We have just flown in from Australia. The weather report was telling us that a blizzard was coming for the next 3 days. There goes our plans to see our daughters, haul horses and get the final things sorted before leaving for the trail on Tuesday.

We arrive in Denver at midday with the sky covered with darkening clouds and the weather report calling for several feet of snow. We ring our eldest daughter and tell her that we need to head up the mountain to our home before the storm starts and dont think we have time to stay down to see her that afternoon. We get a very forceful reply that we must come to her place even if only for a few minutes. She has bought us something and had it express posted so we could get it for the trail. We are both sitting there thinking that we have shaved every ounce from our packs, selected our gear precisely and we could not think what Maddie could have gotten us that we would want to add to that.

We should not have under estimated Maddie. She selected us the perfect addition to our gear, customised hats!! We love them.

Uyetsga and I have a small property in the hills behind Port Macquarie and this is our home in Australia. The hills here are not like the hills in Colorado. The tallest mountain near our Australian home is 4,127 ft and is located about 30 miles away. Our property is at about 300ft and sits in a beautiful quiet valley.

Just because the hills are not high does not mean that you don’t climb when you hike. Today I went on a 15 mile loop and had 3,500 ft of climbing. After living in Colorado at 9000ft breathing seems a lot easier here but your legs still feel the climbing.

Our property is surround by state forestry and I planned on hiking on the logging roads. I was a bit apprehensive about the hike because last time I was on these roads they were so overgrown by trees and Lantana it was almost impossible to get through but I went anyway. Always the optimist. To my great surprise the roads were clear.  They had been freshly graded and rebuilt, Yeh!.

The forest here is sub-tropical with small patches of rainforest. There are soaring white trunked Gum trees with massive girths that seem to reach up into the sky forever. There are ferns that have thick sharp edged leaves and stand about as tall as a man, reaching their fingers out to grab you as you walk past. The forest floor is covered with a deep decaying layer of leaf matter that is home to lots of small ferns, vines and creepers. Some of these creepers have small thorns that will snag you as you try to push through. Others are thin but tough and can easily trip you if you catch one with your foot.

The view back to our farm

Newly clear road

These is supposed to be a road

Hastings forest way

Hastings forest way

Paddymelon? Small wallaby

Looking south

End of the road

No road

Young gums

Anywhere the sunlight gets through the Lantana takes over. Lantana was brought to Australia by the English because of its pretty flower.  If only the English knew how easily it would dominate here I wonder if they would have reconsidered. It is hated by most Australia Bush Walkers because of its woody stems that are covered in small thorns. It grows in thick bushes and if you attempt to go through, sneak around, or otherwise get anywhere in its vicinity,  the thorns grab at your clothes, rake small scratches on any bare skin and you usually emerge from the other side with hundreds of small cuts stinging and trickling blood.

Without a defined trail to follow getting through this bush is almost impossible so you can imagine why I was happy to have a trail.

My plan was to hike up the ridge from behind our property, join onto Hastings Forest Way at the top of the hill, hike along it for a few miles and then take another side trail back down the ridge, joining back onto the dirt road that leads to the front of our property. It was to be about a 12 mile loop.

With the road being cleared it meant my hiking was a lot quieter than it would have normally been and so I got to get close to a lot more wildlife. The first inhabitant I encountered was a Bush Turkey. It was in the middle of the road scratching around for food and I got to within about 15 feet of it before it noticed me. Even then it just stopped and looked. I walked towards it and it turned and walked up the road matching my speed. Every now and then it would stop and look at me then scuttle off up the road again. This went on for about 3 minutes before it finally got sick of the game.

The next wildlife I came across were two Dingos. Dingos are a lot more wary of people so these guys noticed me about 25 feet away, took one look and sprinted off into the bush. Their visit was way to quick for me to even consider getting my camera out.

