rain and food and rain and food

 

shelter! 

It was such a relief to have a proper roof over my head - I could hear the rain hammering all night. 

It was also good to have some time for life admin in the morning- checking credit card bills and ATO payments doesn?t go away when you try to check out from the real world. That being taken care of, I made my way to the IGA to get some fresh fruit and greens for the next few days and then went back to the cafe I went to yesterday for breakfast. One of the things apart from veggies I have been craving are eggs - so smashed avo with poached eggs and fresh salsa really hit the spot! 

It was still pouring, even though BOM was confident that it would stop by 11am and the rain radar didn?t even show clouds (hence BOM?s confidence I guess). So I just enjoyed the cafe, updated the blog and hoped for the best. I eventually decided to have one of the amazing looking cinnamon rolls they had on display - wow, best decision ever! Birger and I might have to come back here next month! 

I eventually made it back to the motel, packed up all my stuff in extra plastic bags and tried to rainproof myself as much as possible and plodded off into the rain. It was supposed to have stopped an hour earlier, right? 

Given my late start, I had planned to cut off the first bit via Gloucester tree, as I?d been there before and thought Birger and I might come back in a few weeks anyway. On the map, it looked like I could just cut across through the forest to some cascades along the river and rejoin the Bibbulmun track there. Well... there had obviously been (prescribed) burns in the last few days and everything was black, still smouldering and the ground was really soft ash and spot and debris with no discernible trail. After about 5 min of bushbashing, I decided to get on the proper track and just follow it. 

So instead of saving myself 5km, I probably did 3km extra, but it was still only a 20ish km day. 

For the first hour, it was still pouring, but eventually the rain eased and it was quite pleasant walking. The mosses and ferns reminded me of Tasmania. 

The Karri trees are interesting as in the fact that they are shedding their bark. It has the most amazing colours. 

Just as I walked out of the forest onto some farmland, the rain stopped and there was actually a bit of blue sky!  

And a bit later, the sun came out- for about 4 min

I arrived at Warren campsite by about 5pm - and to my surprise, given the weather, there were already four guys there. A father and son walking the same direction as me and two guys in their 50s who were doing 4 days from northcliffe to Pemberton, so the other direction. They had already pretty much taken up all the space in the shelter, but were happy to make room for me. Given the weather. I really didn’t have much desire to put up my tent. 

As I was cooking dinner, they were already getting ready for bed - when I asked whether anyone was snoring, they all went very quiet. And then all of them went “aaah, sorry...”. So earplugs it will be. 

I am probably the only person on this track who is NOT craving meat pies and burgers (ok, I did have pizza last night...), but vegetables. So I bought a bunch of broccoli this morning which will go into tonight’s noodles. I am pretty sure this is the first time someone is cooking broccoli at Warren shelter.