Sandi is looking forward to the frogs and the ephemeral pools on top of White Horse Hills this morning... It's not a huge day today, which ends at Mt Wells. We'll be very interested to see the Mt Wells hut as it gets a lot of bad press amongst the walkers: it surely can't be as bad as they say?

Perry wrote:

By morning FUSE was empty and batteries registered full in GPS (though this may not be totally accurate).

Day 10 Google Earth Track

White Horse Mt Wells

Sandi wrote:

had a very good sleep last night and P said his was great. Woke quite early never the less. Stayed up chatting to Jarred last night, he'd lit a fire, always a big attraction for me. So glad to get to camp, P gorgeous encouraging me all the way, I'd taken a full length tumble over a root which knocked me up a bit. A lolly helped over last part.

Perry wrote:

Well, it was my day to plod today -- seemed to have sore feet from the first hour. Can the effects of a big day really skip a day??

Sandi wrote:

So the walk today initially in dull weather with some pale sunlight. Up onto White Horse Hills and it was lovely. You'd have to say forest areas today were very fire affected, quite recently, under-story gone and trees left doing the woolly regrowth thing. However across the granite outcrops was wonderful, pink, blue and donkey orchids. Micro-fringe lilies and all the usual culprits. Some gorgeous straw white/pink daisy drifts.

Sandi wrote:

Was looking forward to a possible pool on top and was not disappointed as one with quite a lot of water remained and had weed and heaps of tiny wee frogs that went scuttering into the water as we came along, and then bobbed up and hopped about amongst the weed. Really enjoyed them. Red flowers on Kennedias again and a pretty neat balancing rock.

Perry wrote:

Had a funny time on top of the granite domes with the frogs and the ephemeral pool (Sandi's main aim for the day) -> rushed over to it and forgot to locate the exit cairns: so when we marched off there was no track! Sandi went back to the last cairn and I circled and we met again on the track.

Sandi wrote:

Really took our time up there, then down through these blackened forests. Saw yellow tailed black cockatoos and then along further a kingfisher, and then a bit further a huge lot of red-tailed cockatoos. Red tails certainly are spectacular when seen against the sky. Saw a clump of the wee yellow orchid with red markings, and I must mention my old encouraging faithful that I've dubbed "the cornflower pimpernel". You can guess it's colour no doubt.

Perry wrote:

The climb up Mt Wells was quite stiff, and maybe we should have had lunch and a break before -- but we'd decided to keep walking because of the showers.

We eventually arrived over the "very eroded track", that must have been fixed previously. Quite a few blogs and notes in the track log speak poorly of this "hut", but they must have recently done a bit of work on it as it was great! In fact, we'd just missed a 4 person work team re-doing the roof and gutters. They actually hadn't finished -- maybe the showers stopped them?

Sandi wrote:

We got in here right on 2pm and had come through intermittent showers from about 11:30 - 12md, just after morning tea. Had our jackets on, but were able to remove them for the climb to get here which was great, as quite humid and we'd postponed lunch.

This hut is worth a mention as is an old fire spotters hut that they're renovating, in fact, according to track log they were here this morning. Has an old fuel stove, windows are boarded and being renewed into proper shutters. It has been fully painted a light grey and ceiling white. They're doing a new roof and there is a skylight in the "kitchen". I guess on a summers day it may feel a bit shut in and gloomy, but not to us today: just very welcome and cosy with predominating weather enabling us to have some shutters open and things airing on small veranda.

P proposed having a mushroom soup with lunch up the fire tower, so we'd taken things up and lit the Jetboil, but a light shower soon meant it was better to come down, particularly to keep camp clothes dry. What a yummy lunch it proved to be with soup (P finished sangy crust in his), our usual cheese and bread followed by a cup of tea and an anzacy bar. Very content feeling. P a bit restless, so has got onto a sleeping mat with sleeping bag as a spot cold and sore bottom. I've had a couple more ticks.

Perry wrote:

View from the tower were awesome -- in and out of the mist -- wind was strong. Quite a cold and stormy afternoon -- incredible that we were sitting dry, with feet in our sleeping bags, drinking hot chocolate!

Had a "special" soup with lunch from the emergency supply because of the cold [and because we could].

We climbed up and down that tower many times: each time it stopped raining we'd climb it to check the view; and the mist made for an awesome sunset.

Perry wrote:

Nice hot dinner (Spaghetti Bolognaise that really tasked like meat) and we're now slowing down for bed with the wind howling outside. Will be very interesting to see the weather tomorrow up on the tower at sunset we had blue sky above us. We've set the alarm so that we can go up for the 6:15am sunrise (info from the GPS).

Mt Wells			S	P	A	T
	Soup	Mushroom & Croutons	4	4	4.0	3.9
	Soup	Bacon & Potato	3.5	3.5	3.5	3.9
	Meal	Spaghetti Bolognaise	4.5	4.5	4.5	4.5

Sandi wrote:

Here I am sitting at a window with open shutters looking out at fairly driving rain that has come in around Mt Wells with mist as well.

Made up a very silly poem today:
A jarrah and a marri were standing side by side
said the jarrah to the marri "would you be my bride?"
But the marri said, "if we should soon be wed"
"our children from two species would be thought as interbred"

Perry wrote:

FUSE has only managed to get to one light today (from empty), and the camera is down to 1 or 2 bars, so we'll put that on to charge and hope that will get us through tomorrow. The GPS batteries also need charging, but the GPS is currently on 4 bars, so will get through tomorrow too (we have Steripen spare batteries if the FUSE can't keep up).

So we snuggled down into our bags in the amazing comfort of Mt Wells with the storm continuing to rage on the other side of the shutters, wondering what tomorrow would bring...

	Distance			Time		Hours			Speed
	Section	Daily	Total	Arrive	Depart	H:M	Daily	Total	Km/h	Daily	Total
White Horse Campsite	0.0				9:15 AM	0:00			0.0
Mt. Wells Campsite	15.3	15.3	178.3	2:00 PM		4:45	4:45	54.7	3.2	3.2	3.3

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