We made it to the hut around 2 PM. Plenty of time for a cup of soup and a relax before the 2 km round trip to Valentines Falls, a cascade at first, culminating in a 20-30 m fall. Very exciting but we couldn't get a vantage point good enough for a photo.
A sad point to the day was my breaking our toilet trowel. We shall try to replace it in Thredbo, perhaps via courier from Jindabyne.
I've been asked to explain the whole business of food drops. The reason for them is to reduce the amount of food we are carrying, and thus the weight in our packs. A days food for two:
Breakfast
500 ml rolled oats and oat bran
3 tbl spoon full cream milk powder
2 teaspoons sugar
Fist full of various vitamins and fish oil.
Lunch
3 Salina crackers
6 slices of parmesan cheese (it takes lack of refrigeration best)
Dinner
Back Country freeze dried meal (175 gms)
Total weight, approximately 0.6 kg
To this we add snacks:
2 energy nut bars (70 gm)
Sweets (50 gm)
Nuts and dried fruit (100 gms)
And fuel for cooking 175 gms
So each day we need about 1 kg of weight for the purpose of eating. We will be on the track 30 days so will consume 30 kg of supplies, far too much to carry.
Most of our food drops were hidden off the track, secured in plastic storage bins sealed with packing tape then wrapped in 2 rubbish bags each sealed with tape. These were then taped as high in trees as we could get them. All the sealing and placing in trees was to avoid sharing our food with animals and ants. We are very selfish that way!
One exception was the Thredbo drop which we left on the Youth Hostel food storage shelf with our name and dates on it. We sincerely hope no one shares that one either!
