Daily distance: 16.7km
Total distance: 487.61km
Interesting night.... at about 1.30 we woke to the sound of gunshots close by. These came closer until the vehicle was right opposite our campsite. I was ready to take evasive rolling action, tent and all down the hill, if a shot came our way. The vehicle stopped opposite our camp, spotlight turned onto the tents, and there it sat for what seemed ages. Then moved on, no more shots been fired.....EISH.... Farmers out on Friday night doing some Roo cropping. There I major competition here between sheep farmers and Kangorros. Three Kangorros eat the same as one sheep and seven roo's eat the equivalent to one cow. The farmers get permits to crop them and then go off at night to do the cropping with a spotlight..... luckily we dont look like roo's!
When we climbed the fence to leave the camp site there was a BMW GS motorbike parked there as if it was left for us. Jeff couldn't find any keys so we had to leave it. We descended into the mist from the sunshine above and walked through some really nice eucalyptus bush before the trail turned north along a large paddock. We followed the road for a long time through open grassland paddock areas with the Lofty Range on our west/left side. Stopped for some grub and 2 vehicles came wizzing past.... rush hour in this part of Aus.
After breaky the trail turned west through Niblet Gap down onto the western side of the range. The trail then turned north with spectacular veiws of the wind turbines opposite us. We followed the fence and track north along the base of the ranges for about 5km. A group of hikers, Friends of the Heysen walkers came alone from the opposite direction so we stopped and had a cat h. Turns out they were the vehicles that came past us earlier! Great folks walking the Heysen end to end but a weekend per month over 2 years. They were taken aback that we were doing it in one spell and also in our accents, eventually working them out.
We wished each other farewell and continued on. Jeff found a balloon on the fence tide it to his pack, for emergencies. We found there vehicles parked on the main drag so Jeff tide the balloon to their mirror as a present. The trail crossed the road and went up the mountain on the far side giving us spectacular veiws over the sweeping countryside. The weather was hit and miss with the odd lite drizzle coming down but nothing-to-put-a-poncho-on-about. Over the mountain we went and came out in this most picturesque valleys with bright sunshine. Spectacular!
The hut came into veiw and what a hut it was to. Jeff made a beeline for the dunny to che k for TP as we had run out yesterday, and I went for the hut. On opening the door there were 5 rolls hanging from a hook.....heaven...... Everything went onto the lawn to dry, firewood got cut, we snoozed and just chilled. When the sun went down the polar bears came out in force and the fire wood went on in industrial amounts to keep them at bay. Jeff in a correction on me by the fire and I had a very warm sleep.
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