TA Day 6
TA Day 6: Tuesday 24 December 2024
Martin's Hut - Merrivale (Merriview Hut)
We woke up early today to take on the worst of what the mud of Longwood had to offer. Kim was incredibly angry this morning, mainly due to lack of sleep (you can read yesterday's post about what happened during the night) but also because of the upcoming mud, and the issues with the water. All this, on Christmas!
The water had a heavy smokey aftertaste, which made the water undrinkable. No amount of filtering and trying to cover the taste with electrolytes or water tablets made it better. And there was no place to refill water until 12 km / 6 hours later which would be a long time without anything to drink...
We started to climb the hill, and luckily everything was humid as usual, and even some water on the vegetation around us that we sometimes licked at (😆).
But, up there at the top, we caught up to Thomas, who said "trail magic is real!", and he was right. There was a cooler box with trail magic standing there! A box with sodas 😍 We took one LP each, enjoying it like we've never enjoyed soda before, and kept saying "magic is real". Those two cans of sodas literally saved the day, and we could continue to the next water source.
We followed the top of the hill for a little while, and all felt fantastic. But then came the mud, the deep mud that we had been warned about and waited for. In some parts it was too risky and tricky to avoid the mud, and we sank down to just below our knees. Sometimes we literally waded in it.
After more than 5 hours, we finally reached a road! Walking on a road felt so nice after all the mud. We hurried upwards, towards the stream, and there we caught up with Thomas again. He continued, but we sat down, cleaned off the worst of the mud and had a nice breakfast break and gulped down cold fresh water. It was the first time sitting down in 6 hours so we really enjoyed it.
Then we continued upwards along the gravel road, up to the top of Bald Hill. But then it was back to the mud again. It wasn't as bad as earlier this morning, but some of the steps we took were still knee deep...
Down, down, down we went, and the environment around us changed often. We reached a forest road, that became a gravel road, and we left the forest, now walking in blazing hot sun with pastures and agricultural landscapes around us.
We reached Merriview Hut, where we met Thomas again. He was there with another man, Greg, with whom he had managed to go to town with and there he had bought food for Christmas! Thomas wanted to give some trail magic back, so he gave all of us some really nice Christmas food, like potatoes, salmon, eggs, bell pepper, cheese, cucumber, sausage, wine, chocolate, chips...
We were so happy about it, and finally we felt that it might have been a good Christmas after the bad start!
Then came the rain. We saw it coming from afar, and it came with some force. Lukas stripped and went to shower in the rain, and then in the gutter. Kim was a little bit unsure at first. She needed to clean herself somehow but thought the rain was a bit cold... But in the end she too went for it, and it was worth it! There was so much rain so there was plenty of water to get properly clean. Even after all the mud.
In the evening we were very tired, but we tried to watch some "Donald Duck" that we usually do on Christmas, but we could of course not find the exact one that they played it Sweden, but it was close enough. Also, both of us were so tired that we could barely keep our eyes open anyway.
Today's:
Distance: 29.31 km
Ascent: 920 m
Descent: 1266 m
Tent nights: 0/6
Weather: Misty, cloudy, super intense sun, and then once we arrived - pouring rain and thunder.
