Overland Track - Day 2: Waterfall Valley to Windermere
Early to bed and early to rise! We're up before the sun thanks to our early bed time and woeful nights sleep. We decided to sleep in the hut and it was pretty noisy and uncomfortable. We're debating over breakfast whether to combine today and tomorrow's treks, as today's trek is only a short one. Tomorrow's is the longest and eventually we decide to stick to the scheduled trek for today. Cam's decided he'll tackle both treks today and heads off. The three of us take our time packing our bags and putting our soggy clothes back on. Honestly not as bad as we thought it would be.
We head off and it's not raining, but the clouds are still low and hiding the view. Most of the treks have one or more side trips and today's is Lake Will, which adds about an hour. We drop our big packs and hike it to the lake. The lake is nice and the clouds are blocking any view of the overlooking Barn Bluff. But it adds a certain eerie charm which we all appreciate. We get back on the track and it's a pretty easy few hours walking through lots of mist.
The Overland track has mostly had a gloomy white veil over it for us so far. We take it as a positive though; whenever the cloud clears the views are extra special, and we start appreciating the subtle colour palette of the high altitude tundra. The more you look the more you see the amazing colour schemes coming out - ones we don't see on the mainland, especially not in Sydney where everything is hyper-green and lush.
We get to the huts and are impressed with how new and well kept they are. We're treated with some wallaby and possum sightings! We decide to give sleeping in the huts one more go, as the room we've snagged is a bit smaller, so less people. The weather has sort of cleared, so Jeff decides he might take a dip in the lake. We wander down and of course it starts raining. It's been drilled into us the weather is unpredictable, but we'll never listen.
We're also wearing our camp clothes, which are our only warm and dry clothes. You keep these in a dry bag in your pack during the day and need to keep dry at all costs or die. Because hypothermia. Courts is raging but we make it back to the hut only a little damp around the knees. There is a heater in the communal space (where you prep and eat your food) and it's been cranked up to 9,000. Pretty soon we're helter-sweltering and our clothes are dry, luckily. We have an early dinner (freeze dried chicken tikka masala tonight - the best meal of the trek), play some Monopoly Deal (it's back!) and head to bed for another very early night (we've made it to 8pm).
