My calves are still in recovery mode... aka adventures at Barney

There is something immensely satisfying about carrying everything you need on your back. Of course there are downsides: the possibility of running out of food in the first day because you want to eat it all to reduce the load, the incredible weight of water that you just don’t think about, and excuse me for beating this already dead idea with a stick, the WEIGHT of a pack. I have to say, however, that my pack had nothing on my 40lb backpack that I used to carry around in high school and for most of college. SSSUUUURRREEEE they say that scoliosis isn’t caused by carrying heavy backpacks…… Sorry for focusing in so intently on this aspect of the bushwalking adventure but this was the aspect most foreign to me. The pack becomes a slightly bulky and offset extension of yourself and you basically have to learn to walk in a completely different manner to avoid falling over. Is it bad to say that it was the most interesting part of the trip? Ha ha

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the hiking part and the climbing aspects were the most fun but as some of you know, I would take a beach over a mountain any day. I do enjoy the exertion and the incredible views at the top but the beach and the waves are forever my idea of paradise.

I have this habit when I speak in which I start 5 sentences at once and never finish a single one. The reason is that my brain is moving much faster than my mouth and so my thoughts are flowing in my head without being expressed properly. Mom and most recently Todd have to say to me, “Deborah, finish your sentence” before I realize that I am not making any sense. If you could all just be in my head then you would understand how I can logically skip from talking about prunes to discussing the special features disc on a movie I watched recently. I feel like that is how I am writing these entries. Looking back I often realize that I am really bad at telling you what I did and really good at confusing you all by telling you my reactions to the events you know nothing about! Hence, I will try to be better at the recap portion starting now:

We started hiking Mt. Barney on Friday night after school/ work. Roman picked up Tellu and I and we met the other boys (Todd, Al and Jeff) at the dam that they all work at. From there we all piled into Roman’s car with the packs strapped on top. We looked like real adventurers :) That adventurous air stalled as we stopped at KFC, the same KFC that we seem to stop at quite frequently (Jan knows it, we visited it with her as well!). It’s pretty funny because I never ate KFC in the states (NEVER) but I have eaten it 3 times here… gasp… After KFC we put our hiking faces back on and headed to the foot of Mt. Barney. We hiked for about an hour and a half to camping ground 10 where we set up camp for the night right next to a softly flowing brook.We settled down for the morning and awoke as I usually do in Australia: to the sound of annoyingly loud and obnoxious birds. The birds here are on steroids and I am honestly afraid sometimes that my life will become a Hitchcock movie. After breakfast we hiked up to the saddle of Mt. Barney and exhaustedly set up camp. After lunch and a few minutes of resting we had the brilliant idea to climb to the top of the east/ west? peak. We completed that challenge fairly successfully despite minor setbacks like pouring rain and my slight fear of heights . Another amazing thing about bushwalking, food is oh soooo good.

The trip was extremely successful especially because it gave us all a taste of what to expect from the overland track in Tassie (except Todd, his taste buds are already saturated with bushwalking). I have a growing list of things I need to buy/ take and my self confidence has been renewed. I can honestly say that I think I can do this overland thing no sweat… well maybe with a bit of sweat, I will be hiking after all!

As an afterthought I have decided that my responses are much more entertaining than my laundry list of activities… I will try to spice it up : ) 11 days until I leave for the states… what oh what will I write about then? Guess we will just have to wait and see…

(Our crew from left: Roman, Todd, Me, Tellu, Jeff, + Al who was taking the picture)