The morning of the second day my legs were still so tired and sore that I decided to stay at Scott Kilvert Hut and spend another night there. The weather was brilliant that day so I planned to have a quiet day in the sun and relax down at Lake Rodway.
After breakfast I went down to the lake for a swim and washed my clothes. It didn’t take long and I got bored, there’s simply nothing to do at the hut except walking around, sitting in the sun or going swimming. For some reason I couldn’t relax, I wanted to do something. So I started to think if I should really spend the day there, of whether I should use the great sunny day and walk on to Waterfall Valley Hut. Of course my legs felt terrible, but I remembered my cycling trip where I had a similar experience. There’s not much you can do, either stay and relax (which could take days) or ignore the pain and walk on until you don’t feel the pain anymore. And it would only take around 3 hours to the next hut.
Around 11.30am I was ready to move on and left the hut. It was a fantastic day, but the sunshine also meant that it was very hot and not easy to walk. Unfortunately the track from the hut to the main Overland Track went up a very steap climb and it took my hours just to walk that small part to the top where the track joins the Overland Track again. After a while I had to stop every 5 minutes and I needed lots of water because it was so hot. The mountain just wouldn’t end.
After all, it was a beautiful track to walk, it was just very steep and tiring for me because I had already been very tired when I started. When I finally reached the top I had lunch break and enjoyed the nice view to Barn Bluff. I knew that you can climb up Barn Bluff as a sidetrack, but I was told it’s difficult and I decided not to do that on that day, maybe the following one, but most likely I would skip Barn Bluff completely. Cradle Mountain was great and I don’t need to climb on top of every mountain.
After a few minutes the track joined the Overland Track again and from there it was a short walk that ended in a tiring descent down to Waterfall Valley. In the end I was one of the first ones that arrived at the hut that day. In fact when I arrived the last ones were just about to leave to Windermere.
There was a friendly volunteer ranger who showed me where I can pitch my tent and gave me lots of other helpful information. Actually she was somehow awaiting me and asked me if I was ‘Matthias, the guy that didn’t show up yesterday’. A bit surprised I said yes and she explained that she had a list of all people who started the walk and Marc, the dutch guy I met on Cradle Mountain, had told her I walked to a different hut. It was surprising but a good feeling to see how well organised the rangers are.
It was around 4pm now and after I pitched my tent and had a wash at the small waterfall behind the old hut I rehydrated some spaghetti. Because it took 1-2 hours to rehydrate I walked around with my camera in the meantime and happened to get some beautiful shots of a black eastern quoll that lives under the old Waterfall Valley Hut. Another ranger had previously told me some quolls were living under the hut and I should store my backpack inside at night, and only a few minutes later a young quoll appeared and had the time to pose for a few photos.
Later, more and more people arrived and suddenly, more and more animals appeared as well. It’s really funny that during daytime you barely see any wallabies and at dusk suddenly they sit everywhere like they had been there all day. I got some great photos of wallabies and later even a wombat appeared, something I was hoping for. I had seen wombats in the wild before, but somehow it’s always interesting again if you see one crossing the track, it looks so cute. Most people there had never seen one before so for the next hour or so the wombat was surrounded by people and cameras. Most wombats I’ve seen so far were shy, but the one here didn’t seem to care at all, no matter how close people came.
I went to sleep quite early because it became a bit chilly when the sun disappeared behind Barn Bluff, and the mosquitos were incredibly annoying. It had been a really great day, swimming in lakes, hiking in the sun, washing at waterfalls and seeing lots of wildlife – exactly the experience I was hoping for.
