The Night Walk

We had planned a night walk as part of the OXFAM Trailwalker training for some time and it came about last night. We needed to make sure everyone was comfortable stumbling around on tracks in the dark, getting lost and cold. Well not really.

We met at Grants Picnic Ground (CP3) at about 7:15. We had the usual core team; Fiona, Brett, Evan, myself, Bec and Maz. Rodney dropped off the girls and was going to pick us up at CP5 (Silvan Res.). After a bit of procrastination we headed into the Sherbrooke Forest with the remaining sunlight and a fairly steep climb. We’d done this section two weeks ago (the day after Black Saturday) and I’d forgotten how steep a start it was; the calves soon remembered. We continued on up through the Sherbrooke Forest picnic ground and back into the trails.

The sun was just setting through the trees with a nice orange hue in the sky. I was concerned about some of the corners were we needed to change direction. One was in this part of the forest. Fiona and I were down the back and I had all three copies of the maps. Sure enough, we came to the intersection and the others had continued on the wrong path. Luckily they weren’t too far away.

We skirted around the forest and crossed over to the Alfred Nicholas Gardens. Last time this had been closed, but this time it was open. This meant a nice meandering walk down to the Sherbrooke Creek, not the steep lane we did last time. It looks like this would be an amazing place in the light, lots of ferns and native flora. Halfway down we put the lights on. I’ve never used one of the head lamps before, but was amazed at the light they put out. Mine has two settings, a single bright beam and three smaller lights that spread out more and are less intense. I found this the best for the walk. I couldn’t help thinking back to my Army days navigating across the scrub at night with no light at all.

After this we followed the creek for a while with some precarious drops off the right side. I’m glad we’d done this section in the daylight earlier so we knew what to expect. But then we hit Hacketts Road! That climb is no better in the night that day. The new light made it worse, with all the dust and bugs showing up. After a slow sweaty climb up we continued up to Olinda footy oval. This place had been cold and wet the other week and it was colder now. Our stop was brief!

Heading down the hill and out of the cold wind was much better. The rest of the walk was reasonably uneventful but spirits were high. Even the steep downhill approaching Silvan Reservoir was better than expected. By this time I’d picked up the nickname of “Human Nav-Man”. I suppose it could be worse, and we didn’t get lost.

Rod picked us up at Silvan Res. and took us back to the car at Grants. It was a late night. We’d been walking for about 4hrs 40mins and by the time we got home it was about 1:30. I think the core team are fairly well prepared for the night sections.