Day 5 of our Overland Track winter crossing

Hiking, Overland Track, Tasmania, Trail Journal

Snow-covered trails, raging waterfalls, and dense forests tested us on Day 5 as we trudged from Kia Ora Hut to Bert Nichols Hut.

Kia Ora Hut to Windy Ridge (Bert Nichols Hut) (5 hrs, 10.6km)

We woke around 5am to the sound of rustling sleeping bags and pads.

The dead black night had just started turning blue, with a cloud-covered sun revealing the snow covered landscape.

We watched from the dining area as the snow continued to fall, leaving only under-foliage green.

The bushes surrounding the hut were covered in 20cm of fluffy white snow – a complete transformation of the earthy-coloured landscape from the day prior.

We set off at 7.40am, buoyed by the spectacular snow scene. It felt wondrous and magical.

We quickly slipped back to reality as the trail deteriorated, with overgrown bushes and a snow covered track.

Luckily, another hiker had departed before us and left snow prints in their wake.

We stopped off at the historic Du Cane Hut for a quick morning tea break, and wallaby sighting.

We followed slushy and muddy tracks through a damp forest to D’Alton and Fergusson Falls – a 1km side mission.

Both waterfalls raged, sending water plummeting into the waterway with incredible force – so much so that it rebounded upwards, sending water spraying through the sky.

From here, we followed an increasingly obscure and narrow track through the forest.

It seemed directional signs were either non-existent or covered by snow, so we relied on following our nose and signs of human intervention – like the occasional old plank – to find our way.

We bumped into two female hikers travelling north, and were grateful for their footprints, as the snow had all but engulfed any signs of the trail.

It was a really tough slog, pushing our way through dense overhanging vegetation, getting coated in snow as we brushed past, trudging through 30cm high snow, and eventually getting wet to the core.

With freezing fingers and cold extremities, we arrived at Bert Nichols Hut and got the heater fired up, strung up a clothesline and set to work drying gear.

The crew of dads and cons we’d been hut hopping with joined not longer after, adding swathes of wet clothes to the laundry system, facilitated by wife Jane.