Overland Track - Day 2

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THE MORNING dawned cold and clear. I headed down from the forest campsite to the clearing below to watch the sun rise as a trail of cloud formed at the edge of the drop into a valley far below and crossed the low valley to the south of where I was standing.

In the quietness of the early morning I headed across to the hut and explored it inside. It was quite new and very well built and designed with the southern gabled wall covered in windows with a spectacular view of Barn Bluff now capturing the first rays of light from the rising sun.

I headed back to the camp for breakfast and a relaxing morning before we set off heading towards the next hut at Windermere. Today's hike was quite a bit shorter than yesterday, starting with heading across the low valley and following the reasonably flat heathland terrain circling a couple of kilometres out from Barn Bluff. Following the board walk over a long and low rise, we started descending towards a distant small lake, reaching a large platform at a junction a couple of hundred metres short of it.

From the junction we left our packs and walked along a narrow boardwalk through the scrub towards Barn Bluff, gradually descending until we reached Lake Wills. Here we stopped for lunch at one of the two sandy beaches. There were other groups who were hiking the track with us at the other end of the beach, and a lot more people at the other beach. We rested watching the clear and dark water with the rising slopes of Barn Bluff towering on the other side. A few people had a swim in the cold water.

Following lunch, we followed the track back through the heathland scrub to the junction, where we picked up our packs and continued hiking passing the little Lake Holmes before starting a gradual ascent towards the top of a low ridge at the edge of a steep drop from where we had spectacular views of the middle of the park. Below us were numerous small lakes in the sprawling forest, the largest of these was Lake Windermere, with the hut just visible beyond its far side.

Beyond the lake Mount Pelion West rose towards the high clouds, and further beyond stood the peaks of Mount Ossa, Castle Crag and Mount Pelion East. They all appeared quite distant, but already significantly closer than they had appeared when we first saw them whilst coming around Cradle Mountain yesterday.

From the rocky lookout, we continued following the rocky track heading moderatey downhill back into the first forest we've seen since leaving Waterfall Valley. It was not long before we reached the swampy flats at the bottom of the valley. From here we continued along gravel and boardwalk track continuing towards Lake Windermere. Eventually the track reached the side of the lake and followed above it through very gnarly open forest before rising the gentle slope up to the clearing where the new Windemere Hut had recently opened. We continued a few more metres before turning off along the boardwalk into the forest to the group camping ground, a larger and much more recently constructed camp than last night's one. The timber in the shelter hadn't even discoloured.

Here we set up camp before I headed to the hut to explore it whilst the others got into a game of 500. The hut was very flash. The original hut was still standing tucked away in the bush and now the ranger's hut. After exploring the area I returned to the camp where the others were still playing cards and mentioned they had seen a wombat walk right past the camping ground. We prepared and had dinner. By now the sky had completely clouded over and there wasn't any sunset colour tonight.