Day 82
Mile 1163 to 1189, 26 miles
Cost: Camped, free

I had one of the worst night’s sleep yet on the trail 😦 It was my fault because I pitched my tent on granite which I didn’t realise until I tried to stake the pegs and they hit the rock after only an inch or so. I thought that maybe the storm had passed so it would be ok with the pegs not all the way in… Boy was I wrong! The wind whipped up in the middle of the night and my pegs came flying out! The rain started soon after and pounded on my tent through the night. The rain stopped just before it was time to get up but I hadn’t had much sleep throughout the night and I didn’t want to get up or hike anywhere! Mr & Mrs Smith convinced me to get up but we took it really slowly and dried out our tents before leaving. 

Peter Grubb Hut

  
We noticed that Guthook’s and Halmile’s apps gave different GPS coordinates for Lacey creek. It was the last water source for another 7 miles and it was incredibly hot and humid so we were really counting on filling up there. We stopped when we thought we must’ve gone past it, looked at Guthook and it said we had gone past by 0.3 miles. We all needed water so we hiked back up the hill 0.3 miles and searched all around with no luck. I checked Halfmile and it said we were 0.5 miles away from it, meaning we were originally 0.2 miles away from it before following Guthook and backtracking! We walked back down the trail, found the sign on the tree, then followed a road for 0.2 miles before cutting into a meadow and followed a dry stream bed until we found water. Halfmile was right. 

Going to have to get used to looking at the water report again for sources like this

The sun soon disappeared, the clouds rolled in and we were treated to another thunder and lightning show all around us. Incredibly we stayed dry even though the trail kept heading towards the dark clouds all day!

Here comes the thunderstorm!

After a very hot and humid day, this creek under a road bridge was the perfect place for a bath!

A new flower I hadn’t seen before

We found a lovely campsite on a peak and I was exhausted. Mrs Smith gave me a Tylenol PM pill which apparently helps you to sleep as well as being a painkiller… I usually don’t have any problem falling asleep, I just wake up a thousand times during the night, hopefully tonight I’ll sleep more peacefully.