After being showed up by the oldies in our room in the cabin who were sleeping on the bunks with no mats I did manage to get up in time to see a bit of the sunrise over Mount Oakleigh and Barn Bluff, which unbeknown to me is actually a pretty iconic spot and shot for the overland track. I suspect the ease at which you can just roll out of bed and onto the helicopter pad contributes to the popularity of the scene.
Afterwards we embarked on the walk from Pelion Hut to Kia Ora with the potential for the Mount Ossa side trip, if time and knees permitted 🙂 The weather was looking pretty good (depending on your perspective) with sun shining and only a few wisps of clouds present. I’m certainly much more of a overcast and cloudy day person but this was a welcome change from the first few days of being pretty wet.
The first little detour was to a cute little twin falls with some pretty cascades, you can see here why I like overcast days, makes shooting waterfalls like this much easier, the dynamic range with the sun shining thru the trees makes it tricky. It still turned out alright I think, used the tripod again and successfully managed to avoid falling into the creek. It’s worth noting that this morning there was ice on the boardwalks near these falls, definitely slip on your butt territory if your not careful.
The first part of this walk is pretty much just a uphill walk to the saddle called Pelion gap, a spot well renown for the currawongs which can unzip your bag for a snack, we could hear these guys from quite a distance and i was already thinking about how to secure the bag to ensure these cheeky birds went without our snack bars. I have several of the tiny little carabiners which actually work pretty good to be able to ‘lock’ the zippers, here is an advantage of a bag that only has a two top pockets and two waist belt pockets, much simpler to secure.
The pack I used was the older model Osprey Aether Pro 70L which i got secondhand from a cool guy in St Kilda, I really like this pack, I needed something alot lighter than my current bombproof fjall raven kajka which i have used for about 7 or 8 years. This trip i really did count my grams and tried to minimise weight where ever I could, I’m not normally overly concerned about ultralight gear but I think a healthy balance is key. My pack was one of those items where it was a no brainer, the Fjall Raven Kajka comes in at 3.7kg, great bag, super comfortable, durable and lots of storage options, the Osprey on the other hand is 1.8kg, super comfortable, i would say on par with the Fjall. Its clearly a different bag, but still pretty durable I would say, less pockets and much more stripped down. All this meant that i saved nearly 2kg of weight which meant carrying camera gear was much better proposition 🙂 priorities in order there.
Its worth noting that there is now a newer model of this pack, the Aether 75 pro, this version is 2.39kg and I don’t think really has any improved features which is a bit disappointing – it would be nice to have mesh pockets on the side and also extend the side pockets a bit so they are easier to access, both complaints about the old version which could have been easily fixed. The extra weight in the newer version probably comes from the full length body zippers, which I have these on the fjall raven and to be honest I think they are not that useful, only on edge cases have i used them…
I’ll leave the Mount Ossa side trip for another post since it probably deserves a special mention 🙂
The descent off the Pelion gap towards Kia Ora is pretty cruisy, which is thankful after doing the Mount Ossa side trip. This day was one where carrying a bit more water would have been preferred, a good example of when the weather fines up and the suns out you need to carry that bit more, especially with the side trips.
The Kia Ora hut is pretty amazing, super new and laid out well like the ones at Windemere and Waterfall, hats off to the designers, I reckon they have done a great job.
My legs were pretty cactus by this stage, but still managed to get out a few sunset pictures and also some nice astro and a bit of the Aurora. Gerrys next hot tip .. well its probably well known, but anyway, crocs with socks (nice wool pair) are the best, for the non-fashion conscious people like me these are great! super comfy, quite warm and will keep your toes pretty dry if your out for a quick night shoot 🙂
These are the highlights from Day 4, Pelion Hut to Kia Ora.
