WILD 178

Issue #178 S U M M E R 2020

WILD Destination: Paddling in Murchison Tassie’s Wild South Coast Track Murray River: Source to Sea Luxury Lodges = Wilderness Lost Return to Lamington Photo Essay: Powder in Japan Hiking in NZ’s Serpentine Range Walking Corsica’s GR20 Track Notes: QLD’s Scenic Rim Trail

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Contents Issue #178, Summer 2020

Regulars Readers’ Letters

4

Editor’s Letter

6

Gallery 8 Columns 14 WILD Shot

98

Conservation Restore Lake Pedder

22

Luxury Lodges = Wilderness Lost

24

None of the Above The Closure of Taipan Wall

30

Features Corsica’s GR20

34

The Murray River, Source to Sea

42

Photo Essay: Powder in Japan

52

A Close Call in NZ’s Serpentine Range

60

Tassie’s Wild South Coast Track

68

Return to Lamington NP

74

42 The Cord

60 Nine Lives

Wild Destinations Paddling in Murchison, NZ

80

52 The

Track Notes Queensland’s New Scenic Rim Trail

86

Real Yuki Guni 74 Return to Lamington

Gear Gear Talk

92

Test: Osprey’s Ace 38 Kids Pack

94

Brand Heritage: Arc’teryx

95

NOTE: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Wild’s final installment of the series on Australia’s Great Environmental Battles, this one ‘The Battle for the Tarkine’, has been postponed (yet again, sorry) until travel to Tasmania again becomes feasible.

86 Track

Notes: Scenic Rim Trail

Summer 2020 WILD

3

Wild Letters [ Letter of the Issue ] SOLO FEMALE

Hi Wild, I read your article in #177 ‘Know Nothing’ and I have a few thoughts that stem from there.

I recently did my first multiday, off track, solo hike.

It was great, and an entirely different experience to trips with groups. The first day was steep, it rained all day, and the rocks were like oil slick. I didn’t feel entirely safe; at some points I wondered if this was a good idea. A good sleep and good weather worked wonders though, and the next few days were perfect.

Before leaving, I suspect I got many more concerned looks than a male would get describing the same trip. There were not only the usual concerns about getting lost, falling down, drowning in the river, snakebite, etc, but also the human aspect.

As a lady, this is always lurking in the back of my mind. It can’t not be; every woman everywhere passes this worry down to their daughters.

So fellas, here are things I think about when adventuring solo on trails. I will check the carpark (no cars, likely no people). I go later than other people would start (they would have already parked their cars). I approach campsites with the torch low/off. I avoid marked campsites. If trail running in the bush and I hear 4WDs or bikes, I’ll duck off to the side. If a campsite is full of different groups then it will also be OK to camp there. I avoid car access campsites.

On the plus side, the low chances of running into someone on an off-track adventure means the risk of assault is negligible. If I do stumble upon a walker, it’s 99.99999% likely they’re a perfectly nice person who might direct me to a stunning campsite.

This isn’t a complaint. This is merely my perspective. Despite the incredibly low risk of anything ever happening to me, when you’re told enough about it, you can’t get it out of your head. Thankfully, I’m to the point that concerned looks and warning tones don’t stop me. I take my precautions, live my life and experience all the bush has to offer. And thank you to all the lovely fellow hikers, men and women, I have ever met. So far I have only ever met the 99.99999%.

Gen Nawrot Newcastle, NSW

(Ed: Kudos to you for taking the plunge into solo offtrack walking. But it’s such a shame we live in a world where you’ve got to take those added precautions on the trails. Men, listen up.)

RECONNECTIONS

As we transition into summer, I wanted to share a story of the winter that was. Many in our little valley live here for the love of exploring the surrounding Alpine National Park on foot, bike and skis, especially in winter. With the new restrictions in place, that wasn’t to be. We were confined to our immediate low altitude elevations, seemingly trapped in our surrounds, to our homes for work, risking going insane. So what did we

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do? We restored some sanity and explored every inch of our local bushland. We power walked in pairs, climbed hills in couples, and trail walked in twos. We shared stories, hiked through mud, and swapped mud maps. We rediscovered the beauty of our own back yards. There were explorations into overgrown, long-forgotten waterfalls, fabulous orchid discoveries, and views of our valley seldom seen before from hilltops unnamed.

Many of us (377 to be exact!) swapped our skis for sneakers, roller skis, and bikes to participate in our local International cross country ski marathon ‘The Kangaroo Hoppet’ that went virtual for the first time ever. I feel blessed to have had the chance to reconnect with my local area, with friends and family, and to have experienced the surrounding bushland in a new way.

Michelle Forrer Tawonga South, VIC

TIMES HAVE CHANGED

Hi Wild, Editor James McCormack commented that over 50% of contributions to Wild Issue #176 were by females.

Fantastic! As a child, our family lived near Gepps Cross on what was then Adelaide’s fringe; we were free to roam and play in the trees. When I started high school in the 1960s, girls were expected to wear stockings, not socks, and to act like ‘young ladies’, not ‘tom boys’.

After finishing school, I took up surfing. Back then, only a few girls actually hit the waves. Much different now! At 20, a sudden career change — teaching at Naracoorte High School—opened up a new world: caving. Crawling on your belly underground and bumping your helmet on a tunnel ceiling isn’t everyone’s idea of ‘fun’, but to some of us, it is! I’ve also, with the school’s Outdoor Ed program, enjoyed canoeing down the Glenelg River, and hiking or climbing/abseiling at Djurite (Mt Arapiles) and Gariwerd (Grampians). There were also trips to the Flinders Ranges. On one of them, my farmer husband, Stephen, became ‘hooked’.

Reading Wild for years, (with over 100 copies in our bookcase) we’ve seen a great improvement in designing ‘outdoor’ clothing, footwear and gear to suit women’s body shape, weight, functionality of fabrics and yes—of course—even different colours!

Let’s all get out there no matter gender, age, experience or level of fitness and cherish, protect, discover and enjoy the pristine wilderness—God’s beautiful creation.

Thank you, Wild magazine!

Heather Edwards Padthaway, SA

SEND US YOUR LETTERS TO WIN! Each Letter of the Issue wins a piece of quality outdoor kit.

