READER’S ADVENTURE
THE WAY BACK HOME Reflections on solo hiking through Far North Queensland’s Misty Mountains. By Rachel Schmidt
I
f you look after this place, this place will look after you. The words of the Ma:Mu, whispering its Jujaba (creation) stories along the contour lines of rainforest country in Queensland’s Far North. Firefly studded understories, grumbling skies, lightning sheets, crystal creeks, old-growth forests, walls of rain. The place of the Jirrbal, Gulngay, and Ma:Mu. Welcome to the Gambil Yalgay—the Misty Mountains—the last remaining connection of the juboonbarra to the gambilbarra, of the coastal plains to the rocky country of the tablelands. From the lowlands of the eastern tropical borders of Tully, to the upper reaches of the sub-tropical rainforests and dry woodlands of Ravenshoe, this expanse of land becomes grounded in lessons of focus under heavy rainforest canopies and a history buried under lawyer vine. Encompassing the Djilgarrin, Cannabullen, Koolmoon, Cardwell Range, Gorrell, and Bally Knob Tracks, the Misty Mountains wilderness trail network brings you into the terrain of Tully Falls and Tully Gorge National Parks, alongside the southern section of Wooroonooran National Park—the wettest place in Australia, now protected under the legislative label of World Heritage Area. But this story doesn’t start there. Instead, eighty kilometres southeast as the crow flies, you drive under the notorious overhang of loaded clouds into the early hours of the morning in your tenth year as a paramedic. The night dumps its own uncertainty across those far northern hills that drop into the upper reaches of the Murray River. Home to Guyurru (Murray Falls), and the small community of Jumbun. The place where the words of one man stop you in your tracks. Bordering on the traditional boundaries of the Gulngay and the Girramay, you make your way down into the lower floodplains where little history remains of its brutal history of colonial Australia. You cross the Henry Bridge and she stares at you. A look of vacancy as tears well. She is young, vibrant, smiling behind the torn story of the land and its people. It wasn’t that long ago, she says, my grandfather ... this is his place. Hardly any of us mob left, it has changed, we have changed. She waves her hand off into the hills of the Misties as the windscreen wipers pelt full speed. Hours later, the sun beams through the morning deluge, waking up the forested slopes of Bulleroo/Mt Tyson.
Back in Tully, an Elder stands at the ward door and tells you this: “You better share those stories of this place girl, because nobody else will.”
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