Day 6 hiking the Australian Alps Walking Track solo

Australian Alps Walking Trail, Hiking, Trail Journal

Reunited with Jane at Kiandra for my first food drop — fresh meals, gear, hugs, and a few tears before hitting the trail again.

Witzes Hut to Four Mile Hut site (20.1km) | TOTAL – 131.1km

I rose at 4.50am, packing up my belongings quietly to make tracks early to Kiandra. I slept well last night with no animal interactions and I felt ready to smash out the kilometres to get to my Trail Angel and food drop.

It took me 2.5 hours (instead of the suggested 4.5) to hike to the little ghost town – a popular food drop location as it’s just off the Snowy Mountains Highway.

To get there, I predominantly followed an unsealed road utilised for the hydro system, passing several work vehicles on my travels. I spotted a loan brumby in the distance about halfway.

When I arrived at Kiandra, I immediately laid eyes on our much loved white Hilux and Jane came running towards me with arms wide open. It was an emotional reunion, with both of us wearing big smiles and choaking back tears.

We spent the next three hours chatting in the warmth of our car, Jane presenting me with a variety of fresh food options and drinks – a bunch of grapes, a beautiful ham and salad roll, an iced coffee, and a can of Coke Zero. I was in food heaven!

I filled her in on my journey so far, and caught up with her Canberra goings-on, and charged my devices from the car. Next, we coordinated the ‘food drop’, exchanging leftovers with six days’ worth of new meals, as well as fresh socks, leggings and a new water filter.

Jane sent me away with a few yummy surprises too – a Summer Roll chocolate bar, two apples and a freshly buttered hot cross bun, which I later toasted on a combustion heater. At just before 1.30pm we exchanged one final kiss and cuddle at the road junction where the trail recommenced.

I spent the next two hours making my way to Four Mile Hut, where I collected wood and got the little combustion heater burning. Four Mile Hut was built a year or so ago, after the original hut was lost in a fire.

It’s a delightful and well-insulated one-room, little wooden hut with lovely furnishings, and is of such quality that it could easily be mistaken for an Airbnb.