A Silk Purse Out of a Sows Ear
October 3, 2011
A condensed amalgam of a number of conversations on Saturday afternoon…
“Let’s pitch here.”
“Ah, let’s not, if it rains we will get flooded out. Actually, when it rains…”
Heart on a Cold, Wet Sleeve
June 12, 2011
I have just come out of the bush after three wet days. Though in all truth when you can see the lights of towns on the distant ridges when the cloud lifts there were moments when I felt a little cheated – if you go bush you should go “remote”. But being in the bush is better than not being out there at all. I do enjoy being out in the scrub by myself. I find that “fills my tank”. But it is not long before I find myself thinking “so and so would enjoy this” and I know that there is nothing quite like have a like minded nutter share the remoteness with you. This weekend I walked from Katoomba to Wentworth Falls not with another nutter but another eight nutters, all of whom had the choice of staying dry and warm at home but who elected to come out in the cold and wet and share this walk with me.
Berowra: Leaving the Big Smoke for Real Smoke
March 12, 2011
The moon gives up and sinks its visible half into a red bed then vanishes altogether. As I watch, the Milky Way slowly becomes more milky as the sky deepens, highlighting more and more heavenly lights. I’m on my back on a rock ledge and quite comfortable thank-you. As I gaze up a couple of “shooting stars” scratch their lightening flash of white across the blue grey black, as if to thumb their noses at the efforts of the moon to keep them invisible. Read more
Kokoda – The Day After
October 20, 2010
Sitting around the pool the day after walking/flying out of Kokoda was a surreal and dislocative experience. Fraudulent even. Here we were sitting in comparative luxury, able to flop into a tepid pool if we felt too sticky. And yet we had some claim, we felt, to some ownership of the Track. After all we had worked very hard to cross it. Yesterday we felt a modicum of affinity to the soldiers of 1942. Today I felt that affinity dishonest. I wondered what a soldier of 1942 would really think of us. Cec Driscoll a veteran of the campaign who we met at Kokoda, expressed delight at the Australian youth walking the track. But what would the 1942 Cec Driscoll have thought? I picked up my pen and scribbled this first line, and then the second, seeking the voice of that 1942 Digger. Then the rest just happened. We all “own” the Track. So I called it “Our Kokoda”.
Our Kokoda
Who are you that disturbs this track?
Who plods, head down
Under weight of pack?
Who disturbs my rest, my sleep?
Kokoda D+10 Kokoda to Moresby
October 17, 2010
Melodious bird song gets our day started. Another tune and another bird I have never heard before.
The cloud hands heavy in the valley and for a few moments we are concerned about whether any flights will happen today. Then a couple of purple green peaks float into view and disappear again in the washed out morning light, a good sign the breeze is working for us and will clear this cloud out of the way soon enough. Breakfast is held after the usual fashion, we take some final photos, Lee calls “one minute” for the last time and we walk down to the airport in slow motion. Read more
Kokoda D+9 – on to Kokoda
October 15, 2010
We are in something of a slow daze and tents are being set up in Kokoda at a rate that is the slowest I have seen for the whole trip. We swim through a humid wall and move slowly after coming out of the cool air of the mountains. But I am getting ahead of myself. Read more
Kokoda D+8 To Isurava
October 13, 2010
The surf fades and I sleep the sleep of a teenager. Helped by the fact that I think we have found the best patch of grass so far. We are all still having those lucid dreams. When I surface it is to the sound of the creek, and light has already steeped into the valley. I peek out and see the porters have gotten the fire going. Pete tells me it is 0545. We have a slower walk today but it is loaded with history. And it promises to be another hot one. The sun has yet to find its way down here and everything is covered in dew and the air around this frigid creek is quite cool. It will take a while to get these muscles unlocked. My knees are feeling it this morning after our steep descent yesterday and a planned nimble jump across boulders turns into a lumbering crawl. Read more
Kokoda D+7 To Eora Creek
October 12, 2010
Don’t take your malaria tablets before eating! Not the salt tablets after all. Anyway, got the stomach purged in time to get breakfast in and staying down. Attempting any work up here on an empty stomach as I tried the other day would be a mistake. It was a mistake. Just prior to retiring last night I walked out of the campsite and back up the track 50 metres or so. The darkness inside this jungle was absolute. How the soldiers moved through here against each other defies imagination. I can’t see my hand in front of me let alone a track, or someone hiding in ambush. These days night vision goggles make working at night common place but in 1942 there was a Mark 1 Eyeball and that was about it. Read more
Kokoda D+6 1900 Crossing and Myola
October 9, 2010
The wind roars through the tree tops as it makes it way up the valley before hammering our hut. You can hear it steaming up the hillside like a steam train and you mentally brace for the impact. Each time I woke up through the night I could see a little more of the sky. By the time dawn arrived the wind had ceased altogether and the floor was covered with roofing. There were some giggles through the night as we lay in the dark and listened to sections of palm thatch crash to the floor. Fortunately we had moved our sleeping bags far enough out of the way and no one was struck by anything dangerous. And it did not rain.
Kokoda D+5 On to Naduri
October 9, 2010
The day started with a strange wailing, hooting call drifting down off the mountain. It was still dark. Twice. Each call elicited a murmur of comment from the porters before they dropped into silence. I waited for more and wondered who or what was out so early or so late. I dropped off again and woke to someone’s alarm chiming at 0500. We are off early to Brigade Hill.
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