The fourth hike in this Canberra Centenary Trail series (see Hike 1, Hike 2 & Hike 3 if you need to catch-up), and this time I thought I’d start expanding my distance and increasing my range.
With about 90km remaining on this trail, and only four (4) weeks before I head off overseas, I thought why not split it three ways and hike 30km each over the next three weekends. After all, unlike the Camino-Frances some of the daily distances on the Camino-Portugues will be in excess of 30km.
Weather-wise, it had rained heavily up until 5am on the day of my hike, and light rain was forecast for the entire day. This doesn’t bother me at all, and in fact I welcome it (not everyday but at least a few times during my training). The reality is that once you start on a long-haul hike like a Camino, and you have time-pressure to meet flights home and the like, you can’t really afford to curl up in the fetal position if it’s raining outside. Likewise, if you’re halfway between towns and the skies open up, you just have to cover up your pack and yourself and keep on keeping on.
As it turned out though, I was pretty fortunate the weather forecast was somewhat inaccurate, as the day turned out to be simply overcast for the most part, accented by rain for my last 2-3km (of course).
Distance-wise, well my planned 30km route ended up being a 34km hike due to a 1.8km round-trip detour up to the Black Mountain Summit and your occasional wandering in the wrong direction blunder. In my defence though, I think the signage on the Caminos are better than those that are attempting to guide me around this Canberra Centenary Trail, so without the route loaded into my fitness watch this would occur more often.
Notes for Section 4/5 – Nicholls to Black Mountain to Coombs:
Tissues, tissues, tissues. Everytime I hit the trail, a few hours in my nose is running like a tap, and everytime I say to myself “my front left pocket would be the perfect place for a little travel pack of tissues – I must remember to do that”. And what do you know… just like Dory from “Finding Nemo”… “Hi I’m Dory, I suffer from short-term remembory loss”. I’ll remember one of these days.
In the same vein, what did I say about my pack straps after the last hike? Well, they still need adjusting, and the way my body feels today, well I reckon my poorly adjusted pack might have a little something to do with that. “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming”.
On the positive side, I managed to charge my watch a couple of times throughout the hike and avoid losing desirable GPS data for my route tracking and distance stats. I also had a little read of the manual and was much more confident at navigating through the menus to access various data on the fly without accidentally stopping my session.
So other than those previously mentioned niggles, and my body screaming at me during the extra 11km I decided to torment it with, it was a nice little stroll. More asphalt path hiking than I’d normally like, but equally some nice, albeit muddy, trail hiking too.
Pretty sites included walking around Lake Ginninderra near Belconnen, the hike through Black Mountain Nature Reserve, likewise through the National Aboretum and the adjoining Australian National University (ANU) Research Forest, and finally legging it through the surrounding forest of the Molonglo River Reserve.
Now I have another week to mend and prepare for Hike 5 of 6, another ~30km day. Later.
CCT Section 4/5 – Nicholls to Black Mountain to Coombs Pics
Distance walked today: 34km
Weight of Pack and Contents: 12.0kg
Surface: Mixed (asphalt, mud & rocks)
Weather: Overcast / Rain.
Total Distance Walked for Camino-Portugues Training thus far: 101km
CCT Section 4/5 – Nicholls to Black Mountain to Coombs Video
As always, I recorded this hike with my chest-mounted GoPro Hero 10, and will upload it to the Walking with Strangers Youtube channel as soon as I can.
GoPro Recording Settings: TimeWarp mode with a Wide FOV at 10x speed.
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Well done Michael. Hope you can rest the body ready for the next one.