They’ll also, like Gen in this issue, receive a free annual subscription to Wild. To be in the running, send your 50-500 word letters to: editor@wild.com.au

QUICK THOUGHTS (on Wild #177) “Just read your piece ‘Know Nothing’. Thank you for a very well written piece that has made me re-evaluate the ‘adventure’ we’ve had of moving our family out of the well known that was our lives to a place where we had very few ‘knowns’.” MM “Just had my first quick skim - what a brilliant edition! Looks full up with solid content and inspiration for us 5kmbound Melbournians.

I’ve been frustrated by the lazy advertorial content in other magazines recently, so I really appreciate the obvious effort you’ve put into Wild. Well done!” DB

EVERY published letter this issue will receive a pair of Smartwool PhD crew hike socks.

Smartwool is wellknown for their itch-free, odour-free Merino clothing, and their technical PhD socks have seamless toes and are mesh-panelled for comfort.

Gen’s Letter of the Issue will get something special: A Smartwool sock drawer. It’ll include ten pairs of hiking, running and lifestyle socks, enough for anyone to throw out all those old raggedy, holey and often stinky socks they’ve been making do with.

Richard Midgley

Hilleberg: Tents for everyone’s adventures.

On The Cover Photo by Johannes Hendriks

“It was one of those moments that captures the spirit of paddling, a moment of elation when you know you have made the move, the split second when you realise that the hard work paddling up into the eddy and driving out into the turbulent flow has paid off and you ferry gracefully across the river to the other side. I was lucky enough to capture Anja (Ed: Wild’s awesome production assistant!) in exactly that moment as she practised ferry gliding across the wave below Whale Rapid on the Buller River in New Zealand.”

Read more on paddling in Murchison starting P80.

Joe Stock/stockalpine.com

AUSTRALIAN MADE. AUSTRALIAN PRINTED. AUSTRALIAN OWNED. wild.com.au/subscribe @wildmagazine @wild_mag EDITOR: James McCormack PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: Anja Fuechtbauer DESIGN: Sam Grimmer, Jess Van De Vlierd, James McCormack

CONTRIBUTORS: Jennifer Johnstone, Dan Slater, Ryan Hansen, Craig Pearce, Anja Fuechtbauer, Johannes Hendriks, Lachlan Gardiner, Andy Szollosi, Simon Madden, Xavier Anderson, Jason Macqueen, Shaun Mittwollen

FOUNDER: Chris Baxter OAM PUBLISHER Toby Ryston-Pratt Adventure Entertainment Pty Ltd ABN 79 612 294 569

CONTRIBUTIONS & QUERIES Want to contribute to Wild? Please email contributor@wild.com.au Send general, non-subscription queries to contact@wild.com.au

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WARNING The activities in this magazine are super fun, but risky too. Undertaking them without proper training, experience, skill, regard for safety or equipment could result in injury, death or an unexpected and very hungry night under the stars.

The Wild logo is registered as a trademark and the use of the name is prohibited. All material copyright Adventure Entertainment Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without obtaining the publisher’s written consent. Wild attempts to verify advertising, track notes, route descriptions, maps and other information, but cannot be held responsible for erroneous, incomplete or misleading material. Articles represent the views of the authors and not the publisher’s.

Wild would like to acknowledge and show respect for the traditional custodians of Australia and their elders, past, present and emerging.

learn more and order a free catalogue at

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FROM THE EDITOR

Crossing the Cracroft Plains, Southwest NP

Let's Talk

W

e need to talk about having fun.

Specifically, we need to talk about recreation in national parks. And by 'we', I don’t mean you and me at a personal level, or me as editor and you as reader. I mean we as a community. As a community of adventure recreationalists, as a community of conservationists, as a community of national park users. As a community, full stop.

And by talk, I don’t mean a shouting match; I mean nuanced, reasoned discussion. None of us have all the answers. We need to hear what others say. The impetus for me bringing this up are recent developments in Grampians NP (Gariwerd). Many of you might be aware of the bans on climbing there. If not, to bring you up to speed in a single sentence, out of concerns that areas of cultural significance to Traditional Owners were being adversely affected by climbers, many Grampians climbing routes—literally thousands of them, some the planet's finest (see Simon Madden’s opinion piece on p30)—were shut down in 2019 by Parks Victoria. Two weeks ago (I'm writing this in November 2020), a draft management plan was released. Most bans are here to stay; it was this, understandably, that garnered most attention. But less widely discussed was another ban, this one on off-track camping. Buried on p115, it was announced that camping in the park— not small at 167,241ha—would only be allowed in designated camping areas.

Sayonara multi-day off-track bushwalks.

I’ve never been to the Gramps, so I don’t know what the walking is like there. But former Wild editor (and current co-editor of Vertical Life) Ross Taylor lives not too distant from them, and I asked him about it. He said he’d be very surprised if off-track camping there had much environmental impact at all. But not none.

Because here’s the thing: Every time you enter a national park, you have an impact.

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Even walkers. Trails are constructed for you. Your boots cause erosion. Wildlife is spooked. Head off-trail and vegetation is trampled, branches are snapped, small insects crushed. I'm not saying don't go in, but don’t kid yourself either—your very existence in a park has consequences.

So here’s the nub of the matter: To what extent do we, as a community, believe recreation—whether walking, climbing, whatever—should be one of the goals of national parks? Or is their sole purpose conservation? If so, should even walking be allowed? In answering these questions, however, the waters are muddied by the fact Australia doesn’t really have national parks; we have state park systems bearing the national park name, with each system falling under state-specific legislation. Nonetheless, broadly speaking, the legislative intent is clear; conservation is the prime goal. I'm not saying this is bad. But recreation is often barely, if at all, addressed.

In NSW, where I live, the National Parks Act of 2019 does reference recreation, but almost wholly by way of what it prohibits.

Few perhaps realise rock climbing, canyoning, abseiling and whitewater paddling are all banned within NSW’s national parks unless consent is given or a particular park’s plan of management allows it. Some people will cheer this. There are organisations—that I respect—that argue national parks aren't places for "thrill-seeking" activities. I disagree. Whether or not an activity induces adrenaline shouldn't determine its suitability for national parks; the defining factor should be the extent of its impacts, both ecologically and on other park users. And it's easy to argue that some "thrill-seeking" activities like whitewater paddling and backcountry skiing have fewer impacts than walking; they need no trails, and leave no footprints.

