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--- 195808 [2016/04/07 19:23] – [The Humble Tent Peg] kennettj
+++ 195808 [2016/04/25 20:56] (current) – [All on a Summer's Day] kennettj
@@ Line 133: / Line 133: @@
 immediately about were unharmed. After the nightmare journey in the country due for flooding, this was a real haven: there was even a little water in isolated holes in the creek. A dry hot wind was beginning, and clearing away the smoke overcast that had sheltered me so far, so I put a shirt on. Presumably ,I looked like the famous Pelaco advertisement.
-Beyond the clearing I could see the hazy ridges where Fritz Creek rises. There seemed to be no obviouS saddle, but perhaps it lay behind a big bluff topped with cliffs - that may even be my Broken Rock.
+Beyond the clearing I could see the hazy ridges where Fritz Creek rises. There seemed to be no obvious saddle, but perhaps it lay behind a big bluff topped with cliffs - that may even be my Broken Rock.
 Shortly before nine I started, turning up Fritz Creek. There was a track at first, but perhaps just an animal pad, and in a mile it disappeared in thickets of scorched bushes. I was coming under the shadow of the cliffy bluff, so turned up a spur. After a few hundred feet I could see my ridge was going straight up towards the cliffs, and by ten o'clock I was making a sidle on steep crumbling shale slopes a little way below the cliffs. The heat was increasing, and though the wind was dry from the west, sweat was streaming down and stinging in the cuts from scorched-sharp bushes.
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 Just as the ancients boasted their deeds in song and story, so the ancients of S.B.W. prepare to blow their own battered trumpets with a repeat performance of that operatic epic "By Jet With Geof", the story of the eighty-five miler, on the free night - 20th August.
 The following Wednesday should prove to be an evening of exceptional interest as Geoff Broadhead will show movies of Eastern Asia, China and U.S.S.R.
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 Mick Elfick and myself comprised the team, with Mike Peryman and two other Hobnails starting from Picton.
-At 8 o'clock:we started along the road, arriving at Coates' farm 9.15 p m. A grand circle was then taken at a very solid pace and we were at the  farm again at 10.00 p m., camping in the old hut (a most elusive hut) by 11 p m.
+At 8 o'clock we started along the road, arriving at Coates' farm 9.15 p m. A grand circle was then taken at a very solid pace and we were at the farm again at 10.00 pm, camping in the old hut (a most elusive hut) by 11 p m.
-.00 a m. Friday morning we stepped out of the hut and set sail for the Nattai, reaching there about 7.10 a m., After a slight delay we were away at a great rate of knots (14 m p.h.) until the Alum River hove in sight at 9 a m. Five minutes for chunder and we're off again. Martins Creek flitted past at 10.10 and we stepped across Shea's Creek at 12.20, had lunch, and were off by 1 p m. We were now following Mike Peryman's footprints (a theoretical 6 hours ahead). 2.15 found us edging past picnickers at the Nattai Bridge to see Mike's time, which was 5 hours ahead. NO time to rest now, and down the Nattai we
+.00 a m. Friday morning we stepped out of the hut and set sail for the Nattai, reaching there about 7.10 a m. After a slight delay we were away at a great rate of knots (4 m p.h.) until the Alum River hove in sight at 9 a m. Five minutes for chunder and we're off again. Martins Creek flitted past at 10.10 and we stepped across Shea's Creek at 12.20, had lunch, and were off by 1 p m. We were now following Mike Peryman's footprints (a theoretical 6 hours ahead). 2.15 found us edging past picnickers at the Nattai Bridge to see Mike's time, which was 5 hours ahead. No time to rest now, and down the Nattai we
 staggered to the 'Dilly, which we crossed twice, and eventually regained the road, practically crawling into Bimlow Bridge in the slow time of 3.40 p m.
-(The leader says the party must walk faster.) After a couple of minutes break for a drink, we began to stalk towards Bimlow. Having side-stepped at least two of the Sergeant Major's ambushes we walked into the banked-up Cox at 5.40 p m. My spirits almost sank when I saw the water over the road for it was getting dark and we had to climb several hundred feet and traverse around at that height on a slope of 600 (ahem) back onto the road i mile away. It was dark by this and we pushed along the road to Green Wattle Creek, sidled another small mountain and reached the food depot at 1.55 p m. and McMahons at 7.20 p m. We forded the river and climbed over the hill and dropped down to a rather deep Cox River for camp in the open at 8.00.
