Day 3. To Beraking Camp.

We were packed up and away by 8 am as we had an 18km (6.5 hrs) day ahead of us. We’ll so I thought.! One of the guys had told us that there was a big hill to climb that took us to a lookout all the way back to Perth.

Rebecca didn’t like the sound of that saying she lived in Perth so knew what it looked like so why climb a hill with a pack on to look at it.

So I put her in charge of directions and she found us quite  few shortcuts on red earth  roads. I am not so keen on road walking especially in the sun but I am also not keen on walking with grumpy teenage girls. So off up and down roads we went. This meant we arrive at Beraking hut in less that 4 hours.

A nice afternoon was had lazing about in  the sun then later around the fire.

It was a hot day (by NZ standards) and the highlight for me was seeing a lizard on the road. I very nearly stood on it and screamed in fright thinking it was a snake. Rebecca jumped with fright from my screaming but the lizard just sat there looking at us wondering what all the fuss was about.

This did make me realise that I need to be looking ahead more often as stepping that close to a snake 🐍 would not have been a good idea

Beraking hut was another one of the prisoner made ones. An open platform for sleeping, tables, tent sites, long drop dunny and a fire pit. No flies or mossies yet as it is too cold.

I met my first Trail Angel that afternoon. James was on a day  walk  into the hut and plans to walk Bibbulmun track in the future so was well prepared to be an Angel if he met Bibb walkers. A cold bottle of Coca-Cola and a Subway sandwich ended up being our lunch # 3 for the day.

He also left us a couple of apples but they were not very crispy. We tried to swap them for some chocolate that the young Mum had but she had already been a party to our 3 for one muesli bars idea so was not very forthcoming. Later we did manage to get some of her chocolate when she ran out of gas to cook her dinner.

Rebecca stewed the apples to have with weet-bix for our entre that evening. Food is better eaten than carried.

I was very impressed with how practical Rebecca was around camp and how well she looked after her gear and unpacked and packed up each day efficiently. She was a pleasure to tramp (hike) with. The Outdour Education course she has done at school has taught her a lot.

The young Mum pointed out some flowers to me. I do not remember any of the names but here are some photos. I do enjoy seeing the colour in the bush here as there us very little in NZ bush. Some of them are carnivorous whuch helps keep the ant and bug population down.

After enjoying a lovely sunset we slept fairly well on the platforms in the shelter.