Standley Chasm – Jay Creek

Day 11 is a rest day. It rained overnight, but not continuously. However, since I got up it has been raining almost all the time. I’m glad that we decided not to walk today.

The Tasmanian lads had breakfast in the cafe and then hung around for a while, waiting for the rain to ease. When to became obvious that that wasn’t going to happen, they came over and said goodbye to us, and we wished them well for the rest of their walk.

We settled around a table in the cafe near a heater to try to keep warm. The weather is quite cold today. I read a book and in between times we all chatted.

The afternoon was spent lolling about it, drinking cups of tea (with a piece of hummingbird cake), and doing the cryptic crossword, and the quiz. We managed to get the table next to the heater, which was appreciated in the cold weather. I also took a stroll up to the chasm to take some photos during daylight.

At 5 pm I went for a walk up to the lookout which, after all the views that we have been enjoying over the previous 10 days, was a bit underwhelming. We had dinner in the cafe (green chicken curry). At 7:30 pm I went to bed.

After a good night’s sleep, I woke on day 12 at 5:30 am and got up in the dark.

It had been drizzling overnight, so I knew it would take me a little bit longer to get ready. I had breakfast at the cafe (cereal, hot chocolate, chocolate). Dave lent me a chamois with which to dry my tent, which meant that I was able to get the tent mostly dry before packing it up.

We walked for an hour to Millers Flat. The start of the walk, leaving Stanley Chasm, is surprisingly hilly. Rather than following the creek, the track goes up and down and up and down.

At Millers Flat we took a turn to the north to take the high track. This rises 300 m, very steeply. It was very cold and blowing a gale up on top. However, we could see for 100 km in every direction. Despite the overnight drizzle the clouds had risen, and the views were fantastic.

However, because of the cold wind, we decided to move on quite quickly and re-grouped back on the lower trail having descended on Pravda Spur, which was relatively gentle with lots of switchbacks.

We then walked for half an hour to the Fish Hole where we had lunch. It was still blowing a cold wind, which meant that we didn’t lunch for very long. The Fish Hole is a scenic waterhole.

A heron landed while we were there, and I snuck up to take a photo.

Then it was only 2 km to Jay Creek campsite. I was walking at an easy pace and the track followed creek bed quite awhile which meant that the going was slow. 

As the afternoon wore on more and more people arrived to camp at Jay Creek. Between 20 and 30 people, including ourselves. I spent most of the time reading my book as well as washing a pair of undies and charging some gadgets. The wind was bitterly cold.