Day 4. Loch Maree to Supper Cove hut. Tis the day we first swam in Dusky Sound. Dusky Sound was so called by captain Cook when he arrived here in 1770, you got it, at dusk. It's beautiful, it's amazing and we didn't see much of it because it was clouded. And it was raining.
Back to the swimming part, the Interwebs guides will tell you that you can cut 2 hours short if you walk through the Sound at low tide. They really mean at LOW tide, not at half-low tide. Because if you try at half-low tide, you can walk a part through knee-high water (this is normal), and then you have to SWIM a part to the shore. This is fun (although the first time the cold water reaches your groin area YOU ARE A DIFFERENT PERSON) while you swim, and even warm when you reach the shore, but then, unless the shore is in a warm, sunny place, you become very cold. Regardless, you can swim with your boots on (who would have thought?) and the backpack floats.
And no, you can't carry the backpack on your head, not if the water is deep!
After that, Marian, Pasha and one german guy that was at the hut went fishing in a thunderstorm. They caught 27 fishes, out of which 6 or so were big enough to be eaten, among them a blue cod! trout! While the incredible waste made me seriously consider not eating and throwing a huge tantrum, I relented to Marian's enthusiasm and cooked the buggers. The blue cod was delicious!
Day 5. From Supper cove to loch Maree - the only half sunny day!! This was the only day when the solar panel was actually used to charge our iphones. Good, good! We even lost the track at one point and managed to find it using the GPS!
Day 6. From Loch Maree hut to Kintail Hut. The guide books and the rangers at the DOC office will say that you should not leave Loch Maree for Kintail if you can't see the tree stumps in the Loch. I come and add to this: even if you do see the stumps but it has been raining steadily for two-three days, DO NOT GO. Unless you want to swim for it.
And swam we did. The first time I even stripped to my sports bra. Afterwards I didn't bother, figuring that I would waste too much heat by dressing-undressing (it was raining of course so we were wet and cold on a lot of levels). The gore-tex + thermal combination worked wonders for me.
We lost the trail many times because the orange triangles were heavily underwater (they are placed at about 1 m height) and you could not see them. At one point we wondered into deer country even, we were so far off the track - a combination of gps (until it died) and my knack of finding the way saved us in the end.
Hell, remember that family? Well, we found them stranded on a dry patch, waiting for a river to go down. In the end, we helped them get to Kintail - cross a lot of streams, rapids, up and down etc etc. My guess is that he wanted to kill her because otherwise I cannot for the life of me imagine WHY he would bring his severely unprepared wife on a trek like this. Ah well... It took us a total of 12 hours (and them 15) to get to Kintail Hut. The last three/four hours I was alone with them, having agreed with the boys for them to go ahead and then come back for us - the pace was snail-like. Marian turned out to be my hero because they really did come back for us! By that point I was nearly hypothermic because we were going so slow that I could not warm up at all - still wet, in shorts (ha ha). Marian and Pasha came and Pasha stayed with them while I ran the last km or so to the hut with Marian in tow (carrying my backpack - v. heavy as I had a large part of the family's clothes) such that I can prepare some warm drink. BRRR.
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