Trivia Night and Mt Little Joe

Mt LittleJoe

At the end of the Trivia Night we’d arranged to meet at 9am at Checkpoint 8 for our training walk on the Sunday. The usual crew, Fi, Evan, BT, Tony and I were there at about 8:45, with Bec, Maz and Todd arriving around 9. It was bitter, with many of us rugging up in coats and beanies.

This was meant to be one of the tapering-off walks, not too far or arduous. This would take us from Checkpoint 8 along the Warburton Trail to the outskirts of Warburton, then up one of the gullies scaling Mt Little Joe, skirting around the peak and down to the finish. Rather than retracing our path, we were due to take the shortcut down the road back to CP8. Total of about 12klms, not too hilly and no more than about 3 hours.

The walk started easy enough until we started up the little track up the gully. A mild climb to get the heart rate up and the calves burning. Then we hit the wide trail that skirts the peak of Mt LittleJoe and back down. Halfway down the rain kicked in. Best dressed was Ev in his white smock with hood, closely followed by Tony the red turtle. The rain came and went for the rest of the walk.

We reached the bottom of the hill and started climbing again. It was supposed to be a little hill but it was quite steep. After what seemed like quite a climb we passed a turnoff and continued up to what looked like the top. A few walkers passed us going the other way. It wasn’t. The track continued around a bend and then climbed very steeply for a few hundred metres. Due to the rain the track became soft sticky clay that stuck to our shoes. Evan had taken the lead up the track and Bec and Todd soon passed me with Bec (in her Bunnings raincoat) and Tony (no longer the red turtle) soon behind. Fiona and Brett were out of view. We reached the top to be greeted by the skeletal remains of a horse (and a nice smell to match). After a while my phone rang. It was Fiona and we’d missed the turn off. It was the one just below the saddle a 1/3 of the way up the hill. Bugger!

So we headed back down, half running and half sliding. We passed Brett who’s knees were giving him grief again, particularly with the steep downhill. After a few comments of “you’re sure this is the right path”, responded to with “aren’t we supposed to stay together?”, we headed down the correct path. This led to a wide swathe cut through the trees heading down to the footy oval and the finish. Just when you think you’re almost there, the track darts into the trees away from the finish. I suspect they were a few hundred metres short of the 100klms, and had to throw in a slight detour.

As we walked back to the cars at CP8 we contemplated the last leg of the walk. We had feared the worst when we went the wrong way up the last hill, so now we know it’s not so bad. We’ll be pretty tired by the time we start climbing up Mt Little Joe but it’s do’able. Less than two weeks to the BIG day.

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