Behind Mt. Baldy (32 page)
Roger began to get a sinking
feeling as Graham marked pencil marks at each bend, going round the page more
than once. He measured this against the maps kilometric grid.
“You aren’t going to like this
Roger. It’s twenty eight kilometres.”
Roger felt suddenly depressed.
“We’ve already walked over three. That will make it over thirty kilometres!” he
wailed. “This is supposed to be a hundred kilometres and we’ve done about sixty
already haven’t we?”
“Yes we have. Cheer up. We don’t
have to do it all today. We can camp somewhere along the way,” Graham said
cheerfully.
“Then we might not be able to
finish tomorrow,” Roger said. Suddenly he felt exhausted and depressed. He was
already sore and had to hold back tears.
Graham shook his head. “No. We
should only have about ten kilometres to go then. I’ll bet the last leg is from
the tunnel down the main road to Atherton. That’s only about ten.”
Roger looked at the map. “What
about Mt Baldy?” he sniffed accusingly.
“Bugger Mt
Baldy!
We
will climb it when we come to it,” Graham snapped.
Peter gave a wry grin. “More
likely it will bugger us,” he observed.
Graham looked irritated. “Enough!
Let’s get moving. Here’s the first tourist bus arriving. Gosh. It’s half past
eight.”
They walked out against a tide of
Japanese tourists who gave them curious stares. The boys shouldered their packs
and set off South West, walking along the side of the road.
Roger now felt very stiff and he
began to notice his chafing and odd aches and sore feet. He was dispirited and
could feel a headache developing. The day’s march loomed as another gruelling
ordeal.
Five minutes walking brought the
boys out of the rain forest into open farmland. Tall grass walled the road,
allowing only glimpses of the fields beyond. On their left, about a kilometre
away, was a large hill, its slopes covered by a tangle of lantana, weeds and
patches of rain forest.
“What’s the name of that hill
Graham?” Peter called.
Graham consulted his map. “Mt
Quincan.”
“I’ve heard that name. What is a
quincan? Is it some sort of fruit?”
Stephen called from behind. “No,
that’s a quandong you are thinking of,” he said. “A Quincan is an Aboriginal bogey-man;
a spirit who comes out at night to leap out and grab you. It’s one of their
legends.”
“The hill is really an old
volcano,” Graham explained. “Captain Conkey showed us some pictures of it in
Geography. There is a swampy crater up in the top at the other end.”
Roger eyed the hill with little
interest. He kept his mouth shut and concentrated on walking, trying to ignore
the many irritations and pains which seemed to grow by the minute. The boys
walked up a long, gentle rise. The road curved left so that Mt Quincan remained
on their left. Out to the right were open fields dotted with cattle; and a
grassy flat covered with a scattering of tall white-trunked gum trees. Beyond
were several of the small volcanic hills named ‘The Seven
Sisters’.
They passed a road junction on
their right. Roger glanced along the farm road and saw a white car parked about
fifty metres along it, with a man sitting in it. Just a car, or? He wondered.
And if so, was it police or KSS? The thought made him feel quite restless.
The traffic on the road they were
walking beside in single file was building up too, with a vehicle either way
every couple of minutes. This forced them off each time so they had to walk on
the verge which was covered in long grass.
“Look out!” Graham cried.
Roger looked up in fright, in
time to see Graham jumping backwards into Peter.
“Snake,” Graham added as he
grabbed at Peter to stop them both falling over. After a moment Graham stopped
jumping up and down and began laughing. “It’s OK.
Only a
‘Yellow bellied black’.
Bloody hell! He gave me a fright. I nearly
stepped on him.”
“Probably just sunning himself,”
Stephen commented.
They continued on, Roger now
looking anxiously at the grass at his feet, and thankful he was last. Having to
keep getting off the bitumen to walk in the grass because of cars made him even
more disgruntled and resentful.
At another road junction, this
time on their left, a battered and muddy red tractor was parked. A man in
greasy overalls was working on the engine. He eyed them for a moment, grunted a
surly ‘G’day’ and put his head back under the engine cover.
