The storm doesn’t always come when we expect it.
Kitchen Hut, with only the top door showing. Aug 2015
I am happy to report my return from my most recent solo mission. I managed to walk, crawl, wrestle, wriggle, stumble and drag my way from Tullah to Cradle.
My objective for the trip was to follow the route of Henry Hellyer’s desperate journey from November 1828 in which Hellyer and his men got hit by a blizzard up near Pencil Pine Bluff and were left with no alternative but to descend into Fury Gorge.
Kim Ladiges braking trail for his clients, July 2016.
The details of this trip I will save for a feature article I intend to write for Wild Magazine. For now, let’s just say that I am happy to have returned. It was a big trip, and I have taken a lot away from it. The country that I walked through is wild country, thick, steep and merciless to the unprepared, but also incredibly rewarding to those who are willing to persevere in the face of many difficulties.
Windy conditions near Pelion Gap, July 2016.
The two rolls of film I shot on this trip are currently in the lab, being developed and scanned. So the images you see in this post are not from my recent trip, but from winter trips I have guided on the Overland Track in the past. I simply thought I would include them here because the conditions they display are not unlike the conditions I experienced in the last two days of my journey. They were also not unlike the conditions Hellyer and his men experienced 194 years ago.
So this one is just a quick memo to say I made it out in the nick o’ time.
-A.S. 26/11/22, Lenah Valley
Clear dawn, Waterfall Valley August 2015.