Saturday 04 June 2022
Rocky Bar Gap to Finke River camp
Section 11 Part 2
Distance 16.43km
Moving time 4:30
Track time 6:05
Temp 6′- 23′
Well last night was a big learning curve. We set the poles at 120, 120, 105. It was very snug but gave us a large footprint. Downside was the ceiling was too low and every time I rolled over which was often, my sleeping bag gathered some of the condensation as it rubbed against the ceiling. Result. Very wet sleeping bag. We slept quite well for a first night and so just a few teething issues to iron out. Apparently this is the first night of really heavy dew in weeks because of the water in the ground from the rain. Anyway we will learn as we go.
We finally set off at 10.10am after mucking around for ages, with wet tent and sleeping bag and DB being his usual social butterfly. It was a tough gig this morning after a short walk through varied terrain at the 3km mark we went up 300m in elevation over 2km. Half way up I had my first moment, just trying to hard to go fast, once I slowed my pace down I was ok. It took about 2 hours to do the first 5 km but at 1015m elevation we had the most amazing view at Hilltop Lookout. We enjoyed a lovely hour or so having lunch and thankfully don’t my sleeping bag. Mt Sonder looked amazing is the background.
We got going again at about 1.15pm for the remaining 10 km. The first 3km took about an hour and we descended over 400m. The remaining 7km we paced our out doing about 15min kms until we can to the Davenport creek crossing. Time to take off our shoes and wage across. Luckily it was only one deep. Boy was it nice to get your feet wet in the icy cold water. We finally reached Finke River camp at 4.30 after avoiding 2 more Creek crossings by walking up stream 100m both times. Then she soon as we were just shy of the camp the river we avoided beckoned me for a swim. It was icy cold and I had to be quick so I could be dry and dressed before the sun went down. We decided to sleep in the river bed as the camp sites left were really rocky.
We enjoyed a social dinner with a couple from Tassie near Stanley and a young couple from Melbourne. After dinner, doing our dinner, hanging out food bags, we headed to bed at about 8.40pm. The sunset and stars were amazing tonight. Hopefully the tent goes a little better tonight. We set the poles at 120, 120, 120, fingers crossed for a drier night.