14km Day : 683km Total
24 January 2015
-41.551765, 173.167952

Today was amazing! . . . and exhausting.  We got a good start at 7:30am and first had to climb 250m just to get up to the main trail because Old Man Hut is located below the ridge. After that it was more climbing toward Little Rintoul’s peak. 

The track notes warn that the next 4km were difficult alpine track, and it is true that this track is not for novices.  But there was only one 20m section that made me nervous and that was just before Little Rintoul where there is a not quite vertical cliff against your right shoulder and a cliff dropping off just to the left of the trail.  Coming down from L. Rintoul on the other side is also challenging but not quite as scary.  If there had been any wind or rain I would not have walked this trail.  But the weather as perfect.

Then it was toward Mount Rintoul down rocky paths and then across scree fields.  Here we met a family of goats that were much better at walking the scree slopes than we were.

Near the top of Rintoul we met a SOBO TA hiker named Nathan who was just coming from the summit. The views from the top were amazing.

The ridge line track we were following then descended through birch forests toward Tarn Hut. 

I learned from Rory that a tarn is a mountain lake, and there was a fairly large one adjacent to the hut. There was a fishing pole at the hut so I attempted to fish using a little salami for bait donated by Joerg.  No bites but it was still fun to make an attempt.  Now I’m looking forward to fish and chips when we get to St Arnaud.