Day 1: ~26 km

Our first "morning" on the trail, we woke up at 4am to walk to the top of Mt Sonder in time for the sunrise. The Englishman is a fledgling photographer, and was keen to take pretty pretty pictures on his humongous fancy camera (just looking at how heavy that thing was -and its tripod!!- made my back ache). Walking up a mountain (albiet a well-made trail) in the dark was a strange experience. 

 At the top, it. was. FREEZING. Soooooooooooooooooooooo so so so so cold, with a nonstop, fierce wind in our faces as we tried to take photos of the stupid sunrise. Pretty quickly, I left that nonsense to the Englishman and found a bush to hide behind with the SuperAussie. The SuperAussie (aka, moron) over there in shorts actually began shaking so hard he spilled his tea. Speaking of, that was the most welcome cup of hot tea in my life.

One of the best bits of the summit at sunrise was getting to see the shadow of the mountain. It was like a cartoon! I've never seen a mountain so.... triangular before. I think the flatness of the landscape beneath the shadow helped illustrate it as well. 

 After the frigid summit, we bounced down the mountain back to camp, to eat, pack up, and set off to the next campsite. This was our longest day of the whole trip, mostly because we were fresh on energy and the majority of our walking was without our packs (16 km, up and down Mt Sonder). 

Welcome to Central New Mexic- I mean, Australia.

Busy mending gear our first proper night on the trail.

More to come....