After another hundred metres they
came to another road going off on their left. BALLS ROAD the sign said. They
kept marching. The main road curved right so that Mt Quincan was now behind
them. The road crossed the grassy flat which looked like a marsh. They crossed
a small bridge over a sluggish creek and began a trudge along a kilometre of
straight road with the open forest of tall white eucalypts on their left. The
traffic flow increased to dangerous and unpleasant proportions with a car,
truck or tourist bus each way every minute or so.
At 9am they reached the junction
with the main Atherton- Malanda road. It was bitumen with no shade and a busy
traffic flow so they just kept on marching, turning right towards Atherton.
“We turn off a side road in about
two kilometres,” Graham explained.
“Can’t be soon
enough for me.
I hate this,” Roger growled as he was buffeted by the slipstream of a huge
semi-trailer. Diesel fumes filled his nostrils and he could taste it on his
tongue. He felt queasy and his headache got worse.
Twenty five sweaty minutes later
they reached the turn-off of the East Barron Road. It was a bitumen road but
only one lane wide. It went south up a depressingly long hill onto a wide, bare
ridge. There was a row of pine trees at the junction but when Graham went to
stop Roger surprised him by saying,
“Don’t stop. Not here. Go on
further and get away from the main road. I’m bloody sick of this traffic.”
The others agreed so they tramped
on up the long rise for two hundred paces before stopping. There was no shade
but at least the vehicle noise was now only an annoying buzz. Roger dropped his
gear and flopped down, using his pack as a pillow and putting his feet up on a
fence. He was soaked in sweat.
“Strewth it’s hot! This is
supposed to be winter!” he cried.
“I wish there was a breeze,”
Stephen agreed.
They lay or sat in relative
silence for ten minutes. Roger felt quite drowsy and found the humming of bees,
busy amongst the giant sunflowers along the fence, melded with the distant hum
of traffic.
Graham nudged Roger’s leg with
his boot. “Don’t go to sleep Roger. Have a big drink. It is time we were
moving,” he said.
“Bugger it! How far have we come?”
“About five ‘Ks’ from the Curtain
Fig I guess.”
“So we have already done eight or
nine ‘Ks’ and it’s only 9:45?”
“Yes,” Graham conceded with
reluctance.
“Then a few more minutes won’t
hurt.”
So they lay for another ten minutes
before Graham’s restlessness goaded them up. Roger had a big drink and rubbed
his sore muscles.
The boys resumed walking but at a
more leisurely pace. As the road climbed the spine of the ridge they began to
get long views for many kilometres out to the West, North and East. Peter
suddenly flung out his right arm to point.
“Microwave tower!”
They stopped walking to look.
About 10km to the North West was the low dome of the extinct shield volcano
which Atherton sheltered behind from cold winter winds. On top was the lattice
finger of a Telstra Microwave Tower.
“I’ll bet that’s the one. I can’t
see another anywhere,” Peter said.
“Where is this railway tunnel?”
Roger asked, looking west to a wall of mountains, tinged blue by the distance.
Graham took a compass bearing.
“You see how there is a long range running from behind Atherton southwards to a
gap? The tunnel is at that gap.”
To Roger it looked a
discouragingly long way off. He nodded, had another drink, slipped a jelly bean
into his mouth and followed the others as the march was resumed.
After about a kilometre the ridge
levelled out. The area was all open farmland and they could see a surprising
distance. It all looked very rural and quite pretty. The farms and fields and
little patches of woodland made Roger think of pictures he had seen of England.
It certainly wasn’t the usual dry Australian bush.
The road went on southwards with
long straights which Roger found very disheartening. It continued to climb
slowly on a long, wide spur which Graham said was an old lava flow from Mt
Weerimba, a prominent hill about five kilometres away; another extinct volcano.
