I was so close to getting another blog post out after just one week, and then… I didn’t. Anyway, greetings from lovely leafy Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory. I never did end up doing that summit walk—it just started raining more and more throughout the day so I huddled up in my van and got into a good book.

The past two weeks have consisted of either hiking or just lounging around little towns, planning next moves or just relaxing. There’s not much to say about the relaxing, so we’ll just go through some of the nice hikes here. First I did the southern circuit in Cathedral Range State Park. It was a great hike with some time in the forest, some fun rock scrambling, and a long stretch clambering around the rocks along a ridge. No snake sightings, which was probably for the best—there were some sections in the rocks where there was truly nowhere to go.

Next was the Mt Buller to Mt Stirling hike. These are both ski resorts, and the trail was mostly on fire roads or four wheel drive tracks, which isn’t my favorite. It had nice views across the Australian Alps though, and was a good warmup for the big kahuna that came next.

That kahuna was the hike to Mt Speculation via Mt Howitt and the Crosscut Saw in Alpine National Park. It was a solid undertaking—36km, about 2300m of elevation, 14 and a half hours all told. It had been a while since I’d done a really big hike like that and I was a bit nervous going into it. I did learn from the past though. Bring and eat way more food than you need, and a water bottle with some cold brew in it goes a long way when that afternoon swoon hits. It was a gorgeous hike. Really beautiful creekside trail to begin with, through towering mountain ash forest and between the giant ferns. Then a steep climb up to Mt Howitt and its huge views, and the rest of the trail undulating up and down along the ridge out to Mt Speculation, harder than the elevation profile suggested. I was solidly worn out by the end, but pleasantly surprised at how ok my legs felt the next day—just goes to show that eating and drinking the right amounts does in fact make a difference.

On the drive back into town the next day I stopped off at Bindaree Falls, which turned out to be one of the nicest waterfalls I’ve seen in Australia. I don’t know if it was the lack of people, the lack of expectations, or the beauty of the falls that made me enjoy them so much, but I suspect it was all three.

After a few lazy days and some beautiful riverside campsites the next move was to explore Mt Buffalo National Park. It’s pretty much one steep winding road that climbs up this mountain, with several waterfalls in the lower section and lots of boulder piles to scramble on higher up. I went one day for a couple of quick looks at different falls, and came back the next day to walk the Back Wall track at the very far end of the park, getting views back to the highest peak in the park and also across to the other mountains. It was a chill hike on a shortish, flattish trail, which was perfect for that day. After another waterfall visit for a quick dip on the way back (the need for a shower was getting pretty dire at this point) I kept it moving to the next part of Alpine National Park.

After Mt Buffalo the forecast was for a thunderstorm and I decided not to risk 6-7 hours on a ridge in bucketing rain. I spent most of the day in the van reading and relaxing, but I managed to get out for a couple of misty strolls during breaks in the rain. I really just can’t get enough of all the different eucalypts’ bark.

The last hike I did was Mt Feathertop via the razorback. I’ve come across several razorbacks already in Australia, it seems to be the default name for any ridge. Which is exactly what this hike was all about—basically just 11km each way walking along a ridge, with huge views to either side. It was partly cloudy all day so I never got the full, unobstructed views, but that was more than made up for when I got to watch the clouds streaming through a saddle in the ridge. On the way back I spent a while doing my best to photograph the kestrels that live near the beginning of the hike. It’s astonishing watching them—their ability to hover in a precise spot, sometimes flapping their wings but sometimes motionless, just making micro-adjustments to the position of their wings and letting the wind hold them up, seeming to hang suspended from a string. And then how fast they suddenly veer off, dive, loop around. It makes for beautiful watching but very difficult photographing, and between their aerobatics and the clouds streaming through I’m not sure I got a single photo in focus, though I still really enjoyed the attempt.

And that’s pretty much that. After Feathertop I spent a couple of nights at a beautiful campsite near the Victoria/New South Wales border, and then yesterday I motored over to Canberra. I’m here to visit my friend Colin and his family, from way back in the Microsoft days over a decade ago. It was awesome catching up over dinner last night and I’m really looking forward to the next couple of days checking out Canberra and hanging out with them. After that there’ll be nothing left to do but jet over to Sydney and try to really, finally get everything lined up and ready for the next step. You can find videos for this post here.