Activities that challenge us are an antidote to the banalities of contemporary

existence. And many, I believe, deserve to have homes in national parks. That includes rock climbing. It includes offtrail walking. It includes backcountry skiing, whitewater paddling, trail running, mountain biking, canyoning, abseiling, caving. Even (not that I have the courage) base jumping. But they all, as does on-trail walking, have impacts.

When I talked with Ross, thoughtful as ever, he said he doesn’t picture wilderness as being devoid of people. They are part of it. At issue, too, is that what we call wilderness is regarded by Traditional Owners as anything but. The word is contested, problematic. As Ross noted, even Parks Victoria’s slogan ‘Healthy Parks, Healthy People’ captures some of that tension. People are part of the equation.

But to what extent? That’s the question.

Most Wild readers are conservationists and recreationalists; perhaps we muddle through any internal conflicts, never resolving them. I’m a walker, trail runner, mountain biker, canyoner and backcountry skier. But I also care deeply about our national parks, and believe their primary purpose should be conservation. That said, it's time we discussed recreation as a secondary purpose. It’s worthwhile noting, in all this, that the primary motive for gazetting our oldest national park, the Royal, just south of Sydney, wasn't for environmental protection; it was for recreation. Its establishment, however, gave birth to the Australian conservation movement. Many contemporary conservationists have taken similar paths, arriving via recreation first. And then there's the future: Get kids to love being in the bush, and eventually they’ll love the bush.

These aren't easy issues; I don’t pretend to have all the answers. I don’t even pretend to be asking all the right questions.

James McCormack

Editor

S M L I F R O O D T U BEST O

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GALLERY 8

WILD Summer 2020

M A N U V IN K WACKE RN AG E L DROPPING OFF C A R ACOL (SN AIL FA LL S), A K A G A RG A NTA DE L DIA BLO (TH E DE V IL’S TH ROAT), RIO CL A RO, CHILE

by Max Rayner Nikon D5100, 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G II, 42mm, f5, 1/250, ISO 250

Summer 2020 WILD

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MIDDAY SUN BREAKS THROUGH ON LOWER CLAUSTRAL CANYON, BLUE MOUNTAINS NP, NSW

by James McCormack Canon 5D Mk III, EF16-35mm f/2.8L II, f3.5, 1/30, ISO 640

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Gallery

DELIGHTFUL SUMMER WEATHER IN THE WESTERN ARTHURS, SOUTHWEST NP, TASMANIA

by Adam Flower Canon EOS 6D, EF70-300mm f/4-5.6L, f/5, 1/100, ISO 160

Summer 2020 WILD

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RILEY NICHOLSON SURVEYS THE WALLS OF BEN LOMOND, TASMANIA

by Matt Ray Canon 5D Mark III, 24mm, f/11, 1/100 sec, ISO 100

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Gallery

Summer 2020 WILD

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COLUMNS

[ Bob Brown ]

Bob.Brown.Foundation bobbrownfndn www.bobbrown.org.au

BOB BROWN’S GREEN LIVING

Central Plateau Plunder An uneconomic proposal threatens Tasmania's alpine beauty.

T

asmania’s Central Plateau is the largest alpine area on the island.

It is a glaciologist’s dream. Look at the roughly grooved boulders beside the Highland Lakes Road at the 900m high on St Patrick’s Plains, and you are looking at the ice grinding its way over the plateau in the Ice Age 10,000 years ago.

The 146km Highland Lakes Road, recently fully sealed, provides one of Australia’s most picturesque journeys.

It is Tasmania’s scenic rival to Victoria’s Great Ocean Road. Summiting at 1,210m at Pine Lake, this is both Tasmania's highest main road and the only one which passes through a grove of the island's unique pencil pines—that is, when not closed by winter blizzards.

The road skirts yingina (the Great Lake) with signs to the Beaumont Memorial and its studied ignorance of the brutal murders and displacement of the Palawa people, including the lakeside Luggermairrenerpairer clan, who enjoyed life on the plateau—not least the cider from the now-threatened ‘cider gums’—for millennia. The plaque lies that John Beaumont (in 1817) was ‘the first to cast his eye and slake his thirst upon this noble inland sea’.

That nonsense can and will be rectified. But harder to fix would be the massive wind farm proposed by Epuron—a North Sydney-based company—on St Patrick’s Plains east of yingina. Though Tasmania is self-supplied with 100% renewable energy, Epuron would send wind power through a taxpayer-funded cable, labelled ‘Marinus’, under Bass Strait to Victoria. Tasmania’s Gutwein Liberal government, supported by Labor, is rushing legislation for Tasmania to produce 200 percent (sic) renewable energy. This will facilitate Epuron’s Central Plateau project.

Marinus will cost at least $3.5 billion but there is no agreement as to how

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Victoria and Tasmania will share the cost. Victoria is unlikely to pay as its own renewable energy and battery storage options are rapidly expanding. Nor will Epuron. A study for our foundation shows that while wind generation may be a little more productive in Tasmania than Victoria, the gap isn’t nearly enough to cover the cost of sending it to Victoria.

Epuron is proceeding with its St Patrick’s Plains scheme despite a local group (www.NoTurbineActionGroup.org) organising to oppose the impact on wedgetailed eagles, on the wild experience the plateau offers anglers and bushwalkers, and on the Highland Lakes Road’s immediate scenic environs.

The Steppes cottage will be framed by turbines

Epuron’s ‘farm’ will have 67 whirling turbines, dwarfing Tasmania’s tallest building, the Wrest Point Casino tower at 57m high. In fact, each of Epuron's 240m high turbines, packed on either side of the Highland Lakes Road, will approach the height of Melbourne's 297m Eureka Tower. Pivoting off 150m high towers, the 90m above-horizon blades will be visible from most high points of the northern sector of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, distracting the eye in every scene. The impact—not mentioned by Epuron or the

government—on wilderness and scenic values for Tasmania will be enormous.

Epuron’s map of the project shows 14 wedge-tailed eagle nests in or next to the site. There will be a one kilometre distance limit from any nest by any turbine.

Presumably the eagles will be instructed to limit their flying to within one kilometre of their nests.

The Highland Lakes Road’s scenic amenity faces death by a thousand cuts.