+(The leader says the party must walk faster.) After a couple of minutes break for a drink, we began to stalk towards Bimlow. Having side-stepped at least two of the Sergeant Major's ambushes we walked into the banked-up Cox at 5.40 p m. My spirits almost sank when I saw the water over the road for it was getting dark and we had to climb several hundred feet and traverse around at that height on a slope of 600 (ahem) back onto the road 1 mile away. It was dark by this and we pushed along the road to Green Wattle Creek, sidled another small mountain and reached the food depot at 1.55 p m. and McMahons at 7.20 p m. We forded the river and climbed over the hill and dropped down to a rather deep Cox River for camp in the open at 8.00.
 .00 Saturday morning, three pathetic, shivering figures hobbled across the icy Cox OH THE PAIN - and then turned themselves in the direction of Mecca and shuffled along the Cox to Commodore, where Mick and Freddy must poke around inside a tank. Over the Policeman to Kill's Hut and wonder of wonders Mike is only 1 hours ahead. With fresh incentive we repair our pace and reach the Kowmung at 9.40 a m. Mick and I are both thinking - if only Geoff was here. Kanangra River showed itself at 11.30 am, twenty minutes for chunder, and then off again, reaching Harry's River at 2.15. Forty minutes for lunch and the hours to Gibralter Creek and I'm feeling crook (that large tin of Youngberries). 4.40 p m. and we head for home up the track, losing it and reaching the road just on darkness. We blunder a little and eventually reach Mitchell's Creek for a last quick snack. 7.55 and three almost exhausted, but very contented, bods step onto the cliff drive at the top of Devil's Hole.
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 In future if the camp is made at Wilsons Creek the first night (quite a reasonable and simple matter) as it should have been, the hundred miler becomes much more feasible.
-AND NOW FCR THE THREE PEAKS!
+AND NOW FOR THE THREE PEAKS!
 ====== Here I Belong ======
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 "We've been here too long" quothe Johnny, bouncing on his toes to flex his calf muscles.
-Psychologically I'd been prepared for an hour-long rest here. I already had the feeling that I'd done a good day's walk and was quite prepared to settle down for a couple of hours, leisurely cook and eat, then possibly choof a few hundred feet up the ridge for the night. Manning, Elfick, Freddy Worral and the Famous Higgins on the other hand were looking forward with keen anticipation to their stock of goodies (no less than a dozen tins) that Freddy had lugged out a few weekends previously and cached near Guauogang trig. As men's aspiration follows closely his food supply, the above mentioned set off for the summit, while Snow and I, trying to make the best of two worlds, ate my tea on the river and his on the top. Mike Peryman and Dough Doughnut, who were also doing a spot of cooking, waited too.
+Psychologically I'd been prepared for an hour-long rest here. I already had the feeling that I'd done a good day's walk and was quite prepared to settle down for a couple of hours, leisurely cook and eat, then possibly choof a few hundred feet up the ridge for the night. Manning, Elfick, Freddy Worral and the Famous Higgins on the other hand were looking forward with keen anticipation to their stock of goodies (no less than a dozen tins) that Freddy had lugged out a few weekends previously and cached near Guouogang trig. As men's aspiration follows closely his food supply, the above mentioned set off for the summit, while Snow and I, trying to make the best of two worlds, ate my tea on the river and his on the top. Mike Peryman and Dough Doughnut, who were also doing a spot of cooking, waited too.
 By 3.30 we'd eaten everything we felt we reasonably could and began to pick our way between the nettles to the foot of the ridge. The last big climb we told each other, forgetting for the moment all about the climb back to Katoomba. One thing was certain, it was the last climb for the day - our day. She had been beautiful and kept her beauty even now as her life drew to its close. The great white moon already well clear of the earth foretold her end and we toiled upwards on the twisting, spiney ridge that lay like the scaly tail of a dragon, who slept while we St. Georges took him in the rear.