Well it's been a week now since Ben McIntyre and I went trekking for our tour of the volcanic plugs, so I guess I should write something up as a follow up. Hmm, so here is the proposed route we were gonna take. Thanks to Ben and Ergon Energy for our cloud-free map. :)
So yeah we struck out and climbed the first plug, Mt Jim Crow without any real difficulty. Slow going because Ben's wife Camille came along. But that was ok. She headed home in the car when we got back to the bottom, and we set off along the cattle fields for the next plug we meant to climb.
Took us about two hours to reach it, including a stop for lunch, then about another hour and a half to get up, because it was absolutely covered in heavy vines and rainforesty growth on the near side. We were pretty buggered by the time we hit the top, so took rather a long break. Ben tried to get some map readings on his phone but the signal was too low.
We had to use the ropes a bit to get down the other side of this second plug, and we dropped directly into a jungle of overgrown lantanna. It took us the better part of two hours and a lot of scratches and scrapes before we finally got clear of it. We crossed old Byfield road at 1600 hours, only an hour from when we'd meant to be on top of the next plug and setting up camp. It looked to be a good 2klm to the base of the next plug, so we pushed for it as hard as we could, but by the time we hit the bush at the bottom and got a good look at the sheer cliffs we decided it would be crowning stupidity to attempt the climb at night or in failing light. So we set up camp at the bottom.
Did the usual thing you do around a fire...talked heaps, cooked food, ate it, toasted some marshmallows, talked some more, messaged our girls. Finally got to sleep sometime after 2100 hours, still undecided about whether to climb the third plug the next morning. There wasnt a breath of wind and the night birds (curlews mostly) were squawking away.
We'd collected a lot of firewood, but Ben couldn't get comfortable to sleep so just kept feeding the fire. I dozed off pretty easy, and woke feeling cold a fair bit later. Fire had burned down to coals, it was dead silent and still all around us, which struck me as odd at the time. Being a bush kid I should have known, but wasnt alert, too tired and groggy with sleep.
Anyways, I woke Ben and we collected a heap more firewood. The ground was pretty cold by now, so we got some branches together and made some crude beds from leaves, just to keep our backs off the ground. Then we built the fire up to a roaring big blazer and got comfy. Just ready to drop off when this strange wind came out of nowhere. Of course all the trees around us starting swaying and creaking, effectively keeping us awake. Gum trees can make some pretty weird noises in the wind at night! This went on for about half an hour then the wind passed. It was still deathly still all around us.
Then the rain came. Not heavy, just spits and spots, enough falling in our faces to keep us awake and make us very grumpy. That only lasted about ten minutes though, and it was all quiet again when I heart this twig crack away on our left in the bush. I put it down to a bandicoot, but the silence was making me uneasy, so I got a torch in one hand and my hunting knife in the other, and wriggled a bit closer to the fire. Ben's head was up...listening.
Then there was another twig crack away on our right, my side of the fire. I decided to not let my mind play tricks on me, it was probably only a scrub turkey or wallaby or something. I glanced across the fire and saw Ben reach for his knife. That unnerved me cos he's a bush kid too and he was feeling the heavy silence too.
Not thirty seconds later, just when I'd convinced myself my mind was running rampant with me, twigs started snapping and bush rustling all around us. Ben was up on his feet and gazing into the night, then he shouted "Dingos!!" He said later that he looked around for me as he said it and I was already up with my knife drawn and crouched for a fight. I dont remember it, just that I was up and gazing into the night, where we could see a whole lot of dog bodies moving around the edge of our ring of firelight. We reckoned there must have been about ten or fifteen of them, so we started yelling and grabbed some burning sticks, hoping to frighten them off.
It worked, they bolted into the night, causing a racket that made us realise these were no true dingoes, who are skilled at silent movement in the bush. This was a pack of feral dogs, the most dangerous kind, since they dont have the same fear of man that true wild animals do. Anyway, we heard them pelting through the bush, then counted eight of them as they ran over a dam wall a little distance away. They stood out stark against the night sky as they went over the wall, as everything else was flat for miles around.
We were just settling down when we heard another quiet crack off to our right. I was still holding my burning stick and knife, so I charged the bush in that direction. Ben thought I was crazy, but I could see fairly well two more dogs trying to sneak away. They bolted when I charged though. So that made at least ten.
We were pretty jumpy afterwards and got no more sleep all night, just packed up the camp and ate the rest of our food so we could travel light the next day. We decided not to attempt any more climbs, too dangerous with a pack like that around. So at first light of dawn we were up and making good time across the cattle fields. We were heading in more or less the same direction the dogs had run off the night before, and we found a freshly killed Hereford carcass against one fence. We stood there looking at the gnawed bones, spilt entrails, torn skin, and thanked God for keeping us awake last night. That was last night's dinner for those dogs, and it could easily have been us if they found us napping.
Anyway, after that we made really good time, stopping only to take a photo of the sunrise, which was gorgeous. We then found a power line and decided to follow it to the road. Ben messaged his wife who came out to pick us up from the road that runs along Hedlow Ck. Got home around 8am Sunday morning, after a pit stop at Maccas to recharge the energy levels, then hit the beds. I slept all day!
Ben plotted our actual route at work the next day, mostly from his memory of the lay of the land and the landmarks we'd used, and this is the result.
"Here's where we ended up going bro… not a bad crack with no sleep. That morning after we actually walked 4.8kms to hedlow crk… much further than I thought!" Ben's comment to me in the email.
