Home and Wrecked

I'm home.

I'm sore and tired.

I'm physically and emotionally drained.

I've just spent an hour soaking in a hot bath to help my aching muscles.

As predicted the hike was hard work, 22km in 2 days with a few testing hills along the way.

But the hardest work was dealing with the kids.

Several were pretty well behaved and easy to get along with but a small group were loud, rude, crude, obnoxious, anti-social and unaware. As I stared up at the stars amongst the trees late last night after chastising the group of boys I was supervising in yet another vain attempt to get them into bed, settled and quiet and not throwing things or abuse at one another I wondered what hell is like?
I'm fairly certain it was worse than the experience I was going through but it didn't feel like it.
When one of the boys called me an obscene name I saw red and blew my top at him.
It wasn't good, it wasn't funny, it was just stressful and frustrating.

Thankfully they eventually settled down and actually slept.
I had to laugh to myself when one of them complained that my noise and snoring disturbed his sleep!!

The walk back today was done under time pressure which meant pushing myself harder than I'm used to and thus I'm paying the price physically. We made it back just in time for the kids to get their buses home.

On the positive side the bush was beautiful, the countryside was green and fresh and we walked through some truly picturesque places as we followed the Donnelly River. There was an abundance of interesting mushrooms, toadstools and related fungi of many different colours shapes and sizes. We crossed bridges of fallen logs covered in moss, through dense bush and towering Karri trees, and drank cold fresh water straight from the river and streams.
We started and finished at One Tree Bridge on the road to Pemberton and it is well worth a visit if you're ever in the area.