This was it! The last 14km of the trail!

My day began with a 2:45am alarm.

I made a coffee as quietly as I could so as not to wake the others. I wasn’t having breakfast before leaving camp, but I had a couple of museli bars and carried snacks up with me. I’d guess we’d be back at camp by around 9:30am ish ready for the 11am pick up.

My bag was already packed and organised the day before. I did have a sea-to-summit day pack with me, but I decided to use my main pack for better comfort and support - I still needed to carry a bit of weight with the 5kg of camera equipment and a couple of litres of water and snacks.

The last day of walking! I couldn’t believe it was here. The trip flew by. And I pretty much loved every minute (with the exception of about 2 hours!).

I also can’t believe I’m nearly at the end of writing and processing images from such an epic trip. I took nearly 1600 photos on the hike, plus a whole heap more in the week after the trip - I took another 1000 alone on a one hour sunrise helicopter flight!

I sacrificed my rest day at Ormiston Gorge, to return at a later date to shoot it fully with my full kit. I’d also do the Pound Walk whilst there.

I’d had a great night on top of this lookout - there was no wind, I slept well and awoke the next morning excited to shoot and raring to hike!

Dawn on the top of Count’s Point was incredible - definitely one of my trip highlights. I felt like I was on top of the world! And I really felt like I was on the homeward stretch now - I could see the end in sight!

I was feeling great after a successful afternoon’s shooting the previous day, a relax and a great couple of swims… I was up early and managed to pack up most of my camp at around 5am. I started making coffee and breakfast but decided to set up the camera for a little bit of pre-dawn astro photography as I was so early! I drank coffee and snacked whilst I was shooting several long exposures waiting for the sun to come up.

I didn’t shoot that sunrise from Rocky Gully. The area didn’t excite me in terms of photographic opportunities!

Leaving Rocky Gully that morning I had to wear the fly net again - the second time during the trip. I really think it’s something to do with cattle - the stronger the evidence of cattle (including being able to smell them!), the higher the prevalence of flies! After an hour or so of wearing it, I’d decided it was safe to remove it….. and then proceeded to swallow a fly. Haha!

I was right about the light being better from my camp at sunrise! That first morning glow was so pretty - I loved capturing it within the gorge.

This was a super short day in terms of hiking. I knew it would be! Section 5 is known for being one of the most unique and spectacular sections along the trail, and I’d planned to spend extra time in this section to make the most of the photography!

I had another beautiful morning along this epic walk - camped alongside Birthday Waterhole for the night. It was only fair I spend more time shooting some beautiful light and reflections this morning. As had become my routine, I packed up most of my tent prior to sunrise photography sessions.

This was another one of my favourite days! Watching the sunrise from the top of a mountain is always a great motivational way to start the day! Looking back now, I am so grateful to have been able to do this hike and experience this beautiful country.

Feeling clean and refreshed and ready to tackle my next section! I left Standley Chasm just after 8am - a relatively late start for me. I was dreading my pack - the heaviest load I would ever have carried - 7 days worth of food plus water for nearly 2 days.

Originally I had planned to hike from Pravda Spur, down to Standley Chasm to collect my food drop box, and then continue straight on up another mountain to spend the night at Brinkley Bluff.

However, this would have been a huge challenge. On the advice from LTTS I’d need to be leaving Standley Chasm by 1pm at the latest, to ensure I had enough time to walk and photograph the ascent up to Brinkley Bluff. It would have meant my day would have exceeded a total of 20km, through one of the hardest sections to hike (a LOT of up and down!), but also one of the most photogenic places along the trail.

Day 2 - from the designated campsite of Wallaby Gap to my proposed (non-designated) campsite near Arenge View was a distance of approx 24km.

It’s so hard to know where to start talking about such an amazing experience!

Hopefully you’ve seen the Introduction and Itinerary posts which give a bit of a general overview of my experience.

On day 1 I hiked Alice Springs Telegraph Station to Wallaby Gap which totaled 13.7km.

Day 1 was a strange day for me, in that it did not reflect my experience of the trail very well at all!