Day: 07
Date: Thursday, 24 October 2019
Start: Jones River
Finish: Ouse
Daily Kilometres: 26.4
Total TT Kilometres: 180.8
Weather: Mostly sunny and very warm
Accommodation: Tent
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Picnic and Mars bars
Lunch: Trail Mix
Dinner: Hamburger with the lot, chips and a milkshake.
Aches: Feeling good apart from tired/sore feet near the end of the day.
Highlight: The ford of the Broad River, which while quite challenging (flowing strongly and groin deep), came at exactly the right time to wash my shoes and socks which were caked in greasy grey mud after I got caught in a bog while trying to get around a big puddle a couple of kilometres earlier. After ten minutes slowly and carefully negotiating the rocky river, shoes and socks were clean (relatively).
Lowlight: It's a public holiday in southern Tasmania (Royal Hobart Show Day) that I hadn't counted on in my planning. I hoped to pick up a self-mailed food parcel at the Post Office in Ouse, but it was closed, and I'll have to delay leaving Ouse tomorrow until after the PO opens at 9am. I had also hoped to get an evening meal at the town pub (and, forlornly, accommodation) but was told no accommodation and no meals because of the public holiday. Not a big deal, as the camp area in town is fine and I got an early dinner at the town roadhouse.
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
I woke to a beautiful mild morning and took my time packing up to give the tent flysheet some time to (partially) dry. I was hiking on the gravel backroad following the Jones River westwards by 7:45am. I had about 4km to reach a more major road, and for most of that distance, a ewe and two lambs, who must have escaped from a paddock somewhere, trotted fearfully along the road in front of me. They tried a few gates without success, but would not let me sneak past and end their trek. The last I saw of them, they were trotting off into the distance along the sealed road to Hobart.
Apart from feeling some guilt about the plight of the fleeing sheep, I enjoyed a beautiful morning walk with wisps of mist in front of some of the hills with the rest of the peaceful valley bathed in sunshine. It was already T-shirt weather, despite a cool night.
After the short sealed road section, came a long stretch of old logging tracks through mostly regrowth pine forest. It was a bit scrappy and boggy in parts, with the route chosen to avoid a forestry road, perhaps unnecessarily. In one of the bogs, I badly misjudged the depth of the mud and before I knew it was sinking to calf level and in fear of having my shoes sucked off. I finally extracted myself and was lucky that the Broad River crossing came soon after (see above).
From there, the trail returned to civilisation, crossing the Derwent River just below Lake Repulse and the Repulse Power Station. There followed a long hot walk along a baked clay road to Ouse. The scenery was pleasant and the road pretty much deserted, but it was hard work and I was sweating buckets.
Happily, I reached the tiny village of Ouse, my goal for the day, at 3:30pm and quickly bought an ice-cream and cold Diet Coke at the town store, which I consumed in the shaded town bus shelter. Later, I struck out for both accommodation and a meal at the town pub, so had an early dinner at the town roadhouse and then trekked the 0.5km to the former town sports field, now used as a campsite for the TT and for grazing sheep. The camping facilities are good, and I'm happy.
There's a severe weather warning for tomorrow, with gale force winds preceding a cold front bringing rain and snow down to 800m. No doubt I'll soon be dreaming of T-shirt hiking again.
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