The most spectacular animal encounter was with a Wedge-Tailed Eagle. It was down on the road when I walked around a corner and surprised it. It took off quickly, spreading its massive wings, with a wing span of over 9 feet, only about 15ft from me. Because of the thickness of the trees it was not a fast getaway so I got to get a good look at it flying away. They are majestic birds that you mostly see from a distance, either gliding high in the sky or perched at the top of tall trees. I have seen them in zoos but this is the closest I have ever seen one in the wild.

After my good luck at having a newly cleared and graded road up the ridge I got to the turn off I was planning on taking down the ridge only to find that it did not exist. The sign was there, the first 20ft of the road was there but then it just ended in thick vines, ferns and young trees. It does not take long for the bush to reclaim any open space  and my trail was now gone. I looked at it for a while considering the possibilities but in the end decided it was just not an option.

I hiked on hoping the next road leading down the side of the mountain would be clear. There are some amazing views down the valley from the road I was walking on and the extra miles did not seem like a burden.

The next road was indeed clear and I headed down it thinking that the hardest part was over. These forest trails get made when the Forestry log an area. Sometimes they will be cleared again for fire trails but most will be left to the bush to reclaim until the Forestry want to go back into an area to log again. I walked down my trail for a couple of miles and then came to a dead end with log off cuts scattered on the ground and thick bush in front of me. It was still several miles down the hill before I hit the main road and I could see it was either going to be bush bashing or a long walk back the way I had came.

Using my GPS I could see where the road was supposed to go and I could see signs of there once being a road here but the road itself was just bush. Every now and then you would see where the road had been cut deeper into the ground and had left a scar but most of the way down it was a battle with the undergrowth and following the line on the map. I emerged at the bottom into the bright, hot sunshine.  My legs were stinging and bleeding from the hundreds of small scratches but I was out and only had a road walk to get home.

Most of the walk I would have loved to have Uyetsga along with me and show her the spectacular bush scenery but maybe not for the last part. I once took Uyetsga into the bush at the back of our property and we ended up doing about 300 yards of bush bashing through thick Lantana undergrowth. I think that experience left her scarred in more ways than one :). She is a good sport about these things though and I know she would have enjoyed the day as much as I did.

One thing I know I am going to miss on the CDT is being able to take a nice shower at the end of a hot hike. Washing the sweat off at the end of the day, relaxing with a cool beer and good food certainly make a hard days hike easier.

Uyetsga and I are currently at opposites. I don’t mean we have a different style of how we want to get ready for this walk. I mean we are literally on opposite sides of the world. She is in Colorado and I am in Australia, she is in snow and I am in 80F heat. She is at 9000ft and I am at sea level. However, we both get out to do some hiking each day. It does seems strange not to be doing it together but we still talk for hours.

The current timezone difference has the sun rising in Australia 7 hours behind Colorado. So when I am getting up to start walking Uyetsga is already half way through her day. If everything lines up we talk while I walk and if everything lines up really well Uyetsga is also out walking in the warmest part of her day. We can easily pass several hours in this fashion, chatting away as if we were together and still getting our training in. Lucky we now have cheap internet phone calls otherwise our phone bill would be huge.

Doing this is not like being together. We see things and we don’t have the other person seeing them with us, allowing us to talk about and share the excitement of what we see together. We sometimes send each other photos or switch to FaceTime but it is just not the same as being together.

It is a beautiful time of the year in Australia, Autumn, and I am in a beautiful spot on the East coast. My morning walks for the first few days have been along the ocean. Port Macquarie is the town I grew up in and even though I might be bias for my old home, I think it has some of the most beautiful ocean scenery you could hope to find.

When I was walking along Lighthouse Beach one of the other people stopped me and pointed out the pod of Dolphins that were playing in the waves near the shore. Growing up I spent a lot of time in the ocean and there is nothing more uplifting than surfing with a pod of Dolphins. These creatures just love to play.  You see them sliding through the water and then breaking the surface just at the top of the waves. They surf down the front of the wave picking up speed and then launch themselves into the air. This is what they were doing this morning and it was wonderful to stop and watch them.

