Friday 8th October 2021
Yesterday we travelled from Cairns to Lake Eacham in preparation for today’s hike.

Today is the day, the best day in the next few days. Forecast for today was partly cloudy with sunshine in the afternoon. We have read some trail notes and a 77 year old man took 12 hours to complete the return trip.

When we awoke in the morning at 5.45am it was foggy at our camp ground in Lake Eacham Tourist Park. Hopefully it will burn off early in the day. The forecast is now partly cloudy all day. Fingers crossed we have some luck at the top. We got organised early, drove to the head of the trail through fog we didn’t factor in for times, so it was a bit slow going . We were ready to go at 7.40am – our aim was a 7am start. Pretty close for us.

So off we head on the relentless hill climb to Battle Frere Summit from the west trailhead. We start at 700m and climb to 1622m (the highest mountain in QLD. The elevation we have to climb is 1055m. The first 1km was relatively easy, some small ups and downs, quite rutted and holed by the wild boars but comfortable. We pass some cassowary scats on the first stage and keep moving along nicely. The incline starts to get steeper for the next 500m and then the hard work begins. Up, up, up and up. A continuous struggle up the rocky paths, up, over and down large boulders, jumping across gaps in the large boulders. At some stages I was stopping after 40 steps for a breather for a little break, driving David nuts. He continues along for a little bit and then he has a big rest. I keep struggling along, walking a bit, resting a lot, walking a lot, resting a bit. It was a continuous tough slog. I had one moment where I wasn’t sure whether I should continue but so determined as always to reach the top. I started to take smaller steps and slowed down a bit which made it a lot easier, but still extremely tough. We had a couple of viewpoints along the way but the adventure today is definitely the journey today. We met a young girl at the western summit camp and had a chat, she started at 5.40am and took 5.5 hours to reach the summit. Five minutes later we met a young guy who had started at 5.45am and took 5 hours to reach the top. The last climb to the top was very steep, up and over big boulders, again a tough slog. We reached the summit in 4 hours 40 mins, so David has realised that maybe he is pushing me a little hard. A very, very tough gig to get to the top, we had minimal rest along the way, drank 2 bottles of gatorade/hydralite plus 1.5 litres of water between us.

We enjoyed a break for lunch for about 40 mins with a most spectacular view, the mist rolled in and out a few times. We were so lucky the clouds didn’t prevent our view. Yay for Us!!

Now for the down. We expect this to take maybe 4 hours but we do know that this is a tough gig as well, more on you r body where as the way up is hard on your heart. I am so happy to still be so flexible as some of the rock scrambling would be very difficult to manage without it. We stopped at an amazing rock boulder crop which was quite challenging to climb on top. I needed David’s help to haul me up. This view was more spectacular than the summit. We spent a bit of time up here, enjoying the view and then took a little extra time to get down again. We continued down the relentless downhill, it was very tough on our bodies. By the time we made it to about the 4km mark David’s knees were hurting and I made it until about 2km to go before my left one packed it in. It was a long an arduous day. We were very grateful for the last 1500m which was just undulating and we paced it out on this section as our legs and knees were ready to stop. We exhausted all our the water we took today just before the end which is unusual but I suppose today was a bit tougher than we were expecting.

We finally made it back to the car after 10 hours and 7 minutes. Distance travelled was only 15.7km. Our moving time was 7 hours 29 minutes. Elevation gain 1042m and loss 1053m. 7.1km uphill and 7.59km downhill. Done and dusted – A hard slog but we made it. Yeehah!!

I think we will need a few days rest before we attempt any more hikes.