Our group is spending the next week based at Burra and the theme for the week is "Le Tour de Burra". Today is the first day of what promises to be a wet, cold week, so a few formalities were completed on the bus before commencing the walk.
Robert Alcock showed Morris Minus with his official badge for "Le Tour de Burra 2014" and awarded MM to Steve Clift. Steve had notoriously forgotten or lost his lunch last walk and ate donated food, only to find his own food in his pack late in the day.
Deans's flag for Stage 1 of Le Tour de Burra, with King of the Mountain and other staging points and elevations.
Michael Middleton provided a map of the full event with each of the stages marked.
Rain jackets on.
The cloud over Mt Bryan looked ominous as we set out in the rain.
A bit of road walking.
Very wet conditions as we turned towards Mt Bryan.
Past some significant erosion.
A wet morning tea in the rain, before heading up Mt Bryan.
Up the slope in the rain and howling wind.
The cloud grew thicker and the rain turned to hail.
The hail turned to sleet and the wind kept getting stronger.
By now, the sleet is nearly horizontal as it blows across me.
Coral Campbell braves a smile for the camera.
The following photos, on and around the summit of Mt Bryan, are from other walkers - Robert Alcock, Mary Cartland and Michael Middleton.
Initially, the descent proved dangerous with ice underfoot. I had slipped and slid about 15 metres before digging my walking pole into the ground to halt my slide. Neville Haar chose to go on his backside, but slid about 50 metres out of control. Others also chose to slide as one of the photos above shows. Once we got past the worst of the ice, the trail was much easier to negotiate.
Our group split for lunch. Some of us, me included, took the first available shelter, being a crumbling building, now only used to shelter cows judging by the amount of dung inside. Never mind, it was dry in places and it was out of the wind. The rest of the group continued down the road a bit, looking for a better option.
Mt Bryan was our group's half-way mark on the trail, in that it was the middle of the day, on the middle day of our trek to Cape Jervis. We had walked 29 days prior to today. This was our 30th walking day, and we planned to walk another 29 days after today, for a total of 59 days on the trail.
After lunch, we reunited with the rest of the group, who had walked far enough to distance themselves from the bad weather around Mt Bryan. This photo is looking ahead i.e. walking east, away from Mt Bryan, and the weather is looking good.
However, looking back from that same spot the cloud is still menacing over Mt Bryan.
We walked 20.4 km today, revelling in the atrocious conditions on Mt Bryan, and laughing about it that evening at Gally's, where we celebrated with a dinner that included a 'Half-way' cake.
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