Our third day in the Cobboboonee Forest, our longest so far, brought us to another nice camp nestled in the forest.
It was again nice overnight, maybe a little warmer than the day before.
Cell reception was poor last night, but this morning, I was able to get an updated fire report. As I expected, the total fire ban remained in effect for today, since it’ll also be hot, but with (much) cooler weather blowing in overnight there’s no ban for tomorrow. Which is good; tomorrow we’ll be able to have a hot meal (and coffee, for CareFree).
We were up shortly after six, and left camp about 7:30, much earlier than we’d managed yesterday. Unsurprisingly, ants got into our food bag. Fortunately, our actual food is double- or triple-bagged, so it wasn’t a problem, except for having to shake ants out, but they did get into CareFree’s trash bag, which we put inside a second ziplock bag to keep the ants contained.
This morning, while it was still cool out, we saw (and heard) no end of birds, including Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (who were quite loud while we were below them), Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, and the bright red Crimson Rosella.
We also saw a few wallabies, including one sitting directly on the trail. There were some emu droppings, but we didn’t see any of the birds. Later in the day, CareFree saw an echidna, but by that time I saw it, I only got enough of a glimpse to tell I saw something before it disappeared.
Gradually climbing since we started, the trail took us over a ridgetop that had the feeling of being on top of everything. Or, at least, the local everything. The ground also started to become more sandy, with a stunting effect on the trees.
We stopped at Cobboboonee Camp, 11 km from Cut Out Camp, for an hour-long snack break, and also to refill on water, since we still had another 12 km to Fitzroy Camp, our destination for today. The sun came out briefly, but the sky quickly became overcast again.
The trail, or at least, its guidebook, makes a somewhat big deal of the “tall forests” of the Cobboboonee, but the trees don’t really seem to be that tall compared to other forests. Maybe they are tall for Australia?
The rest of the way to Fitzroy Camp, the trail snaked its way north, climbing up and down over short ridges. Somehow, even though the low point of the day was 60 meters and the high point 110, we managed 460 meters of elevation gain. Quite a lot of gentle bouncing around.
A few kilometers away from Fitzroy Camp, the trail passed through a burn area caused by a lightning strike in 2019. With plenty of space between trees and meter-high brush, we half expected to see an emu here. (We didn’t.)
We made it to camp around 2:15, only shortly after we arrived to camp yesterday, chased by a cloud of flies and darker clouds that felt like they wanted to rain on us. We saw no one else today, not even people in cars.
I’m not feeling as tired as I did yesterday, despite the longer day; I credit the slightly cooler temperature and lack of direct sun.
After relaxing for a bit, we gathered water from the water tank, and got a few worms in the water. Although the filter would easily keep them out, there was no sense running wormy water unnecessarily through, so we used that water to wash off our feet (which felt quite good), and fashioned a pre-filter with my camp towel and a hair band. (This also slightly reduced the yellow tint to the water.)
The rest of the evening passed uneventfully, and much the same as yesterday. Our cold-soaked dinners were cold, but still good. A couple of raindrops fell as we started eating, but nothing substantial. (There’s a chance of rain sometime overnight.) Around 7, the sun briefly came out as it dipped below the cloud layer. The birds started a screech-fest for about an hour, and then eventually quieted.
I feel like I haven’t had enough food. I packed much less for this trip than I normally do, and it’s starting to show. Unfortunately, we didn’t pack much slack since we had an itinerary for reaching Nelson we have to keep, but now we’re almost halfway there, and it’ll be a lot cooler the next few days, so it shouldn’t be a big problem. Still, it’s a strange feeling, since too little food is usually not my problem on-trail.
Tomorrow, we’ll be leaving the Cobboboonee National Park for the Lower Glenelg National Park, as we transition to hiking a few days along the river. Hopefully, that’ll let us see a platypus!