Day 22. Can it get any tougher?

What a day. I just don’t know how to describe it. In every way it nearly beat me and I have no idea how it didn’t.

We started the day with none of our washing dry so had to pack wet clothes into the suitcase hoping we can get things dry tonight. Breakfast was okay but not great and we were promised a ride 2-3 kms up the mountain which we were willing to take. No sooner did we walk outside and the man took off in his car without us. We started walking and although the first km was on tarmac it was a very steep uphill. With full packs of water on board it’s quite demoralising to hit such a steep incline straight away. The road then turned to rubble and then a track through forest and then back onto a rubble road again. All the time it was steep and I started counting steps and giving myself a breather every 150 steps which soon became every 100. At one stage I realised the noise I thought I could hear was actually my heart beat in my ears and head. It was exhausting. After about 3 km the route went off road over some extremely sharp rugged roads only for us to realise 300mts later that we could have stuck to the road. The road ended at a hut where a bloke sold snacks and where we could fill our water bottles at his water source. The bloke was the one that had driven off without us. It had taken us nearly an hour and a half to get there.

We were then directed to a ladder around the back of his hut and the real fun began. Straight up at over 30% incline over slippery rocks, shale, boulders, fallen logs muddy paths you name it. It was the toughest walk I’ve ever done. We climb over a 1000 metres in elevation. I just about gave up, but the thought of turning around and going back down was just too much. At times I was saying to myself ‘just 20 more steps, just 20 more steps’. When you have to concentrate so hard on where to place your next footstep you don’t have a lot of time to think about other things, but I knew the negative thoughts were creeping in. I really believe trekking is about 80% in the mind. You need a certain amount of fitness but it really is mental toughness that keeps you going. There has got to be a real belief that all you are asking of your body is for it to take another step. I was wondering if I could and thinking it would be so easy to just stop. I had to switch into problem solving mode and work out how to best win this situation, and decided I was just going to take 20 step bites, 30 if there was any sort of flat and just stop for 3 calming breaths. It was going to be my new rhythm. Nearly to the top we stopped and talked to a couple of poms who call themselves Aussie and they let us know we were nearly there but when I asked what the other side was like they just said ‘you don’t want to know’.

Then just when we came to a fork in the trail with another last up section a German man told us to take the alternate path. He said even though it was not marked the path was clearly defined and ended on a road out onto a flat basin. We took it and for the next 15 mins we were heading down. We realised we had passed the high point. We came out onto the basin and found a camping hut to sit and have our lunch. It had taken us 4 and a half hours to cover 6 km.

The rest of the trail was downhill all the way, and also steep for most of it. We lost our way twice and had to double back and also had to contend with the same ankle breaking surfaces. We both had minor slips but managed to stay upright. At one stage we walked along the edge of a huge gully with steep cliff faces that were eroding and collapsing. The gully was filled with scree in parts as the result of landslides.

We entered town next to a camping hut next to a water fountain and were excited to see The Hare from the day before. At least he had dryish digs for the night. He also said it was a very tough day but felt that tomorrow will be easier. By the time we found our guesthouse we had clocked up 7 and a half hours of walking to do 12km. Funny to think that was often a Sunday morning walk to get breakfast at home.

The accommodation is good. We are in a roomy bungalow and dinner was vegetables and beef stew. A welcome change from meatballs. The only dilemma now is getting the clothes dry. The host asked me to choose from three bungalows. Showing the newest one furtherest down the garden. He did mention that the wild pigs might be a bit noisy down there. I chose the one closest to the restaurant- least distance to walk and on the same level.