Day 46 - St. Arnaud to Hunters Hut

What a day!? We left St. Arnaud only at 10.30h and Ben stayed behind since he was not ready. 12km of road walking to the trail. But luckily sometimes you have friendly spectators…

The start into the Richmond Ranges was fairly easy with 6km of a 4×4 track to the first hut and easy trails in the forest.

Once we left the forest the terrain changed. The rocks turned into red coloured clay and the track was a tiring up and down. It looked a little bit like in the Mediterranean area and it was hot and dry today. 

Already in the last section two new NOBO had appeared in the hut books just a couple of days ahead of us. How did that happen? Were they so close behind us and overtook us while we went to Greymouth? Katie and Maja left funny notes in all of the hut books and were calling for more NOBOs. So I decided to catch them now. Project catch the new NOBOs was on. 🤘 From some of the SOBO which I had passed I knew they were only one day ahead of us and so I hoped to be able to catch them by doing two big days in a row.

At the end of the day I started pushing it and Breann and Jay fell behind. The backpacks were heavy and Breann’s shoes were falling apart so they didn’t want to overdue it. I arrived at Porters Creek Hut at around six and knew if I wanted to get closer I would need to get to the next hut which was another two to three hours. But this was impossible if I would have waited for the two. So I went on my own knowing that we would catch up later on the stretch or latest on the Queen Charlotte Track. So off I went.

And then it happened. I circled around a bolder on a very tiny path and my backpack got trapped in a tree branch. The branch snapped out, pushed my backpack to the side and with this I lost my balance and could not hold on to anything anymore. I slipped off the tiny stance I was on and fell face forward about two meters down between two fallen trees. I felt the pain already before I hit the ground. I don’t know how exactly it happened but I dislocated my left shoulder and my arm popped out. So my am was just hanging down on the side. And then there was this pain in my left ankle which I also thought was injured. When I looked down I saw that I had fallen into a wasp nest and my foot was covered in wasp attacking my foot and ankle. But I couldn’t move and get away since I couldn’t roll either way with my dislocated shoulder. So I first yanked on my arm to pop my shoulder back in which was really painful. But after that I was able to roll out of the wasp nest. I dragged myself away with my right arm and just laid there for a few minutes… I guess I was in shock. It was already 8 o’clock and I knew I had to make it to the next hut for the night. There was no place to pitch a tent in the slope. Nothing was broken only my shoulder hurt and my foot from all the wasp stings. I went to the next creek, washed all the dirt and blood out of my wounds on my legs and arms, took a couple antihistamine pills to prevent any allergic reactions to the wasp stings and started moving slowly.

I arrived at the hut in the dark shortly before nine o’clock and I was by myself. I think I was really lucky that nothing worse had happened and I did not break any bones! But the shock of the possible consequences was strong and prominently visible. I took a selfie about an hour after I fell to see if I had any injuries in my face – and that was shocking… Pictures say more than a thousand words. My face tells the story of the shock.

Made my dinner in the hut and went to bed.

Puh! I guess I was lucky today…