Three Capes Track – Day 3 | Jenny and Stephen's Travel Adventure

Three Capes Track – Day 3

By Stephen M on April 30, 2017

Departed:Munro Huts, Three Capes Track
Destination: Retakunna Huts, Three Capes Track
Distance: 17km
Weather: Perfecto!
Mood: Excited
Highlight: The Blade and Cape Pillar

A greatly anticipated day started with a glorious sunrise only marred by a thick band of cloud where the sun was supposed to break through on the horizon, even the poo pods looked good in the early light!

Poo Pods (back of toilet facilities)

It’s always fascinating to see where all those kilo’s we’ve been hauling along the track, then shovelling into our mouths actually go? Well I’m glad you asked, cos these fancy huts have toilet facilities where one climbs up a raised platform with a number of enclosed cubicles on it, each with a fancy modern looking poo pod mounted directly under both the floor and the “throne”. The camp ranger has to keep an eye on poo quantities and record these on their daily report back to head office so as to coordinate the removal of full ones by helicopter. Apparently poo pods exceeding 850kg of crap become a problem due to their weight. (Well we weren’t helping matters!) Meryl had also worked out a way of telling if one was more full than another by simply using her nose and she was able to back this up with a visual inspection! (Really makes the Mona poo machine quite boring!)

Enough! The bulk of today’s walk involved a 12km return trip back to the Munro hut, so meant we could leave our heavy packs and go light with just day packs. This was music to David’s ears as he was still lugging about the final group meal on his back and meant we only had less than 5km carrying our big packs for the day!

The skies remained clear for the day providing glorious views and pleasant walking conditions as we enjoyed Cape Pillar and then on to scale The Blade. From a distance we could see other hikers climbing the blade and thought they were mad, not realising that we would also get the opportunity to test our nerves. We even decided to have a cuppa halfway up the blade climb! Just had to watch out for the edge as there would be no coming back from that height!

That’s close enough for this old duck

Views across to the lighthouse on the Tasman Island were spectacular as was watching some daring moves by scenic boat cruises as they steered their craft between the towering pillars whilst missing the onslaught of waves crashing against the cliff faces and pillars!

Before long we were back at Munro loading up our packs that seemed considerably heavier than the day before after having skipped along the track with no more than a couple of kilos on our backs.

We arrived at the Retakunna huts on sunset and were soon treated to a sky full of stars. The Proe’s kept up with the high standard of evening meals with another hearty dish involving their own concoction of dehydrated vegetables (all done laboriously by themselves) and mixed in with sausage and bacon pieces with plenty of rice to fill out the tasty dish! No clear winner, but would have to award it to the Morey’s for the nice touches, such as the pre-dinner nibbles, wine and the white linen service with the chef dressed in a cooking apron, as only Brett would/could do… Why? Cos you can!