Last year, for example, as a bushfire approached, Tasmania’s authorities needlessly bulldozed a dozen ancient roadside eucalypts which I counted as amongst the most beautiful anywhere in Australia. These trees had lived with the Aboriginal people, through the plateau's overgrazing by sheep and cattle a century ago, as well as the ongoing annual agistment of sheep flocks onto the plateau for summer pasture.

Which makes me wonder about the Wilsons who, after the Aboriginal clearance, settled at ‘The Steppes’—a reference to Siberia’s icy plains—in 1863.

James became the Central Plateau's Police Superintendent, and Jessie, known as ‘the Lady of the Birds’, put out food for birds when snow covered the countryside. The Scots couple ‘had a love and understanding of that severe and beautiful country’. They raised five children, and daughter Madge, an artist and sculptor, lived on at The Steppes until near her death in 1975.

Not least due to famed bushwalker (and Madge’s friend) Jack Thwaites, The Steppes Cottage is now the beautiful centrepiece of a 48ha state reserve.

If Epuron has its way, it will be left squeezed between the Lagoon of Islands to its east and 18 mega-towers to its west. In this age of uglification of the natural planet, one can only conjecture what the Luggermairrenerpairer, let alone the Wilsons, would have thought of it.

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COLUMNS

[ Megan Holbeck ]

@meganholbeck www.meganholbeck.com

WILD THINGS

Glowing in the dark Memories and hope: both still shining in 2020's gloom.

I

t’s November as I write this. According to my mental calendar, we should be eating hot cross buns and sliding gently into autumn, and instead we’re building up to Christmas. The blur of 2020 has obscured half the year, but time has also warped and stretched, passing incredibly slowly. Weeks have dragged over months, while winter extended over a couple of years.

Looking at the actual, physical calendar on my wall shows why time is misbehaving: This year hasn’t gone according to plan. I mistook my timetable of dreams for a schedule, and have spent months scratching off trips, events, adventure and work, as well as whole chunks of normality. So rather than dwell on what I’ve cancelled—Tassie trail running, sailing trips, European skiing and more—I decided to reminisce on the joys of past adventures.

With a bit of distance, each of these trips has condensed into single recollections. A week spent climbing in Scotland’s north has shrunk to a sea-level traverse through a long, dark, rock arch beneath the ruins of a Viking fort, the sound of waves echoing all around. My fear is there, providing back story and atmosphere—rising with the time, the tide and the swell—but the feeling is one of space, wonder and intense gratitude. A wintery weekend in the Victorian high country is contained within the warmth, safety and snuggliness of my tent as I drifted off to sleep, the wind howling outside. I know I got wet and cold, but that evening is a bubble of time, an escape from hectic city life. A nighttime pee on a glacier captures a trekking trip to Nepal, the surrounding peaks gleaming in the moonlight and the world

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intensely hushed. A three-day paddle along Lake Malawi condenses into a local soccer game at sunset, the boundary line formed by hundreds of spectators who’d streamed in from surrounding villages.

There’s a library of these highlight reels in my mind, each one polished by use. Some have lessons attached: learn to navigate; remember Band-aids; mountaineering is not your thing. Others give insights into friendships, ageing, my attitude to risk and discomfort. And even though the memories are smooth and

In this uphill slog of a year, the extra time spent outdoors and the renewed appreciation for what we’ve got might help us to focus on what really matters: health, the environment, community and purpose."

shiny, I’m aware that the reality wasn’t.

Rough bits were there—with effort I can remember them in all their scabby details—but they no longer matter. Their purpose is to give texture to the rest.

Each of these memories represents hundreds of others, a good percentage of which were spent wondering why. Why I was slogging up a hill in the heat, thighs burning, back aching, throat parched, my legs stinging as sweat trickled into a network of scratches. Or why I’d ruined a beautiful day by taking my kids, as the sound of whinging following me around otherwise quiet tracks. There are so

many variations of terror, discomfort and general over-it-ness that every trip contains liberal sprinklings.

What you get out of a trip is individual and determined over time. It’s the culmination of everything that’s happening and gone before: your knowledge of a place, its history, geography, nature and surrounds. Past trips, your companions, the weather and atmosphere.

What you’re going through, physically, mentally and emotionally. How you’ve changed, what you need, and what you find. Add in some challenges, an achievement or two, and give it time and space to percolate, make sense, gain flavour.

Looking back over 2020 through this lens, the memories start to glint. Finishing ‘school’ early and spending the afternoon snorkelling, seeing colourful fish, camouflaged rays, tiny squid squirting puffs of ink. Sharing a celebratory tub of ice cream to mark halfway on the Bondi to Manly walk. Elsewhere, at other times, watching cockatoos scare off a goanna, whales putting on a show, and soldier crabs scuttling and disappearing.

Nature gives us this ability to focus on the wonder, the lessons, and what actually matters in life. In this uphill slog of a year, the extra time spent outdoors and the renewed appreciation for what we’ve got might help us to focus on what really matters: health, the environment, community and purpose. Because in the long term, these are the things that will determine the shape of our lives. If we can harness this hiatus, use it to change our priorities from short-term comfort to long-term sustainability, to cultivate an expansive long-term view and the commitment to follow through, it might be enough to begin changing the world.

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COLUMNS

[ Tim Macartney-Snape ]

OUTSIDE WITH TIM

In Deep Water A little experience, a little learning and a shift in attitude makes dealing with wet days far easier.

I

t is more valuable than gold. It is the elixir of life, the quencher of thirst and fire, hard to keep out and even harder to keep in, the original mirror yet clear as glass. It is sometimes silver or white as snow, and is snowflake delicate, the maker of rainbows and icebergs. It is the single most important and enthralling compound on earth. It is, of course, water. Ignorance of how to manage it in the outdoors can lead to misery and potentially death, while mastery of it opens the door to freedom.

I ponder this as the rain falls gently onto the saturated, spring-green forest outside, a scene that a year ago was a frighteningly crisp brown. The dead, dying understory and desiccated canopy cast a pall of desperation verging on hopelessness over the natural world.

I remember counselling myself that droughts have always come and gone, even ones as bad as this once in a century one. I knew that the coming months would most likely see large swathes of the eastern Australian forest belt be engulfed by fire; they had already started up north. It was inevitable that as the summer sun grew stronger, other blazes would start, and the extreme dryness, not seen in my lifetime, would most likely make them catastrophic.

