“…Billy, of course, is only one of thousands that have got this mania. And the autumn is the time when it rages at its worst.
Every day there move northward trains, packed full of lawyers, bankers, and brokers, headed for the bush. They are dressed up to look like pirates. They wear slouch hats, flannel shirts, and leather breeches with belts. They could afford much better clothes than these, but they won’t use them. I don’t know where they get these clothes. I think the railroad lends them out. They have guns between their knees and big knives at their hips. They smoke the worst tobacco they can find, and they carry ten gallons of alcohol per man in the baggage car….”
“Back to the Bush” from “Literary Lapses” by Stephen Leacock
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“Let’s go camping – go bush, commune with nature, get out of the city smog, fill our lungs with fresh mountain air, catch some fish to eat, wake up with the birds, go to sleep after the campfire dies down, wash in the river, climb a mountain, see an eagle – it will be great!”
So said my friend Bushy Dan with great enthusiasm. And as it had been a while since I had been out in the wilds, I went. We travelled far up the highway to the mountains in the north.
There was a little town on the river at the base of Mount Featherhead and we stopped there for some supplies we had forgotten such as chocolate, trail mix of dried fruit and nuts for extra energy when running away from bears, a local map, a compass, hiking boots, warm clothes, a tent, a fishing rod, an emergency satellite phone and a few other similar non-essentials.
Bushy Dan and I drove the car to the car park at the base of the mountain and set off with overloaded packs oozing with chocolate, leaving a trail of trail mix and sprouting satellite phone antennas.
First we had to navigate the imposing cluster of warning signs at the beginning of the Mount Featherhead trail. There were warning signs about snakes, warnings not to chase the wombats, warnings not to swim naked in the river due to the danger of snapper turtles and warnings that the grass may cause injury. Actually, they were right about the grass. It was tall sword grass with a razor sharp edge. I carelessly ran my hand through the leafy fronds and yelled in pain as the blood dripped from the wounds. Bushy Dan leapt into action and had my hand bandaged in less than an hour as he carefully read the instructions from the book he had brought along called “Bush Bandaging for Beginners”. Unfortunately he had bought the e-book version to read on his phone and the screen was too small and too dim in full sunlight to read very easily and I kept on dripping blood on the screen and he had set it to dim after 15 seconds to save battery power – but eventually he got me all bandaged up.
So off we tramped, onwards and upwards, over rocks, avoiding rabbit holes, climbing over trees that had fallen on the track, stepping ankle deep into mud and watching out for the snakes that were watching out for victims as they sunned themselves on warm rocks. “This is the life!” said Bushy from time to time. “It’s good for the soul!” Perhaps it was, if you consider pain and frustration to be soul food.
Unfortunately the warning signs at the beginning of the track had not warned us about the Giant St. Andrew’s Cross spiders which like to weave their webs across open spaces between trees such as our bush track. Bushy, being the lead hiker, was the first of us to run into the web of one of these large arachnids. The web got all tangled up in his bushy beard and hair and the spider scuttled down the back of the collar of his hairy woollen hiking shirt. Normally imperturbable Bushy Dan got upset by this and immediately ripped off his back pack and shirt and began dancing around trying to swat the spider on his back but with no success. The St. Andrew’s Cross spider was originally named because of its shape when at rest – a diagonal cross with its eight spider legs bunched together into four pairs, forming a cross shape. However at this point it was not at rest, in fact it was very angry and living up to its “cross” moniker. Eventually, between my suppressed guffaws, I flicked the cross St. Andrew’s spider off Bushy’s back. He didn’t believe I had really got rid of it, so he rolled on his back in the sword grass with unfortunate results. After I had bandaged him up, we set off up the mountain trail, rather more cautiously.
After another few hours of hiking, dodging snakes and slipping back downhill in the muddy patches, we heard a growing commotion coming up the hill from below. It was hard to identify exactly what it was. There was a rhythmic pounding of either boots or native drums, grunts, shouted orders we couldn’t make out, profanities and crashing sounds as small rocks were apparently pushed out of the way and rolled down the hill. Could it be one of those TV reality shows being filmed right here? “Biggest Bush Weight Loss Survivor Race” ? Or was it the geo-caching world championship? Was it a bear chasing another group of hikers up the mountain, eager to get at their packets of trail mix? Bushy Dan told me not to be ridiculous because we don’t have bears in Australia. But what if one had escaped from a zoo and mistook the hikers for his friendly zoo keepers who provided his daily sustenance? What if there had been a genetic mutation of Tasmanian devils in this part of the country and they had developed into gigantic, sharp toothed, flesh tearing bush fiends? What if koalas really were bears? What if the local population of kangaroos had gone rogue and had learnt to shout and swear and grunt like humans?
Soon, however, the truth was revealed. A platoon of young Army recruits came tearing up the track like a runaway steam train, pursued by a belligerent sergeant urging them on and accusing them of being gutless namby-pambies, not worthy of wearing their country’s uniform (or words to that effect).
They brushed us aside into the sword grass and the sergeant shouted an apology as they stormed past. Bushy Dan and I said that we were relieved that the defence of our country was in such capable hands and relieved that they had not been bears and then we trudged on.
As it was getting closer to sunset, and we were about halfway up the mountain, we decided to pitch our camp in an open clearing just next to the track that was mercifully free of sword grass. After a few hours of fitting together those tent poles that are connected with rubber bands and finding out how to thread them through the appropriate sleeves in our pop-up tent, we got the thing upright. We unpacked our sleeping bags and dehydrated food and went scouting around for some dry wood to build a campfire. By this stage it was dark and we huddled around the cheery fire, swatting away the large moths attracted by the flames and picking leeches off our ankles. Then, from higher up the mountain we heard the crashing, bashing and swearing noises of our military friends on their return journey.
Suddenly they swarmed into our clearing, all wearing head torches. They looked like the glowing eyes of a multi-headed monster. The more competitive of the recruits saw an opportunity to seize the lead, so these anti-terrorist trainees spread out in a mad dash to reach the track before it narrowed into its sword grass lined canyon. In the manic dancing light of their head torches they didn’t notice our pop-up tent, carefully constructed campfire, satellite phone antenna or prized packets of trail mix and chocolate. They trampled over the lot, flattening our tent, scattering our campfire, knocking over our water containers and spreading our chocolate and trail mix far and wide. “Sorry!” shouted the sergeant to us as he carried on his customary cursing of his new recruits.
Bushy Dan and I tried to recover our enthusiasm but the military trainee tornado had smashed our torches and we had lost our matches. After eating a few bits of freeze-dried food we decided to turn in. We spent a miserable night huddled in our sleeping bags on top of the collapsed tent. At various times we were sure that snakes had slithered under the tent but we were too demoralised to investigate.
The next day at dawn we got up, and put on our boots and packs and headed back downhill to the car and our respective homes. We abandoned the tent and associated camping gear in the clearing. Perhaps the next group going up the mountain will come upon it and start an emergency search for the missing hikers who had obviously been brutalised and chased out of their campsite at night. Or perhaps the local bears will work out how to put up the tent and use it for their winter hibernation. Frankly, we don’t care.
I notice that since then, Bushy Dan has cut his hair, trimmed his beard, wears black spectacles and has moved to the inner city and works as a barista in a super trendy ultra gloomy hipster coffee shop.
As for me, I have found I can get all the fresh air I need simply by opening the car window. If I ever hear the call of nature, I just turn up the music to drown it out.
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© Geoff Milton 2015
