It was wet.
It rained every day.
A lot.
This was no bad thing though. Although Monica, the kids and I have done lots of walking in preparation for our impending pilgrimage, we have not done a lot in poor weather. The whole purpose of our time in the bush was to get some serious bushwalking done. And we did but we also got to test our preparations for walking in serious rain.
Day one we walked from our campsite out to the Fig Tree Circuit (image below) just south of Kenilworth. It was a return trip of about 10km and pretty easy going. One of our friends we were walking with, Imogen, discovered a feral lime tree which she promptly harvested for use later that evening in our G&T's.
The last 15 minutes or so of the walk saw torrential rain bucket down. We dragged out our coats and soldiered on arriving back at our Austrack Camper sodden but content.
Day Two we attacked the Mt Allen Walk, an 8.8km return circuit of torturous terrain, 4 there and 4 back. Normally we would walk that distance in well less than 2 hours. It took 4. The top of Mt Allen was almost 600 metres above sea level, our camp I have discovered since was about 150m. The first kilometre was pretty much flat meaning that a rise of about 450 metres in around 3km. It was very steep, indeed in some places absolutely ridiculous. It tested us all quite a bit, with only light showers falling on occasion it made it quite lovely though. There is something about walking in mountains in misty weather that refreshes the soul. Below are two images, one that shows the view about half way up, the other Monica and Zoe on a particularly steep bit, of course the picture does not really show just how steep it was. You had to be there :)
Day Three saw us do a short walk as the circuit we wanted to attack had been smashed by recent floodwaters. Only about 3km in all that morning.
Day Four we went exploring. We walked about 15 kilometres up some quite steep terrain and along some beautiful rainforest creeks and finally found the Sunday Creek Road after about 3 hours. We walked a further 45 minutes or so back down into our campsite. It was a pretty wet walk, we experienced light misty rain, torrential downpours and even some patches of sunlight. All our gear got a good work out. Our boots proved to be magnificent, our coats kept us dry.
So all in all we walked about 36 or 37 kilometres in four days, much of it uphill, a good bit of it in some unpleasant weather.
I have titled this post, What A Difference A Week Makes because until now we haven't had a repeated experience of having to get up and go the very next day when your body has not had time to recover, when your gear is still a bit damp, when you haven't enjoyed a particularly good night's sleep. I think our wet camping week taught us a lot about what lays ahead on the Camino de Santiago.
And I'm excited. We did okay. In fact it was quite enjoyable, cathartic even.
Buen Camino Peregrinos!
Shane
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