Last weekend, Mick and Pete completed the team's first Night Walk, exciting enough to use capital letters. We started on Sun at 11pm, the evening of Pete's 29th. A great way to celebrate.
We drove out to the Mt Ku-Ring-Gai end of Bobbin Head National Park and got our gear on, Pete looking resplendent in his brand new Skins (and henceforth retracting all negative comments he's ever made about Spandex). We wandered up towards Mt K' Station to find the entrance to the Crosslands track.
After going all the way down a side street and all of the side street's side streets, we found the walk on the first corner. Okay, so we did a hill warm up. Fun. We strapped on the headlights and were dismayed at how much the beam of light was blinding us. It was foggy and concretey and very hard to see, and we hoped it wouldn't remain like that for long. Fortunately, it didn't. We entered the bush and it became a lot easier on the eyes (like Pete in his new Spandex!).
Crosslands is a fairly bumpy, rocky, rivery track and a tough way to break in our first Night Walk. It requires a lot of concentration, as you have to light the way a little ahead and not directly at your feet and hence remember what you're about to step on; you can only see three metres ahead. Pete stomped out ahead and Mick enjoyed the view from behind.
We stopped at a cave on the path while it rained and we snacked, and I have to say it was very beautiful. The light from our headlamps and the quiet, the rain and the bush. All very serene at nighttime and worth it for this alone. But we had a long way to go so we couldn't enjoy it for long, and when you stop it gets cold fast.
Pete fell into a river pretty soon after that. He has come up with this whole thing about lack of visibility and proprioception and the like, but the end result was that he was submerged from the waist down. The Skins, I have to say, kept me warm even despite a freezing 2am river, so points to them.
We made a quick detour to Crosslands camping ground, not realising it wasn't actually on the way to Berowra, then went back to the main path and headed up an incredibly steep hill. Mick reckons being unable to see where we were going made it easier to trudge onwards.
When we reached the top and took a wrong turn to Berowra Heights (seeing a pattern?), Pete found an awesome Tefal saucepan on a pile of crap and joyously carried it for the remaining 20kms home. Non-stick, great condition - score!
We made our way into the Berowra end of Bobbo and walked the eight riparian kilometres to the picnic area. Our headlamps were beginning to fade at this point (10h of light my arse, lying bastards!), but the sun was coming up so it was all good. On our way back up to the car, we were passed by a couple of 6am joggers, who we have to admit, were pretty damned soft for going to bed before their little exercise. The REAL men don't need sleep beforehand.
At about 9am we made it to the top, feeling a little worse for wear but proud to have completed our first ever Night Walk. It was 32.5kms all up, which is a good walk by any standards.
We feel prepared now. Bring on the Trailwalker!!
Here's a map of the route we walked, wrong ways and all:
http://www.mapmyhike.com/routes/view/37348368/
