Heysen Trail - Old Mt Bryan East School to Hallett

Finally had a decent night sleep last night-yay! Must have been the delicious dinner, open fire and the last of my port! We had breakfast sitting outside in the lovely golden glow of the sunrise, and saw Mt Bryan’s peak covered in cloud, but felt confident that it would clear before we reached the summit. Off we set at 8am, warming up our muscles with a few easy km’s of country road walking, before reaching the stile that leads to the start of the ascent up to Mt Bryan summit. Well, something went wrong with our navigation or Trail marker spotting skills, as we followed the last marker we saw, pointing us directly UP. This is not at all unusual for the HT, so I was very surprised to get to a fence with no stile, and no marker. My heart sank as I looked around and saw that we actually needed to be at the bottom of the hill we had climbed halfway up. We somehow missed a marker directing us to the left of the hill we just climbed. Well a choice word or two was expressed here! Down the hill I went, over the stile and up the same bloody hill I had just went down. What a waste of time and effort! Also, the wind was picking up as we followed the re-found trail markers, and picked our way up the mount. The wind really picked up, we were very exposed, and the gusts were pretty challenging. One of them nearly knocked Annette off her feet, and it would have pushed her off the side of the steep hill. This meant when the gust would come we had to just dig in the hiking poles, stand still and lean into the wind, then scamper upwards to gain some ground as soon as the gust died down. It was exhausting! The very top section had some switchbacks but wow the steepness was intense, and we were still managing the wind. Reaching the summit was an awesome feeling, but the wind was so strong at the top that we took a couple of quick photos and got the hell off the summit. We even missed the memorial cairn at the top - never even saw it in our fervor get off the summit. Walking down into the Mundy Valley was much nicer! Gentle hills, still windy but this was more exhilarating than scary. We met two hikers who were walking g from Hallett to Tanunda so managed a few minutes conversation with them. Had lunch in the valley and then hit the road again where our last few km’s were happily spent playing word games and other such games that help pass the time during less interesting sections of hiking. All too soon we approached the Hallett Railway Station where the car was waiting for us, marking the end of five days of very enjoyable hiking with my dear friend Annette. The smaller km’s per day meant we really could enjoy our days without feeling a time pressure, and enough time at camp to have plenty of R and R. Reaching the halfway point was the icing on the cake.

Hiking/Backpacking

South Australia, Australia
sarahc photo
time : May 15, 2022 7:56 AM
duration : 5h 12m 1s
distance : 16.2 km
total_ascent : 506 m
highest_point : 926 m
avg_speed : 3.5 km/h
user_id : sarahc
user_firstname : Sarah
user_lastname : C
Finally had a decent night sleep last night-yay! Must have been the delicious dinner, open fire and the last of my port! We had breakfast sitting outside in the lovely golden glow of the sunrise, and saw Mt Bryan’s peak covered in cloud, but felt confident that it would clear before we reached the summit. Off we set at 8am, warming up our muscles with a few easy km’s of country road walking, before reaching the stile that leads to the start of the ascent up to Mt Bryan summit. Well, something went wrong with our navigation or Trail marker spotting skills, as we followed the last marker we saw, pointing us directly UP. This is not at all unusual for the HT, so I was very surprised to get to a fence with no stile, and no marker. My heart sank as I looked around and saw that we actually needed to be at the bottom of the hill we had climbed halfway up. We somehow missed a marker directing us to the left of the hill we just climbed. Well a choice word or two was expressed here! Down the hill I went, over the stile and up the same bloody hill I had just went down. What a waste of time and effort! Also, the wind was picking up as we followed the re-found trail markers, and picked our way up the mount. The wind really picked up, we were very exposed, and the gusts were pretty challenging. One of them nearly knocked Annette off her feet, and it would have pushed her off the side of the steep hill. This meant when the gust would come we had to just dig in the hiking poles, stand still and lean into the wind, then scamper upwards to gain some ground as soon as the gust died down. It was exhausting! The very top section had some switchbacks but wow the steepness was intense, and we were still managing the wind. Reaching the summit was an awesome feeling, but the wind was so strong at the top that we took a couple of quick photos and got the hell off the summit. We even missed the memorial cairn at the top - never even saw it in our fervor get off the summit. Walking down into the Mundy Valley was much nicer! Gentle hills, still windy but this was more exhilarating than scary. We met two hikers who were walking g from Hallett to Tanunda so managed a few minutes conversation with them. Had lunch in the valley and then hit the road again where our last few km’s were happily spent playing word games and other such games that help pass the time during less interesting sections of hiking. All too soon we approached the Hallett Railway Station where the car was waiting for us, marking the end of five days of very enjoyable hiking with my dear friend Annette. The smaller km’s per day meant we really could enjoy our days without feeling a time pressure, and enough time at camp to have plenty of R and R. Reaching the halfway point was the icing on the cake.
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