I woke up out of excitement and looked around the room. It was extremely dark and I wasn’t sure what the time was, but I was sure that it was probably too early to get up. I checked my clock and saw that it was 5:01am, way too early for Mum, Dad or my brother. I tried to read for a bit, but I was just too excited to concentrate, I decided to just get up early but soon discovered that every small noise I made was magnified by the silence of the house. I climbed back into bed, got out my book (Every Days a Good Day, William Pike) and tried to forget my excitement and just read. Soon enough 6:00am came around and I could get up. After everything was done I triple checked my bags and started to carry them towards the car. Then my Mum told me that we were getting picked up by the neighbours, who were coming as well. Once we parked up I ran out of the car to meet all of my excited friends who were already there. We were all talking excitedly about the trip, as we clambered into the minivans. But as soon as we were seated we were told to get out, so we got out just to find that we had to have a lecture about the trip. Once we finally got in the vans, after quadruple checking our packs, and listening to Mr. Priddy we were finally off. I don’t remember much of the trip as I went to sleep, because I was feeling a bit car sick, but I do remember right before we got to Hawdon, the dirt road was really bumpy because of recent floods. You can probably just imagine how nice it was waking up to that! Once we stopped and had a talk, we had to squeeze the food into our packs. Then we got going, at first it was just really exciting, then as soon as the excitement wore off we reached a river. We had to get into groups of three. Undo the buckles on our pack and loop our arms behind each other’s back to hold the straps on their bags to keep together. We had to unclip our buckles so that if we got washed away we could easily slip our bags off. Once we crossed the river it finally hit me that we were actually doing the Hawdon Hut tramp, the one I had heard about for years. Then we kept on walking, and talking. Along the track we crossed rivers, climbed rocks and talked. When we were halfway there we found a swimming hole, and got to go for a swim, my friends and I were the first ones in and the last ones out. After about fifteen minutes of swimming we were told to put our packs back on so we could continue tramping.
[unitegallery 22]
A soon as the packs were back on they seemed to weigh a ton. As we continued around the track, the adults we were walking with kept saying, “the hut will be around this corner” but he said that about thirty times before he was right. As we got nearer to the hut we heard a few people shouting that we were there behind us. When we got there we got into dry clothes and all met in the main room, someone in our class was nominated to speak to the DOC ranger through the walkie-talkie then we all went to the bunk rooms and played lots of different card games. After we had freeze dry food for dinner, we put our wet clothes back on, and went boulder hopping. I slipped into the water, and did what I had been thinking of doing the whole time, I went for a swim. On the way up I found a swimming hole that went up to my waist and managed to get one of my friends, who had previously been calling me crazy, to come in with me. All of the boys went up to the very top but the girls came down. We must have been swimming for ages because the boys came back from the top and we were still in the water. We managed to get four of the boys to come in.
We got back, put our dry clothes back on, and had a milo, while sitting in our sleeping bag. The adults were worried about us getting too cold. Then we played a game of cards, where I bet the teacher and went to bed, the girls didn’t get to sleep until very late and we woke up very early. After that we rolled up our sleeping bags and bedrolls, then put our walking clothes back on had breakfast, and repackaged everything, then we got going.
We said goodbye to the other people who were at the hut and left. The walk back was so much faster than the walk there, and we were soon back in the mini vans. I was so excited because we were now heading towards Cave Stream. Once we got there we walked to the end so we could see what it looked like, then we walked to the start and did it. It was sooo much fun, We got wet, went in a cave and climbed up the wall, it was amazing. On the ride back I was so tired that I fell straight to sleep only to be woken as we reached Springfield. We got an ice cream and, took a photo at the big doughnut. Then I went home in my neighbours car, on the drive home I didn’t sleep, I stared out the window and replayed the whole trip in my head. It was by far the best experience I have ever had!
Alyssa Grigor