By Christmas, fires raged to the north, west and south of here but favourable winds kept them away until, famously, the drought broke in flooding rains.

Ten months later, it’s clear we’ve entered a La Niña weather pattern, and my waterproof jackets have shed more water than they have for a long time! It’s

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understandable that people don’t like going out in the rain; getting wet can be uncomfortable, and for the inexperienced it can lead to hypothermia. But with a little experience, a little learning and a shift in attitude, the discomfort, danger and reluctance to engage is easily overcome.

Now, with the late afternoon light fading, and even though the rain is falling steadily, it’s time for my daily

It is more valuable than gold. It is the elixir of life, the quencher of thirst and fire, the maker of rainbows and icebergs, the single

most important compound on earth."

run with Raffy, my dog. His heritage is from the dry steppes of Central Asia, and he’s more disinclined to head out than I am, but I know that once out there he’ll be playfully running rings around me. But before we go, here are my thoughts on what to wear to get out and enjoy the rain.

When temperatures are anything less than the high 30s, rain on bare skin will eventually make you cold due to evaporative cooling on the surface of your skin. To overcome that, you need to wear a next to skin layer made of fibres that keep your skin dry by constantly transporting water away.

Most of us will have experienced the chilling, long lasting effect of putting on a wet cotton shirt. The problem with cotton and other cellulose-based synthetic fibres is that they absorb water so well they become saturated. They feel like you’re wearing a layer of water! But polyester based fibres do not absorb water.

Polyester ‘thermal’ knits, along with wool, share a property that allows body warmth to move moisture away from your skin so it doesn’t evaporate there and thus cool you. Wool also absorbs some water, but as it does, it chemically warms. In a cool climate, my preference is to wear a wool ‘thermal’ top and polyester trousers or shorts. If I lived in a hotter climate, I’d probably go for a polyester ‘thermal’ top as well.

I don’t like wearing a waterproof shell unless its windy or colder than about 15 degrees; I dislike the feeling of clamminess (the jacket’s hood is useful in keeping the rain out of your eyes, so to substitute I wear a cap). Instead I’d rather let my top and polyester shorts or trousers get saturated, and then, at the end of the outing, I simply wring them out, hang them under cover and let them air dry overnight. With wool tops, I dry them by wearing them on the outside of a dry inner layer. Having dry clothes to get into afterwards should be always part of the plan. Of course, for Raffy that’s not an option. And try as I might, he always manages to slip inside before I can towel him, and he then vigorously shakes himself dry sending wet spray everywhere. But hey, it’s just water. We can manage that!

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COLUMNS

[ Dan Slater ]

OF MOUTHS & MONIES

To Rent or not to Rent Stuck with no gear? Don't let that stop you from the chance of adventure.

I

was recently in the unusual position of having to hire a full set of equipment for a five-day hike in a remote and snowbound location. The hows and whys of the matter make for a complex and entertaining story, but that’s best saved for another time. Anyway, it’s suffice to say that due to a series of misfortunes, I found myself at the bottom of the inhabited world desperately needing the same sort of tackle that fills my spare bedroom at home.

Working in the outdoor industry has left me with multiple versions of every conceivable item of hiking kit, so it struck me as most ironic that the place where my needs suddenly became apparent (Puerto Williams, Chile) had precisely one equipment rental shop, and I counted myself lucky for even that. As I cast my practised eye over the wares on display though, my brow furrowed. Sure, I can be a gear snob when the occasion permits, but otherwise I like to think I’m a downto-earth guy. And at that moment, I’d take anything I could get.

Here were my requirements: tent, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, stove, backpack, pot set, gaiters, snowshoes, trekking poles, GPS, and a pair of crampons for good measure. The prevalent logo on the shelves was that of Doite, the Chilean cousin of Kathmandu that has been remarkably successful in Europe, Asia and even New Zealand, and the first five items all came under that banner. Results were mixed.

• I was pleasantly surprised with the tent, at least at first. It was spacious for

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one-person, had a snow skirt and probably weighed under two kilograms.

However, on the last night my campsite was subjected to horrific rain and wind.

Water pooled on the ceiling due to a bad, flat-roofed design combined with saggy-when-wet nylon. Water began dripping, then virtually flowing through the roof seams onto the middle of my sleeping bag. I tried duct tape; I tried laying my waterproof jacket over me; in the end I had to shove a trekking pole

Due to a series of misfortunes, I found myself at the bottom of the inhabited world."

vertically in the tent centre to change the tent’s architecture. It worked but by then the floor was awash and all my gear soaked.

• The mat was a foam ridge design, good on the snow and comfortable enough.

• The bag, warm enough at -4°C limit of comfort, was synthetic (a good thing, as it turned out) and thus massive. It filled fully a third of my 60-litre pack and had a ridiculous neck baffle design which got in my face all night.

• The pack harness’s adjustment buckle constantly stuck into the small of my back. Even set on XL, it was too small for my lithe frame, so all the weight rested on my shoulders.

• You can’t really go wrong with a stove and pot set. Well, except the pot lid, the

handle of which kept unscrewing itself leaving the screw to fall into my porridge.

• Then there were the boots. The selection was small and extremely variable, from après ski to work boots to crusty old Merrells. Whatever they had, it wasn’t in my size, thus this most important item was reduced to a choice of too-big or too-small. I plumped for the latter, breaking the cardinal rule of boot fitting because they looked more waterproof. They weren’t. Four days trudging through snow with cold, wet feet were the result.

• The other tragic failure was the crampons—they must have been 30 years old. But that wasn’t the problem.

The adjustment screws had been painted over some time in the 80s, so I could only get one to move. And with the other nut impossible to loosen with just a Swiss Army knife, they became dead weight.

• Fortunately, the snowshoes worked well. The trekking pole wouldn’t collapse down, but it did the job. And as for the GPS, a modern touch-screen Garmin, I never needed it.

So here was the final score: Successes: 5, Fails: 6, Unknowns: 1 The moral? When you’re going halfway around the world on a trekking holiday, of course it’s better to take your own gear; sometimes, however, fate leaves you with no alternative but to rent. In countries without access to top quality equipment, this is what they use. They get by. So did I. And so can you. Don’t give up the opportunity of trip just because you don’t have the gear at hand.

