Day: 05
Date: Tuesday, 22 October 2019
Start: New Norfolk
Finish: Bushy Park
Daily Kilometres: 23.1 TT (+1.2 other)
Total TT Kilometres: 124.3
Weather: Mostly sunny and mild to warm
Accommodation: B&B
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Egg & bacon croissant
Lunch: Ham salad roll
Dinner: Tomato soup and rye bread, bangers and mash
Aches: Feet still very tired/sore
Highlight: I really enjoyed the bucolic scenery as I traversed the Black Hills on a very quiet back road under a warm sun, with some snow-capped mountains in the far distance.
Lowlight: None really.
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
Knowing that I only had about 24km to walk in total, and wouldn't be able to check into my B&B until after 3pm, I slept in, and took my time to pack before leaving the motel and walking into New Norfolk to have breakfast at the nice bakery I found yesterday. While there, I also bought a salad roll to take with me for lunch on the trail (road),
I left the bakery around 9:30 and spent the first few kilometres on suburban footpaths (sidewalks) including crossing the Derwent River (which I was to cross again at the end of my day's hike). Although suburban walking is not a highlight, I enjoy watching everybody going about their usual daily activities, feeling somewhat like an observer from another planet. People exercising, shopping, mowing lawns, watering gardens, primary school kids playing cricket in a Phys Ed class, and so on.
The day was warming up, and I soon stripped down to my T-shirt for the first time on thi trip.
Originally, without checking the map, I assumed I would be following the Derwent River upstream for the day, but in fact, the TT took backroads over the Black Hills before dropping back down to the river late in the day. The climb was long, though not particularly steep, and overlooked a rural valley where I could see small holdings and observe farmers going about their various activities. There were some small forested sections and then a sort of plateau before the road, which was very quiet, turned to gravel and began an equally long descent providing good views to the north and west. The farms were larger on this side, with few trees and vast grassy fields sweeping up the side of the mountain.
I leaned against a farm gate to eat a late lunch in the sun and watched with interest a flock of white cockatoos in the distance, trying to work out which bird was making the decisions for the group as to which tree to perch in, and when to fly. It seemed a bit random, but I'm sure PhD's have been written on the subject.
After lunch, I had another 10km to the B&B, half of it along a busier road that followed a gorge created by the Derwent, before I descended to cross the river, pass through some hop fields and reach my quaint B&B set in a large garden around 4pm. They provide a limited dinner menu, which I signed up for, there being no other nearby dinner options. It turned out to be delicious, homemade from local produce, and I ate it on their front verandah on a beautiful mild evening.
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