Sylvia and Frank now in Skenes Creek!: Day 5

We were woken during the night by strange sounds outside our tent. Described as a cross between an "oomph" and a growl. Not to mention the sounds of very heavy feet right by my head. Then there were shouts from Mukti and Hari before the sounds disappeared. Turns out we had survived a "Yak Attack"!

Apparently Tibetan Yaks are communal animals. The owner of the yaks, the guy who owns and runs the campsite we were in, had separated two calves from the group and put them in one of his huts - the same hut our boys were sleeping in. During the night, the dominant male yak had decided to retrieve the two calves which involved bringing the rest of the herd through our campsite. Mukti and Hari extracted the calves and dragged them 100 metres away which made the yak herd move away and removed the risk of us getting trampled by yaks in our sleep!

The Tibetan Yaks are not native to the area but are well suited to the cold climate and high atmosphere. The largest yak can be worth 70,000 rupees (AUD$10,000) and the small calves about 20,000 rupees (AUD$ you do the maths) - a small fortune by Nepalese standards. According to Mukti they shouldn't really be there as it is designated as the Annapurna Nature Conservation Area. The yaks are indiscriminate feeders and are eating all the young shoots of anything that tries to grow not to mention the trampling and pugging of the soil. [Mmmm...did someone say "cattle in the Victorian High Country"?]

When we were woken with our morning tea and bowl of hot washing water the sky was clear and there were tremendous views of the range.

There is a valley between High Camp and the Annapurna Range and the Annapurna Base Camp Trek follows the opposite side of the valley to us. The plan was to walk an hour or two further up the ridge on our side of the valley to get a full view of the Annapurna Base Camp and the real Annapurna. This was reliant on the clouds staying away. Mukti and I were the only takers but we only got 30 minutes into the walk when it started to close in in the higher peaks. According to Mukti this meant that we wouldn't be able to see Annapurna so we turned around and came down again. But, this meant I had reached the highest point we would get to on our trek, ~3,580 metres.

Today was to be comparatively long at 5 to 6 hours but, after we had followed the ridge in the above photo, it was downhill. We were retracing our steps to Forest Camp.

This actually got easier the lower we got. I can only put this down to the air getting "thicker" as we descended - either that or the Lomotil I had to take after breakfast was working and I felt less ill-at-ease :)

While we were at Low Camp it started raining so we ate our lunch on the teahouse veranda. By the time we had eaten and the boys had packed up again the rain had stopped so we managed to stay dry. It took us roughly 2 hours to get to Low Camp and a further 2 and a half hours to Forest Camp.

As usual, the boys got into Forest Camp well before us. The sleeping tents and dining tent were ready to go and the camp kitchen was hard at work. However, the boys found some time to take a break and started drumming, singing and dancing around our sleeping tents. This was quite entertaining until we were enticed into dancing as well. The boys had been trying to get us to join in since the very first night, and as they got to know us better became more persistent. See the results for yourself...