We got a 9:15am start where Luca and I finally managed to finish packing before Emma and Gordon. The weather was warming up quickly so we wanted to get to the car as soon as possible.  Also we had had enough crackers and salami/peanut butter, so we wanted to but lunch on the way back to Hobart.

 The track from Two Mile Creek to Junction Creek was a bit muddier than earlier sections of McKay’s track, with longer muddy sections surrounding Junction Creek and another creek that we crossed over.  However we reached Junction Creek with much relief at 10:15am. 

We met a couple who were about to commence a long trip over the Western Arthurs, with plans to return after New Year’s Eve.  The man was wearing sneakers and socks, pulled up to his knees, so we thought it may be an interesting walk for him given all the mud - for his sake I hope the weather remains dry!

The track to Scott’s Peak did not hold much excitement to Luca and I with most interest coming from how much dryer the mud was compared to the way in and our earlier trip.  We made our way along in the hot weather with few incidents. We stopped about half way along the track, at what had become our traditional stopping place, with relief and excitement at the short distance remaining, and also knowing that the worst of the mud was close to over.  We finished off our last “fun size” chocolate bars and muesli bar, and also ate some hard jubes as we were pretty low on energy at this point, given we had not eaten since breakfast, some 3 hours earlier.

Luca had by this stage used up his 4gb memory card, and only had a few pictures remaining on the 256mb card he took out of his GPS, so was not stopping for many pictures either, giving me less time to rest.  Some time after our break we started seeing some familiar signs indicating that the track was nearly over, the two tin plate signs, the root rot sign, board walk!  Then we reached the last bit of forest before the car, then the road, then the car!  It was just after 1pm.

I signed off the walk, then we made our way to the car and started pulling out some relatively clean clothes to change into.  

The greatest feeling was taking off my hiking boots, which needed a bit of an airing after the water that got in when I fell in the creek.  At close to 2pm the four of us headed off to Hobart, looking forward to buying a hot lunch, carbonated drinks and all the other things of which we thought we had been deprived.

The Western Arthurs was an excellent  walk, challenging and extremely scenic and has left a high bar for the Eastern Arthurs to compete with in a week’s time.