Yosemite, Part IV

My heart was heavy and my stomach queasy as I gently pulled my boot on over the bulky bandage. I looked around at the wonderful mountain scenery I would no longer be exploring - but I had to get this foot looked at. It would be the end of my hiking for a while, I knew that much. I stood up and gingerly put some weight on the left foot. Surprisingly it didn’t feel too bad.

And so began several minutes of internal dialogue...You might never come back here, just keep going – No, it’s too risky, gotta get this foot fixed up – Come on, two days forward or one back, what’s the big difference? – What about blood loss, infection, amputation, slow death? – Look at these mountains, this sky – You’re all alone, don’t be crazy – It’s just a cut – It’s a big cut – I’m walking on – Don’t do it - I’m doing it.

I did it.

Some of the time it was fine, and the landscape was so incredible I was glad to have gone on. I filled my water bottle from cool, bubbling rivers. I hiked quiet paths with views over deep, wooded valleys. I ate simple, tasty food and I contemplated the world around me.

At other times, like when I unwrapped the bandage in the evening and saw blood still oozing insistently out , and I was further from help, I doubted the wisdom of my choice. As I woke in the morning the slow throbbing in my foot reminded me of the previous day’s mishap. It was more painful and I needed a stick to lean on as I hobbled along. I was making slow progress, and climbing over the final pass for the day, I needed to rest every fifty metres and then verbally talk myself into standing up and walking on.

The adventure continued. 

Barren highland landscape

The green Tuolomne Valley

Have you ever seen a river meander like this?

  

Acacia Sunrise

I got up at five o’clock. It was dark and cold, but it was May in the Flinders Ranges, so I expected that. I put on a couple of jumpers and a big jacket, grabbed my back pack and head torch and strode up the track along Acacia Ridge. My breath came in clouds in the beam of torchlight before me, and as the narrow rocky path rose steeply the clouds grew thicker. I stopped to take off my jacket, and then a jumper. I paused and switched off the torch to look at the sky above me. The silent blanket of bright stars shining up there made me shake my head in wonder. This place, this world...

It took around half an hour to reach the summit. It was still dark but there was the beginning of a faint orange glow on the eastern horizon. Closer by was a small cluster of pulsing lights at the Beverley uranium mine. The uranium that geologists had been hoping to find in the hills of Arkaroola has mostly been washed down to the plains, and now there are two mines there digging it out. Their lights were the only sign of humanity I could see in the hazy grey before me. I pulled my Trangia out of my backpack and boiled up a cup of tea, then sat back to watch the show.

I was determined to take in all that Arkaroola could offer, seeing as I’d made the long trek out for a second visit. I’d earlier spent a few days at Arkaroola, then decided to go and hike at Wilpena Pound but I’d been lured back to the more remote, the wild and free feeling of Arkaroola. There were things still to be done there. Including watching the sun rise from the top of Acacia Ridge.

Gradually the thin line of orange on the horizon grew brighter, and grew thicker. The blackness around me turned grey–green and ever so slowly the hills began to reveal themselves. The rumples of the landscape, the curves and the creases, the steep slopes and the smooth valleys slowly appeared.

The stars were dimmed one by one and when the bright point of the sun broke over the horizon, the rocks around me began glowing with a deep red. The Spinifex was yellow and the sky was blue, the precise shades changing with every moment. The rays of sun immediately warmed me, the gentle heat on my face brought out a smile.

Below me I heard a tumble of rocks, and looking down I saw two yellow footed rock wallabies hopping down the slope. These are pretty animals with a thick tail that’s clearly striped dark brown and orange. They have white stripes on their sides up to the shoulders, separating the lighter fur on the chest from the darker back, and their four legs are all the same orange as the stripes on the tail. They’re rare after years of being hunted for their skins.

 As the sun rose the colours of my surroundings became brighter. I felt like I had been one of the privileged to have seen this day born, I had seen it go from icy black invisibility to this bright sunny day that promised to be warm. I had nothing that needed doing, except maybe another hike so I was reluctant to leave my vantage point at the summit. But I knew before much longer I’d be joined by others making a daytrip up, and I didn’t feel like being there for that. So I shouldered my pack and wandered on down to see what else the day would bring.