CONSERVATION

[ Opinion ]

Restore Lake Pedder In the early 1970s, Tasmania’s most glittering jewel was lost.

It’s time to regain its glory.

Words Andy Szollosi

T

here is only one road into Tasmania’s Southwest Wilprotruding from its surface. This is the cost of industrial progderness. This is the Gordon River Road, bulldozed and ress. And beneath the dark water of the current impoundconstructed in the 1960s to allow the Hydro Electric ment of Lake Pedder lies the largely forgotten heart of the Commission (HEC) to install dams on the Gordon, Serpentine Southwest, waiting for its awakening. and Huon Rivers. In doing so, they created Australia’s largest Before the dams, when the Gordon River ran wild, there was water reservoir: the Gordon-Pedder impoundment; two disa much smaller lake, nestled at the base of the rugged quartztinct lakes, connected by a canal, which allows water to flow ite mountain ranges. This was the original Lake Pedder, crefrom Pedder into Lake Gordon. ated over aeons through a process of glaciation and erosion by The Gordon Dam is the main ‘plug’ that holds back the Gorwater, wind and ice. This lake measured about 10km² (comdon River, built to bridge an incredible gorge. The 140m tall pared to the 240km² of the current Pedder Reservoir). concrete arch dam is an awe-inspiring sight. The turbines here What was remarkable about the original Lake Pedder was produce an average of 133 megawatts its extraordinary beauty. It functioned of sustained power, roughly 10% very much like a heart does. It was a Lake Pedder functioned of Tasmania’s hydroelectric output. central point, where the life-giving There are also a number of smaller very much fluid would collect, pass through and ‘plugs’ to create the 15m deep Pedder a central point where life-giving then redistribute. The surrounding impoundment; the Serpentine, Scotts waterways were effectively arteries, fluid would collect, pass through Peak and Edgar Dams. moving water and nutrients, and proSince only the Gordon Dam has and then redistribute. Now, this vided the essential flux required for power generating capacity, water life to flourish in this landscape. Now, must flow from Pedder into Lake Gor- metaphorical heart is flooded, this metaphorical heart is flooded, it don via McPartlan Pass Canal before is unbeating, unseen. Yet, it is there; it its potential energy can be harnessed. is simply covered by fifteen metres of It is only the top one metre from Pedder that flows through the tannin stained water that’s impenetrable to light. canal into Lake Gordon with the other 14m of water simply The original Lake Pedder was known for its wide, pink there to elevate the impoundment’s level to flow through the quartzite beach, made up of uncountable, finely ground pass into Lake Gordon. The water from Lake Pedder accounts specks of rock washed down from the surrounding mounfor about 57MW, or 40% of the total electricity generated at the tains over thousands of years. In summer, during low water Gordon Dam. This may sound like a lot, but 57MW is just a little levels, this sandy beach would be 800m wide; light aircraft over 2% of Tasmania’s hydroelectric capacity. could land here. The water of the lake would mirror the landThe irony, lost on most visitors, is that the Gordon River scape around it: on cloudy days the sombre tones of imminent Road no longer provides a view of the Gordon River. Where rain; on clear days the perfect reflection of the mountains. there once was a network of wild rivers providing the epiVisitors were profoundly moved, without exception. Once centre for life in South-West Tasmania, there now lies a large, seen, the lake could not be forgotten. Lake Pedder National still body of water with eroded banks and dead tree-stags Park was established in 1955.

like a heart,

it is unbeating, unseen.”

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The wide quartzite beach served as a landing strip for light aircraft

Credit: Sue Hope

Pedder’s now submerged beach

Maya Bristow, age 6, trekking to Everest Base Camp

The original Lake Pedder would reflect the mountains on clear days

Credit: Elspeth Vaughn

Credit: Lindsay Hope

Credit: Rob Blakers

Raising the banner at the 2020 Paddle for Pedder event

Pedder would not be completed in time for the next election, Ten years later, the plans to flood the lake were in motion. but perhaps it would be in time for our children to witness, An alteration of the national park was required to make way who will one day inherit the planet from us. for ‘inevitable progress’. Tasmania‘s industrialisation was well In an age of using limited resources at an accelerating rate, under way, and the HEC was one with the state government. this may be an unusual idea, but what if we gifted something Despite a strong grassroots movement opposing the damming to the future, something not immediately benefitting us right of Lake Pedder, the dams were built, and the heart of the Southnow? If we are capitalists, we should understand this in terms west was slowly inundated over the summer of 1971-72. of an investment. The practicality of carrying out an investThe movement opposing the damming of Lake Pedder has ment, however, brings with it a burden of having to make do continued to become one of the world’s longest running enviwithout certain things that we have come to take for granted. ronmental campaigns, guided by the Lake Pedder Restoration Are we willing to relinquish some of our power in order Committee. There have been some minor victories over the to bring beauty into the world? If we decades, including a federal parliamenbring Lake Pedder and the upper catchtary inquiry in the 1990s, which labelled This act could be the ments of the Serpentine and Huon Rivthe flooding as ‘unfortunate’. This, at that ers back to life, the hydroelectric outleast, was an acknowledgement that a put lost—which could be replaced by a mistake had been made. Largely though, shows that restoration of medium sized wind farm—would pale the issue of Lake Pedder has gone mostly our degraded landscapes is in significance to the gift that we have unnoticed in the public sphere. given back to the world. Lake Pedder There was a shake-up when divers possible, that we can is a symbol, and if we were to restore confirmed in the 1990s that Lake Pedthis lake to its natural state, we would der’s dune system remains intact, makonce again start up the beating heart ing restoration of the beautiful quartzof Tasmania’s Southwest Wilderness. ite beach theoretically feasible. This This act could be the beacon of hope that shows that restofinding was confirmed in 2020 with the use of a remotely ration of our degraded landscapes is possible, that we can operated submersible. Lake Pedder’s beach may be unseen, turn from conquerors to custodians. but it is not forgotten despite it being nearly fifty years since Let’s give something back to the planet and future generathe flooding. The call for the restoration of the original lake tions: For the lake’s sake, Restore Pedder! aligns with the need for urgent action on rewilding and restoration around the United Nations Decade of Ecosystem CONTRIBUTOR: Andy Szollosi—a Tasmanian-based wilderness wanRestoration 2021-2030. derer—played a principal part in the Paddle for Pedder event.

