What an interesting day… on the river,
There was a lot of rain overnight but luckily everything in my tent remained dry-ish (dry for a tent at least). I actually got a good night’s sleep in as well… I must be getting use to my tent it seems, its been almost 3 weeks right? It was just a mission breaking down camp this morning, but I made it work in between the rain showers and was ready to walk to the river tour (canoe) operator by 6:30am. I had to transfer the contents of my backpack into barrels (in an attempt to keep things dry). I helped loading some of the canoes while other people showed up and by 8am we were all on the road to the drop-off point on the river. A safety briefing, a rumble and a fiddle later and I was on the river.
Wow, what an experience… since I haven’t been on a river like this in years. It brought back some interesting memories while taking on the first rapids of the day, Easy ones, not much to do other than stay in the boat, steer and row.
Not too many photographs, since the phone was packed away in a drybag and secured. I was travelling with “Betty” the Ballast Barrel in the front of the canoe… you might see her in some of the photos. She carries her weight well and is a good communicator, but rubbish at rowing. Anyway, we need to stick together for the next couple of days.
The scenery was awesome, I didn’t always knew where to look and again my camera could not capture the true scale of this river gorge. My life feels pretty insignificant looking at how many hundreds of years it took to shape this gorge. There are forces at work in here on a different time scale to what I can try to imagine.
Stopped for lunch, and again quickly for a late afternoon snack before “getting on” a bit. The wind was picking up and the shadows were getting longer, but I reached John Coull Hut just after 6pm ish.
I was grateful to be here, not having to tent, but it was pretty busy and full ON. Lots of people here and I get the feeling not many of them have ever spent a night in a hut – taking other people into consideration. Ugh… it sounds like dinosaurs walking in the room next-door with 25 conversations all happening at once and nobody was listening to anyone. I was trying to get some sleep and strangely my legs were not hurting… but my arms were. Will see how I feel in the morning.
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39.2331 – 174.9145
17 December 2024
FP-341
2 responses to “John Coull Hut – Day 72.”
Indeed a bit of a mission packing up!
Betty please take care of Phil 🙃
That river gorge scenery – just WOW!
Insignificant is the word!
Gosh hope you got some sleep with those dinosaurs and 25 conversations.. Phew!
A lot more work went into your arms..(I know the legs also do some work.. But after your last 3 weeks.. your legs are most definitely more trained than your arms 🙃)
Let’s see in the morning as you say “-)
I am pretty well versed is setting and breaking camp, but I don’t like to pack a wet tent. Reason 1 is that I am carrying more weight in water, 2 – on the outside of my pack (instability and could possibly lose it) and 3 – dripping water down my pack and bum and pants the whole day.
I moved my luggage and tied Betty up a little different and she did well on day 3. LOL. She is also looking after the boat at night.
The scenery is incredible 😍 here.