Day 3, 4 and 5.



 Paul P here. Well, what was supposed to be the easiest section of the entire trip proved to be pretty epic and tiring. I had to spread my pack load amongst Pallen, Melinda and Vonna as i was in danger of not making the distance. I fell twice bruising my arm. I’m an filled with gratitude for the show of selflessness. Vonna has a cracked rib (a side effect of all that radiotherapy) and had stabbing pains in her ribs and had to take Endone to sleep at Mulga Camp. 



I have about 8 blisters on my paralysed foot and am very worried about infection.



 

Pallen is super strong but needs his fellow trekkers to guide him. Once he has sequence then he is okay and can’t repeat that sequence again and again.

But morale is high, and we are having much hilarity.

We passed billabongs with camel tracks and walked through incredible gorges of pink and blood red quartzite.

No we are at the amazingly beautiful Jay Creek and about to Head off in the morning on what fellow trekkers reckon is one of the most brutal parts of the larapinta Trail to Standley Chasm.

Day 5 was truly epic. Almost 11 hours of climbing up creek beds made of quartzite boulders. It was like agony and ecstasy. The agony of struggling over these sometimes huge boulders and even roped climbing up a dry waterfall at one point. The ecstasy was each time you looked up and saw was a gobsmacking place you were in. Blood red rock, cycads, all sorts of life in the desert.

We are all tired now and my leg on my hemiplegia side lost motor control for the last two kms up and over two huge mountains actually in Standley Chasm. 

Feeling blessed to have such friends. Vonna, Melinda and Pallen shared my load so that I only had to carry a light pack, and at the end Melinda had my pack on her front as we climbed up the mountains. 

Now lying in my tent with heavy cramping legs listening to the dawn chorus with cramping legs.