>>695918Pic related is me looking quite sad in our "cave" shelter. We hooked up one hutchie so that we would be protected from water, and another as a ground sheet type thing.
My mate put his boots (at the front of pic) too close to the fire while he was trying to dry them out.
The top-back of one of them melted quite badly. Never ever dry your boots too close to the fire.
The next morning, with our semi dry socks, we packed all the way back to the trailhead. Weather forecast said it was only going to be colder, and with no insulation from the ground I was not keen to spend another night. On the way we took a "Shortcut" up over a plateau. Bad idea. It was a huge bog on the top, knee deep in swampy spider infested moss. A little grey bird we fed rice to followed us all the way.
We got back to the trail 'car park' just as it started to get dark and wondered how the hell we were going to get back to the closest town, Glenorchy. Just then, some people rocked up in their wagon "just to have a look". They were nice enough to give us a ride all the way back.
My friends you have no idea how good the hot bread and chicken schnitzel at the local pub tasted that night.