Day 43 – Boundary Hut to Double Hut

I woke to my alarm this morning in an experiment to see if I can arrive at my destination before dark, by waking before dark.  I’m taking baby steps though: the sun rose just as I was enjoying the hut’s well-built long drop, which has an eastward-facing door.  Tonight I’ll set the alarm half an hour earlier, for a real test.

Starting out, I immediately had to cross two very cold streams, leaving me with numb feet. The first job of the day was a steep climb up untracked and unmarked terrain to a plateau in the Dogs Range at 1200m. I took this slowly, pausing often to admire the views and recover my breath.  My feet soon thawed out.

Once at the top, it was easy going across low tussock. The sun got warmer as I went, and soon I came to the opposite side of the plateau and a beautiful panorama. Lake Heron was not far below, it’s shape resembling a 70’s electric guitar, with a round bottom and two points on top, curling up and around the sides of Sugarloaf, a large isolated hill standing where the guitar’s neck would be. Sugarloaf reflected in the glossy finish – er, I mean still waters – of Lake Heron.

I had a bit of gorse trouble descending from the plateau, and once I got down into the farmlands, I had a run-in with a muddy stream just barely too wide to jump. But other than that it was easy cruising the rest of the day, around Lake Heron and up the Swin River to Double Hut.  Somebody put a solar-powered garden light atop a fencepost near the hut, which would be very useful for finding it in the dark. But I finally broke my streak and arrived an hour and a half before sunset!