They halted again at 10:15 for
another fifteen minute rest. Graham wanted to keep it to the army standard of
ten minutes but Roger refused. “No. By your calculations we have come eleven
kilometres and it is only morning tea time. We only need to do another one and
a half by lunch time to be on schedule.” He then popped another jelly bean in
his mouth and turned to look out towards Atherton and that tantalizing
microwave tower.
To the west Roger saw that there
was another chain of conical hills marking more old volcanoes. They looked to
be only about three or four kilometres away. He pulled out his own map to
check. WONGABEL the map read. In the distance two outliers of the
Herberton Range just near Atherton caught his eye. Both were cloaked in open
timber instead of the rain forest which covered the main range. Roger searched
the map, then cursed and pulled out the other map. Why did they always have to
be near the edge of two maps?
Sure he was right he pointed.
“You see the two mountains with grassy tops?” he said. “The one closest to
Atherton is Mt Baldy.”
Peter looked and laughed. “That
is a pleasure to look forward to tomorrow,” he replied.
Roger eyed the line of distant
mountains with distaste. The rain forest gave them a dark blue appearance.
‘Almost black,’ he mused. Tiny wisps of cloud hung over the higher peaks, the
only cloud in 180 degrees of sky. He checked the map and saw that they could follow
the main Herberton- Atherton road from the railway tunnel to the base of Mt
Baldy. ‘Thank God for that!’ He didn’t feel like any more jungle and certainly
didn’t want to drag himself over too many mountains.
Roger looked around to check if
he could see where they had been. “It is a pretty view,” he commented. “We can
see half the Tablelands from here. Look, there is Lake Tinaroo.” He pointed to
where sun glinted on distant water, about twenty kilometres to the North. He
suddenly felt quite proud of himself. ‘I have walked all that way!’ He took out
another jelly bean and stood up.
“OK. Let’s go,” he said.
The others stared at him in
surprise.
Graham grinned. “Have another
jelly bean Roger!”
They marched on for another two
kilometres. Only one vehicle passed them, an old truck driven by a farmer. They
came to a road junction and halted. Maps were consulted and Graham took a
compass bearing to check.
“This way.”
He pointed west.
They had to step off the road as
a large truck rattled past and headed in the same direction. The road went
downhill for half a kilometre and crossed a small creek before going up a
steeper hill for the same distance. It then wound between two collections of
farm buildings and across another creek. A large area of jungle closed in on
their right.
Graham pointed down the slope.
“The Barron River is just there in those trees,” he said.
They went up a short hill and
came to another road junction. Their speed was a good ‘Quick March’ pace and
Roger became aware that he was managing to keep up, and, that while his legs,
feet, hips and shoulders were hurting, they weren’t as sore as before. The boys
turned right and went down slope to cross another small bridge, then up another
kilometre long hill between newly ploughed paddocks.
At ten past eleven they reached
the Kennedy Highway and dropped their packs.
“Fifteen
kilometres.
We are going well,” Graham said.
Roger had a big drink and looked
around. The mountains were much closer. The section of the range on their side
of the tunnel was now only three or four kilometres away. Individual trees
could now be distinguished and the general bluish colour had taken on a brown-
green tinge.
Graham pointed up the slope.
“Your airship drifted right across her last year Roger.”
Roger looked around with
interest. “Did it? I had no idea where I was. It was all fog.”
Peter sat up and looked. “You
did. We went to that farmhouse with the police at about midnight.”
Roger experienced a wave of
memories and shivered. “It was horrible,” he said. That unplanned ride on Willy
Williams’ home-made airship had been a terrifying experience. He carefully
dabbed his eyes with water on his fingertips. It made them sting as the dried
salt he had perspired was moistened but he felt fresher. It was very hot and
there was no breeze. He looked up. ‘Not a cloud in the sky, not one!’ he
thought. To check this he looked
around .
‘No, there
are a few wisps of cloud over the mountain tops,’ he noted. The largest one, a
mere ball of white fluff in the distance, clung to the mountain beyond the pass
where the tunnel was.