It is possible to restore Lake Pedder. If dams can be built, they can also be taken down. There have been more than GO DEEPER: To read more about Lake Pedder’s restoration plan 1,000 dam removals in the United States in recent decades, and the science behind it (and to see some beautiful archival offering a growing body of evidence of the possibility of resimagery) go to: lakepedder.org toration of a previously flooded landscape. The restoration of

beacon of hope

turn from conquerors to custodians.”

Summer 2020 WILD

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CONSERVATION

Luxury Lodges = Wilderness Lost Our national parks are under attack. Privatisation, in the form of luxury lodges and other accommodation for walkers, has gained nationwide momentum. In this, Part I of a two-part series, we look at breadth of the problem across the country.

Words James McCormack

“We all come from wilderness. That’s why we love nature. It’s why we delight in flowers and seeing wildlife because it’s part of our genetic structure. Now we live mainly in cities, where wilderness has been 90% or totally destroyed.

It’s arguably the fastest disappearing natural resource on the planet. That’s why it’s such a premium. As it’s become less available, it’s become more valuable for exploiters.”

the point; the unemployed, students and the poor should have equal rights to access this track, whether they pay a dollar in tax or not. This is public land.

A few days after this, I happened to be speaking with Bob Brown, bitching about this state of affairs. It wasn’t just the Green Gully Track; I was also angry about proposals on NSW’s South Coast to shut down hitherto long-used campsites so private huts could be built. I was aware, too, of the furore over Tasmania’s Lake Malbena, where it’s proposed helicopters will ferry the well-heeled out to Hall’s Island. I had heard—though knew few of the actual details—of the outcry over lodges proposed in Kangaroo Island’s Flinders Chase National Park. And Bob Brown, in a personal conversation with Wild.

I have long been troubled by Tasmania’s Three Cape’s Track, “A couple of rich bastards want to come into where luxury lodges were built in wilderness, with campsites long used by local bushwalkers shut down as part of the deal. our parks and ruin everything.”

All this I knew. It turned out, however, I knew little. My outrage Geoff Dixon—ex-Qantas CEO and co-founder of the Australian Walking turned to horror as Bob began telling me of proposals for lodges Company, and one of the rich bastards who wants to come into our along the length of Tasmania’s iconic South Coast Track (SCT). parks and ruin everything—quoted in the Financial Review.

The South Coast Track is not just any walk. It is beauty and wildness writ large. It is about challenge, about dire weather, about arlier this year, wanting to take my young son on a longer lashing rains and deep mud, and yes, it is about discomfort. And walk of four or five days, I recalled reading about the 65km then Bob mentioned another proposal for private lodges in a Green Gully Track in NSW’s Oxley Wild Rivers NP. It sounded national park, this one up on Queensland’s Hinchinbrook Island. pleasant. The National Parks and Wildlife Service’s (NPWS) webAnd what became apparent to me during that conversation site extolled the track’s virtues—a unique is that while the fights against private accomjourney into the Apsley-Macleay gorges, one modation within our national parks are hap[It’s] a dodgy process of Australia’s largest gorge systems. It menpening park by park, or, at best, state by state, tioned fern-lined gullies, high elevation for- that’s fundamentally most proponents of them—like our peak tourests, and wildlife. It also mentioned there about ism bodies; like Brett Godfrey of the Austrawere historic huts to stay in. Since staying in lian Walking Company (AWC), which operates for them cost $6001—and remember, I’m the edilodges under the banner of the Tasmanian tor of Wild; I hardly earn a corporate salary—I basically peanuts to some- Walking Company (TWC) on the Three Capes figured we‘d just camp. one to make a buck from.” Track, and has proposed others elsewhere in But when I searched to see what campsites Tasmania, as well as at Uluru, Hinchinbrook were on the route, I couldn’t find any. And that’s when I learnt we Island, Kangaroo Island and elsewhere—are taking a far broader couldn’t just camp. Despite this being a national park—a public approach. This alienation of public land by people whose prime park—if you don’t pay or can’t pay the $600 (because you’re a concern is not environmental protection but instead profit isn’t student, unemployed, or simply not flush with funds), well, you’re just happening here and there. It is a nation-wide plunder. This out of luck. You can’t do the walk. It seemed so outrageous that, is the theft of Australia’s wilderness. To be clear, this is theft in a at first, I wondered if I’d read it incorrectly, so I rang the relevant metaphorical sense; I’m not suggesting laws have been broken.

NPWS District Office. I wasn’t mistaken. No pay, no walk. The But in some ways, that’s almost worse; the fact our legal frameranger sheepishly said something about this being “the business work aids and abets this is both distressing and appalling. model.” I was incensed.

But although laws may not have been strictly broken, as The Now I could argue that if my taxpayer dollars are funding this Wilderness Society’s Tom Allen told me, “We’ve seen just so park, I should have the right to access it. But that’s not really many instances of rule bending, and a really dodgy process that fundamentally is about transferring public land for basically 1. To be clear, that’s not per person; it was for both of us to get use of the peanuts to someone to make a buck from.” huts. But if you’re a sole adult with a kid, it’s still one person forking out $600.

E

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transferring public land

National Parks for Sale ‘Huts’ under construction on the Three Capes Track

Spot the chopper? Get set for the skies over Precipitous Bluff to be full of ‘em

Credit: Rob Blakers

Credit: Grant Dixon

OF ALL THE ISSUES FACING US today, private accommodation for walkers within national parks—i.e. huts and lodges— might seem an unlikely locus for an ideological nexus, but the proposals at hand are the sites of confrontation for myriad tensions, some at the very core of our worldviews: private/ public, rich/poor, industrial/natural, materialism/spirituality, development/wilderness, exploitation/conservation, luxury/stoicism, dependence/independence. The list goes on.

Commercialisation of our national parks goes far further, of course, than just huts. And yet what’s happening with them is emblematic of the pressures placed on our natural heritage. In some ways, I’ll argue, this goes far deeper than fighting to keep wild places wild, or fighting to preserve ecological integrity, although those reasons should alone halt these developments.

