11th August

Hewett's Hill to Waalegh Campsite

Our plan for the day was to "Double Hut" to Helena and skip Ball Ck campsite. At a little over 19km I felt that this would be a good second day as the day before was 10 km but it was not to be. At Ball Creek we arrived there at 11 am after leaving the first hut at 8:30 pm. Taking a leisurely pace, our plans radically changed when we discovered from a message at Ball Ck and the comments in the Red Book by previous hikers that Helena Hut had been badly vandalised.

Vandals on trail bikes had come in and destroyed the roof, water tank and toilet at Helena and spray painted disgusting pictures all over the hut. What did this achieve? So we had to walk another 10 km or a total of 30 km to get to Waalegh.

The only day I missed the trail markers known as "Waugals" was today. We lost about half an hour when we didn't need to make our day any harder about an hour before reaching the hut.

Waalegh was a beautiful hut with a lovely view over the deep Darkin River Valley below us. Rone was out of water and more exhausted than I was at this stage so I built a fire and we both had an early night. The temperature dropped as usual and I began to get into the habit of putting thermals on during each night in the Northern Section of the walk.

Day 3 Waalegh to Mt Dale Campsite