Tuesday 30 December 2014

Afterword

I have finally (Dec 2014) loaded some photos and panoramas, so now this blog is more or less complete. Comments are welcome and I'll try and incorporate any useful suggestions or resources. Things appear here in reverse chronological order, so I'd suggest clicking on the Introduction link above to get you started. I hope you find something useful.

There is also a new link to my Scottish National Trail blog. It's perhaps worth noting that I really started to appreciate Iceland once I was in Scotland. It really did make it a lot easier. 

So that poses the question "What would make Iceland seem easier?" and I think my answer to that is Te Araroa. But I'll leave you to find out what that means.


Happy Hiking!

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey. Is there an email I can reach you? Have a few question about the traverse I didn't find answers to.
Thanks

Charlie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Hey Charlie, thank you for the great blog!
How did you plan your water points? Did you had to carry a lot of water with you? I understood that water isn't so easy to find inland.
And who did you talk to for resupply?

Charlie said...

Water:
I guess much will depend on the weather you encounter and the time of year.

I didn't plan water much at all and seldom carried more than one litre. At the beginning it rained quite a bit, and there are generally enough streams.

However... for the section through the desert I did pay a lot more attention to where the next water was likely to be and also carried a bit more. Although as I was already carrying 12 days of food I couldn't manage to carry more than 2 litres maximum.

I looked on the GPS (and physical) map for where rivers were, but in fact sometimes these didn't exist at the time I was there. The sand (not really soil) is very well drained so any water sinks in pretty quickly even after some good rain.

In the desert I had to walk quite late one day to reach snow which was the only source of water. If you download my GPS points you will find all the places that I camped and I think I have noted somewhere which ones had water and which (few) didn't.

I also made plenty of stops for cups of hot tea when I felt like it and when there was both water and a little shelter from the wind. I generally drank a litre of tea (2 titanium cups worth) whenever I stopped to be sure I stayed well hydrated. And because I'm addicted to Chai!

Later on there are more rivers, but sometimes on the long 4WD track section I had to scoop a bit of rainwater from rocks. The rocks are impermeable so they collected rain.

I could have used a better means of scooping up rainwater than I had. You need something quite flat as they are not deep. But it did not take long to get a litre which was enough for a tea break.

Needless to say drinking water was a priority over washing!

Unknown said...

Thanks. From where to where is the 'desert' part?

Charlie said...

Roughly from my Day 7 (or about half way though it) to Day 13 (when I reached the 4WD track).

See my map of places to get an idea where this is.

Along the 4WD track (Days 14-17) there were also some stretches where there was not a lot of water.