Oh, Brian

Brian had it all organised. He’d done some thinking and he’d done some talking and he’d nutted out a plan. I could tell he was the organising type when earlier in the afternoon he’d wandered over to my campsite and formally invited me to his fireplace that evening.

‘I’ve got wood, plenty of it. Bring a drink, cook your food on the fire, whatever you like.’

I was measuring powdered milk and sugar into ziplock bags and he asked if I was preparing for a hike. I told him my plans of walking three days through the National Park from Parachilna to Wilpena, which would involve a complicated bit of manoeuvring – dropping my car at Wilpena and then trying to hitch a ride up to the start of the hike. He nodded, then walked off to continue his invitations.

It was a little roadside campsite in Flinders Ranges National Park, South Australia. I brought my folding chair and a beer over to the roaring fire where I met Brian’s wife Kerry and the couple from the caravan on the far side, Rob and Christine. Colin, my garrulous neighbour, came over with a bowl of something to eat and he slumped in his chair to slurp it down.

Around sixty and a bit overweight, Brian had good manners and was very sure of himself. Not only that, he was also sure of his wife.

‘Dinner ready yet?’ he asked her as he eyed me getting into my couscous and noting that Colin, the other single male, had also already eaten. Kerry got to it and served it up, and after demolishing his long awaited chicken and vegetables, Brian said ‘you can leave the dishes til morning, it’s getting late.’

‘Like hell’ she said, handing him her plate for him to wash. 

Brian made a show of putting on the last piece of Tasmanian timber he’d been carting round the country for several months, then stood with his back to the fire, wine glass in hand.

‘Steve, the crazy bugger, is going walkabout tomorrow’ he announced, ‘and we’re going to help him. Kerry and I will take him to Parachilna, and Rob here will drop his car at Wilpena.’

I wasn’t sure if it was a look of surprise that crossed Rob’s face at this news. I didn’t get to find out because Colin interrupted with a story about how he had hiked fifty kilometres along a beach in Victoria last year. ‘And I’m sixty nine! Sixty nine eh...’ he faded off into a reverie.

So Rob was part of the plan, whether he liked it or not. I was so pleased with my little gang of grey nomads I could have hugged them all. Even when discussion turned to politics and they began abusing Bob Brown for stopping the progress in Tasmania, I looked fondly upon my little flock of red necked grey nomads chirping away in the night.

 In the morning I sat in the back seat of the Nissan ute while Brian and Kerry took turns pointing out things to see.

‘Kangaroos on the hill there.’

‘Look at that rockslide.’

‘Emus.’

At Blinman we stopped and Kerry, who had been delegated the camera duties, wandered off to take the official record of the abandoned copper mining town. In supervisory role, Brian directed her not to miss the old red phone booth or the filled-in swimming pool.

The Parachilna road was closed so we had to take a thirty kilometre detour on corrugated gravel. Brian drove cautiously but once he hit some bumps at speed and sent us jolting around the cab.

‘Shit, Brian’ Kerry said.

‘ Hehe’ he chuckled,  ‘I didn’t see it did I?’

‘Car’s gonna need another service now isn’t it?’ she muttered.

A little later he stopped the car and directed her to take a picture of the mountain range. She opened the door and a cloud of dust blew in.

‘Oh Brian’ she said.

‘What, I didn’t make the dust did I?’

‘No but it was your driving.’

We got to the trailhead and I heaved my pack out of the tray. They said goodbye as though I was walking to my doom, then drove off with a beep of the horn.

The shale clinked underfoot as I plodded along dry riverbeds, admiring the big old River Red Gums which were bright and vibrant despite the dry conditions. Their bark is white, not red, and they glowed in the warm sun. I tried to imagine how it would look here after rain, to have the creeks gushing with water. The health of the trees, the piles of detritus wedged up against their roots and the scarred erosion on the river bends were all evidence that the water surely comes.

Red-walled gorges rose around me and when the trail climbed to the ridge tops I had views of the ranges rolling away to the south and wedge tailed eagles circling above. I strolled through hillsides covered in native cypress pines.

On the afternoon of the second day the trail crossed a dirt road. A city four wheel drive was parked with four retirees sauntering around.

‘Hiking all that way on your own! You must like yourself.’

The first human being I’d seen in a day and a half and this is what he says to me.  I walked on, into the trees and the hills and the wide open spaces.