Input and Output

On Day 3 Kees stumbled in after an even tougher day in the trail. He really pushed himself to the limit but he did it. Another 22 KM.
We stayed in a lovely condo on Prevelly Beach, it even had a washer and dryer so I managed to do our laundry and some work on the computer. That night we had a fantastic dinner in the resort: steamed vegetables, perfect steak, roast potatoes. Dinner never tasted so good. I came to realize that we had not had the best “input” to get the right “output”. You are what you eat and, in Augusta, the motel provided us with some white bread, juice and jam. When we arrive there, at the end of a long hard day, everything in town had just closed. The first night we found greasy fried chicken and fries at a gas station store. The second night, a small cafe stayed open ‘late’ to make us a hamburger. Not good food to hike on. After our steak and veggies dinner I could really feel the energy coming back.

It is hard to imagine the utter isolation of this trail if you are only used to European or North American hiking. Here, there is NOTHING. Once you hit the trail, you are on your own. We might see one or two people in an entire day. There is NO village, no cafe (C2C = Cape to Cape, not Café to Café!), not one place to sit and have a drink. There is not even a bench. When we need a break, all we can do is plop down on the track in the dirt.  No tree trunk, just track and scrub. Generally there is no shade to sit in. We carry daypacks with lots and lots of water.

The way we've come...

There is dead silence except for birds.

Shells on the beach

Sometimes the track is so narrow that we scrape our legs and arms on the scrub. I try to stamp my feet in the hope that the snakes will feel us coming and disappear.
It is daunting to know that you are completely on your own. There is no way out other than forward. There is, mostly, no mobile phone reception. No place to walk to in an emergency. All I do is hope that we don’t need help for there is none. Just wild bush country and us.

Day 4 saw us hiking from Prevelly to Gilbarra homestead. We made it but with no energy to spare so we are both skipping day 5.
The homestead is a gorgeous acreage with a large house and outbuilding. Overhanging verandahs, roses, a pond. Our hosts made us a Thai dinner and we slept like a log. Feeling better now but glad to have a day of rest.  Tomorrow we will continue in our quest to reach Cape Naturaliste.