Day 569 | Devil's Grip Gorge campsite: deep in Kosciuszko National Park

23 km | zzOz total: 18,801 km

There’s a change with the national park people, it costs money, apparently, so it’s more middle class.

I take most of the day to go my 23 km, actually 12 km of that, it’s a grind, a pushathon, I’m not so lively, I’m feeling burdened lumbering tediously up the hills, and then having climbed most of the day, breaks aplenty, there’s a catastrophic drop to the Swampy Plains River where I spend the night. Later I realise they are mere bumps, foothills before the real climbing begins.

It’s a small campsite, 3 4WDs, all with primary school children, unseen, but heard clearly enough, I take the last available spot, a bit removed. There’s a few fishing lines in evidence as I pull in, I notice a black Volvo 4WD, it’s a professional crew here, children are called Edward, Samuel and Alexander, although one dad is strutting around in his budgie smugglers, beer gut over the top, not sufficient to be too proud there.

I chat to his sad-eyed wife as I take a dip in the refreshing flow, she’s got a nice kid but I sense Mr Beer Gut stifles her inspiration, and she’s not up to saying what it is she really wants, if she even knows.

I talk to another Beard who wanders in, he says he has passed me on the road. Beards can talk to each other comfortably enough, but maybe there’s no real person inside, it’s just the beard talking, hiding behind a mask.

No one else much wants to know us, that facial hair is announcing we are totally washed up and have become irrelevant to the rest of the world.

Beard tells me of his bike ride around these parts last year, but I’m not really listening, just watching the cobwebs move around. I sense we do things differently, he drives to the campsite and rides unencumbered with luggage from base camp, I trundle along with my full caboodle aboard.

I’ve been revising my planning and am changing my route to avoid time on the asphalt Alpine Way, instead of Deadhorse Gap, Thredbo and Sawpit Creek I’m going to be more direct heading up to the Geehi Reservoir and, maybe, cutting out a day or more of suburban traffic gone feral.

It’s all dirt.

Sounds sensible to me.