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| Day 3 and things were beginning to get tough... Apparently the track ended at the Sentinels, an interesting rocky outcrop standing guard high over the lake. We recalled that the book's instructions said something about finding a faint footpad that led down to the lake from the left side of the outcrop... or was it to the right? We had both read the instructions, and had thought we'd remember them, and thus had left the book behind in the car. We were confident we had it correct, and sure enough there seemed to be a 'footpad'. Or was it a wombat trail? Most likely a wombat trail, we discovered, as the track quickly disappeared. Simon and I had already descended quite a way by now, and we knew the lake was directly below us. In fact we could catch glimpses of it now and then. So we pressed on. It simply got harder and harder. We scrambled over rocks, amongst thickets of stunted trees, crawled under branches and scratched ourselves on various spiky objects. Simon's drink bottle was the first casualty, plucked from the side of his backpack by the dense vegetation, lost forever. But the worst was to come. When finally the vegetation thinned out we found ourselves on a precarious slope with no firm footing, on a slippery slide of unstable rocks. We creeped and crawled and occasionaly slid excrutiatingly slowly down towards the lake, trying not to twist ankles. Our legs shook with the tension of walking on such an incline. It was a constant battle just to stay upright. It was even mentally as well as physicaly difficult, having to concentrate so carefully on not losing our footing. We finally made it down to the bottom, about three long hours later. Just in time to collapse from exhaustion into bed. We reached the creek that flowed into the the lake, and emerged from the trees onto the lake shore late in the day. A few other hikers bathing in the lake near the creek were suprised to see us appear from seemingly nowhere. The campfire and dinner were definately appreciated that night. After Simon's dip in the (freezing) lake we crashed into our sleeping bags. In comparison the steep climb out of the lake the next day was easy... it was on a track! The track eventually looped back to where we had previous walked, and we finally made it back to the car, in one piece. With the book now in hand, we read the walk description, and realised just how wrong we had been! A footpad off to the west... onto a small saddle, and on the highest point of the spur? Not quite! Well, we had made it anyway. Next time we'll photocopy the pages and take it with us. |