First overnight full pack carrying hike I have been on in 5 years. Glad to be back at it again! Stopped because I was pregnant with my youngest child and my core strength disappeared in the early weeks. A group of 9 of us drove the short distance from Adelaide to Kaiserstuhl Conservation Park on Saturday morning to start our hike at 9:30am. I was grateful to have a lift from Tom. Pack was 16kg when loaded! Heavier than I would have liked but some of my training was done with my 17kg daughter. I had one goal not to be the slowest person in the group and I achieved that. Thankfully training paid off and I had the fitness level to finish this challenging hike. We started with a wander through Kaiserstuhl Conservation Park. Beautiful grass trees and interesting little tracks. Soon we crossed into Northern Mt Crawford and were on the Heysen Trail. We stopped for morning tea. We continued through the forest up a number of steep hills. They're so hard going up when you're on them, yet a rest for 20 seconds and I have a new burst of energy for the rest of the hill. My burning calves though! When the hill is conquered I quickly forget the pain. As muscles, heart rate and breath are restored the memory quickly fades. Just like a long day at work or giving birth to a child it's all gone. I must remember that every hard thing I do there is no memory of the difficulty. Maybe it's the endorphins or the sense of achievement that crowds it out. You push on and it does end. We arrived at Rossiters Hut for lunch. I packed 3.5L of water with me so I didn't need to fill up at the tank. Next hike I won't take so much! I ate my heaviest foods first. There is even a long drop toilet behind the hut. How posh! Some mountain bikes passed us by with a very friendly dog. I wrote in the hut logbook and popped my dinner in to cold soak. From the hut we could see the mountain we would be climbing and camping the night on. It certainly looked big and steep. We made our way there, but soon we were walking through the overgrown bush. There was no clearly defined path but a few clues to where one must have been before. Our leader knew the way up. It was long and steep, but the views of the nearby hills were stunning. A reward to see at every rest. We crossed a dry creek a couple of times. The banks were steep and I was thankful for my trekking poles. At one point I took off my pack and let it roll into the creek before climbing down myself. I didn't want to break any part of me if I fell over! My new shoes performed fantasticly well. Comfortable and so much grip from the tread. No slip on any surface. Altra Timp, size 10 mens. As we worked our way up the steep mountain/hill it seemed never ending and I was wondering if we would ever get to the top and how would we even know where the top was! Each crest felt like it must be the summit. Eventually we found the cairn. Another group member found a geocache. I logged in the notebook, but I don't think it's an official cache because it's not listed on the website. We chose our tent sites and setup. The day had been on and off a light drizzle. A couple of the hikers got a fire going. Thankfully it wasn't raining while we set up and during dinner it was only a light sprinkle. I'm unsure which stove system I want to go with. I tested out hexamine and a homemade alcohol stove. The hexamine is easy, but slow to heat food. I could not get my alcohol stove to light! My lighter that I especially bought for hiking would not work, so I used matches instead. Due to how slow the hexamine is I finished heating my dinner in the fire which worked nicely. Dinner was homemade dehydrated bolognaise sauce, shelf stable tortellini and parmesan cheese. The soaking rehydrated the sauce, so I only had to heat it all up.

Hiking/Backpacking

The Barossa Council, South Australia, Australia

time : Jul 13, 2019 9:51 AM

duration : 5h 33m 59s

distance : 16.1 km

total_ascent : 1040 m

highest_point : 604 m

avg_speed : 3.5 km/h

user_id : HeidiH84

user_firstname : Heidi

user_lastname :

First overnight full pack carrying hike I have been on in 5 years. Glad to be back at it again! Stopped because I was pregnant with my youngest child and my core strength disappeared in the early weeks. A group of 9 of us drove the short distance from Adelaide to Kaiserstuhl Conservation Park on Saturday morning to start our hike at 9:30am. I was grateful to have a lift from Tom. Pack was 16kg when loaded! Heavier than I would have liked but some of my training was done with my 17kg daughter. I had one goal not to be the slowest person in the group and I achieved that. Thankfully training paid off and I had the fitness level to finish this challenging hike. We started with a wander through Kaiserstuhl Conservation Park. Beautiful grass trees and interesting little tracks. Soon we crossed into Northern Mt Crawford and were on the Heysen Trail. We stopped for morning tea. We continued through the forest up a number of steep hills. They're so hard going up when you're on them, yet a rest for 20 seconds and I have a new burst of energy for the rest of the hill. My burning calves though! When the hill is conquered I quickly forget the pain. As muscles, heart rate and breath are restored the memory quickly fades. Just like a long day at work or giving birth to a child it's all gone. I must remember that every hard thing I do there is no memory of the difficulty. Maybe it's the endorphins or the sense of achievement that crowds it out. You push on and it does end. We arrived at Rossiters Hut for lunch. I packed 3.5L of water with me so I didn't need to fill up at the tank. Next hike I won't take so much! I ate my heaviest foods first. There is even a long drop toilet behind the hut. How posh! Some mountain bikes passed us by with a very friendly dog. I wrote in the hut logbook and popped my dinner in to cold soak. From the hut we could see the mountain we would be climbing and camping the night on. It certainly looked big and steep. We made our way there, but soon we were walking through the overgrown bush. There was no clearly defined path but a few clues to where one must have been before. Our leader knew the way up. It was long and steep, but the views of the nearby hills were stunning. A reward to see at every rest. We crossed a dry creek a couple of times. The banks were steep and I was thankful for my trekking poles. At one point I took off my pack and let it roll into the creek before climbing down myself. I didn't want to break any part of me if I fell over! My new shoes performed fantasticly well. Comfortable and so much grip from the tread. No slip on any surface. Altra Timp, size 10 mens. As we worked our way up the steep mountain/hill it seemed never ending and I was wondering if we would ever get to the top and how would we even know where the top was! Each crest felt like it must be the summit. Eventually we found the cairn. Another group member found a geocache. I logged in the notebook, but I don't think it's an official cache because it's not listed on the website. We chose our tent sites and setup. The day had been on and off a light drizzle. A couple of the hikers got a fire going. Thankfully it wasn't raining while we set up and during dinner it was only a light sprinkle. I'm unsure which stove system I want to go with. I tested out hexamine and a homemade alcohol stove. The hexamine is easy, but slow to heat food. I could not get my alcohol stove to light! My lighter that I especially bought for hiking would not work, so I used matches instead. Due to how slow the hexamine is I finished heating my dinner in the fire which worked nicely. Dinner was homemade dehydrated bolognaise sauce, shelf stable tortellini and parmesan cheese. The soaking rehydrated the sauce, so I only had to heat it all up.