Dam was a terrible mess: extremely eroded and difficult to walk on. It was only at the bottom that we realised that we'd missed the correct track and followed what the rain had eroded. At the bottom we almost collapsed and had to remove the packs and sit a while: it was very difficult to get up, put the packs on and walk the 200 metres to the campsite.

4:20pm Brooklyn Dam
From Jerusalem Bay we'd walked at 1.6 km/h (on average), which can only mean that we were only just moving when going up the hill!

Perry wrote:

The dam is wonderful. Too much rubbish, too much broken glass: what is it with people?? No fires allowed!! Unfortunately our gas bottle just ran out...

The walk into the dam didn't seem it was going to end. Once we got to the ridge and could see Brooklyn we knew we were close, but the fire trail kept going on!! The track down to the dam was dreadful! Hard on the knees and ankles and when we got to the bottom we had to take our packs off and sit a while! Sore ankles, aching feet, sore back, hips felt irritated from being wet under the girth!!

The stops were the best part of yesterday. The stop at the creek where we doused ourselves with water, the stop halfway up for lunch and a great view. Had a swim here at the dam that Sandi loved but was too much for me. Washed clothes again.

Sandi wrote:

I rinsed off in the dam, just great to get the salt off the skin. P was less enthusiastic! Washed the clothes, always a priority to try and get dry, all but the socks are this morning. Clothes don't look much better, just rinsed the sweat out of them. Dam even has flowering pale yellow water lilies. Are they the non-spinning variety?

It really was great to get the clothes and the body washed, although the water felt very cold.

I set up the tent again: practice really does make perfect! There is lots of broken glass and rubbish piled around a garbage bin that looked like it had not been emptied in a very long time. Later we found out that Council or National Parks don't supply a garbage bin here, which explains why it wasn't empty, but not why it was there.

This was one of our longer/harder days at nearly 15kms that we'd completed at 2.4 km/h: not too bad considering the day and the terrain.

Sandi wrote:

It really was a tough day, just seemed to keep going many many more kilometres than what the signs said. Thank goodness for the last bit being easier though it took quite an effort all the same.

The dam Camp Site is wonderful though: another site with abundant water which means plenty of cups of tea! Dinner worked well, although the gas stopped halfway through the noodles. The dehydrated meals (paster etc) are working out well, not huge, but we don't feel too hungry at the end of the day.

Tomorrow we have one of our better shopping stops, and we hope that we can get some gas for the cooker.

And after collapsing into bed, that was the end of day four where we walked another 15kms into our journey, we've now passed the 43km mark!