Uyetsga and I are very lucky to visit some beautiful places and even more so when we get to do them together. I miss my best friend tonight but I know we will be back together again soon.

Do you remember that song from Oliver the musical? I always want to sing this song when thinking of food, which I do often. Unfortunately all I know is “Food, glorious food”. So it gets a little bit repetitive, I compensate by singing it very loudly and with feeling. 

The last few days have been all about food, so those three words are never far from bursting from my mouth. We are preparing our meals and packing our boxes for New Mexico.

We decided this trip we would use dehydrated vegetables and make our own gourmet delights. We want the sort of meal that weighs nothing, tastes like it came from a five star restaurant and is good for you. Too much to ask from trail food?  Maybe but it’s worth trying. 

We have tried for a lot of variety in our meals and snacks. We learnt that lesson the hard way. For the Colorado trail we bought boxes of freeze dried meals from Costco. Really cheap but only four different meals. After the first couple of weeks on horse back eating the same thing every night it gets to the point you just don’t want to eat! Can’t believe I would ever say that, I love food, good food that is.  Again the boys in Oliver got it right:

Is it worth the waiting for?
If we live for eighty four
All we ever get is gruel!
Every day we say our prayer —
Will they change the bill of fare?
Still we get the same old gruel!
There’s not a crust, not a crumb can we find,
Can we beg, can we borrow, or cadge,
But there’s nothing to stop us from getting a thrill
When we all close our eyes and imagine
Food, glorious food.

We did a lot of imagining on that trip. The thing about doing a trail on horse back is that you never get off the trail.  You can’t just pop into a trail town and woof down a burger and fries and a couple of beers with your horses tied up out the front of the salon. Those old west days are long gone. Now days if you are traveling on horses the food you bring with you is the food you have for the whole trip. 

So back to this trip, variety that’s the key we tell ourselves as we put the same basic ingredients in every meal. But it’s not the ingredients we say, it’s how you combine them and that extra spice that make a meal more than just gruel. We have even cooked some at home to see how they will taste. The other night we made potatoes au gratin and it was excellent. Although it was probable helped somewhat by the delicious piece of grilled steak hot off the BBQ that unfortunately we have not figured out how to get on the trail. 

So all was going well, we had our meals made, boxes packed just waiting to be addressed and sealed.
   
  

After a hectic few days we headed out for a family gathering leaving our trusty dog at home to guard our food. The only problems was we forgot to tell him the food was not for him so he systematically went through several boxes selecting the instant breakfast out of each and eating them. We came home to a very happy greeting until we got to the dinning room and saw the remains of the ziplock bags carefully splayed over the floor. Baxter took one look at the bags, one look at us and hightailed outside. For the rest of the night if we went to the boxes he would turn tail and run. 

 Even with our dog giving his approval of our choices and devouring several days worth of breakfasts we have now finished. It is hard not to be heading out on the trail this week but we still have some things to finish before we leave. 

A day to learn all the things we did not know that we did not know.

Uyetsga and I were lucky enough to attend the ALDHA-West Colorado Rockies Winter Ruck last weekend. It was great to hear from all these experienced long distance hikers and get tips on fine tuning our gear and food before we head off.

I think the main thing Uyetsga and I got from the day was planning for our food. We really got sick of the dehydrated meals that we had on the Colorado Trail and so had planned to make some of our own invention. We purchased dehydrated vegetables from Harmony House and had started putting together various meals. For some of our resupply we need to send a box with all our meals for the next segment but for others we had the choice of sending nothing and buying in the town or sending some and supplementing with things from the town. We decided we would send some meals but also buy fresh things where we could. On the shorter sections between towns we will load up with as much real food as we think we can carry and that will not spoil before we eat it. On the longer stretches we will use more dehydrated foods to keep the weight down.

This is a strategy that we have used on our hikes in New Zealand and Tasmania and seemed to work well for us. Only time will tell.

The ALDHA-West did a fantastic job of organising the day and it was a lot of fun being immersed in the hiking community. I would strongly recommend attending one of these events if you can.