But up front, I’m going to state my bias. As I see it, the provision of new infrastructure—and that includes accommodation—within our national parks should be the preserve of public authorities. Period. I have nothing against luxury accommodation per se—I don’t mind the odd fine wine and hot tub myself—but this, even to the extent of semi-permanent ‘glamping tents’, should be on private lands. Again, period. Anything more than temporary crosses that line. Bob Brown, in our chat, put it simply: “Inside parks—government infrastructure for the people. Private infrastructure—outside parks.”

Actually, I may as well state one other bias: I’m not outright against huts on public lands. But they shouldn’t be prolific. They shouldn’t be privately owned. If huts are to exist, they should be similar to those in NZ’s network of Department of Conservation huts: publicly-owned, non-exclusionary, low-key, simple, and sited in appropriate locations. The motive for their creation should be utility for park users, not profit. Unfortunately, that list of caveats rules out every proposal I’ll soon mention.

Some will disagree with those opinions. Others, although in large agreement, might have a more nuanced view. But it’s not just the precedent-setting, or the give-an-inch-take-a-mile, or the slippery-slope arguments, important as they all are, that’s

Credit: FAWAHATas

‘How’s the serenity!’

FAWAHA Tasmania campaign image

induced my black-and-whiteness here. Partly it stems from the fact that in the months subsequent to that chat with Bob, I’ve since—to get a better idea of what’s happening—spoken with dozens of people around the country about it. And it’s worse than I imagined. In Tasmania, for instance, not only are Lake Malbena and the South Coast Track being targeted; Frenchmans Cap is in the cross hairs. So, too, the Walls of Jerusalem.

The Tyndall Range as well. Elsewhere, Queensland’s recently-opened Scenic Rim Trail has new private lodges. More are planned along the Thorsborne Trail in Hinchinbrook NP, the Cooloola Great Walk in Great Sandy NP, and the planned Ngaro Track in Whitsunday Island NP. Private accommodation for walkers has been proposed within Victoria’s Gariwerd/Grampians NP. Virtual villages are envisaged for pristine wilderness in SA’s Flinders Chase NP and Victoria’s alpine high country.

The scale for these developments vary. Some are worse, by far, than others. Some exclude independent-tent based camping; others co-exist with it. Some are for semi-permanent tents and eco-pods (chuck the marketers weasel-word ‘eco’ in front of anything and it becomes more palatable). Some are for public huts.

Others are for private large-scale luxury lodges; calling them ‘huts’ ludicrously understates their size. Many go further still, involving perhaps nine structures, perhaps a dozen. I say perhaps because, all too often, authorities—citing commercial-in-confidence—keep the public in the dark about these proposals until unveiling them as fait accomplis. Quite frankly, all these developments warrant individual feature stories in Wild. But it’s crucial we understand this as a national phenomenon, even if doing so means omitting important details of individual instances.

Let’s start, then, with Tassie’s Three Capes Track; it’s the model for many developments elsewhere. As Tom Allen told me, “the DNA behind a lot of these proposals was first developed in Tasmania. [And] like a virus, it’s being replicated around the country.” The track was opened in 2017, a three-day walk on the spectacular Tasman Peninsula. There’d long been a rough trail in the area, but as part of the project it was upgraded and rerouted, Summer 2020 WILD

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CONSERVATION

National Parks for Sale and both private and public lodges were built along it—two by But proposals are afoot to do more than remove wilderness the Tasmanian Government with their operations leased out, in word; they aim to do it in deed. Grant Dixon alerted me to the and two by the Tasmanian Walking Company (aka the AWC).

‘Tasmania - Gateway of Opportunities’ website. Go there3, and Neither option comes cheaply. Choose your poison: $495 for see for yourself the dozens of already-approved developments the public huts; or $2,895 (or more) for the TWC’s plush lodges2. that—if they proceed—will transform Tassie’s national parks But there were bigger costs still, one being the cost borne by and, in particular, change the Southwest forever. local bushwalkers who saw access to their long-used campsites Not all are accommodation proposals. But of those that are, on Cape Pillar removed; they’re now forced to camp nearly ten even if just a few proceed, the Tasmanian Wilderness World Herkilometres distant in locales far less spectacular. Granted, some itage Area will be utterly compromised. The best-known proof those campsites were becoming degraded. That, however, posal is to develop Halls Island in Lake Malbena by constructing a could have been rectified without closure. ‘standing camp’ with fly-in helicopter access. (As Darryl Kerrigan The biggest cost, however, was that of wilderness. When I would say, How’s the serenity!) The plan caused outrage. Widespoke with Grant Dixon—long-time Wild contributor and co-auspread protests ensued, and when the local council advertised thor of Refining the Definition of Wilderness—he told me that the Development Application, it received 1,346 submissions; the Tasman Peninsula was Tasmania’s East Coast’s sole area of just three supported it. (It’s been noted elsewhere that three is defined wilderness. “This was a rare walk. But construction of also the number of full-time jobs the development would create.) this track [means] there’s now no wilderness on the peninsula.”

Council rejected the DA, but—running roughshod over legal proSome might wonder how huts could so impact wilderness. tocols—Tasmania’s Resource Management and Planning TribuBut these aren’t just ‘huts’. Their scale is astonnal overturned that rejection. After appeals ishing. Ryan Hansen, another frequent Wild and counter-appeals, in September 2020 fedLake Malbena’s tranquility contributor who’s walked in the area, told me: may soon be shattered eral Environment Minister Sussan Ley inter“The first building we saw, we thought, ‘That’s vened to at least make the application process fancy’. It turned out it was the toilet block. adhere to the law, forcing it to be assessed The lodge seemed ridiculous, just nuts. It was under the EPBC Act. The proposal as of writmonumental. It felt like a small town.” ing remains under consideration.

Walking isn’t necessarily the lodges’ drawAs bad as Malbena is, (and it’s bad) other card. In fact, TWC’s sales pitch enthusiastically developments are arguably worse. Take, for says, “Those with a penchant for pampering instance, the plan to construct six huts along can forego today’s walk and spend the [third] the South Coast Track, utterly compromising day at Cape Pillar Lodge.” There’s a clear implione of Australia’s most challenging walks4. cation: Enabling walkers isn’t the real goal; the “It would be,” says Grant Dixon, “a disaster.” real goal is providing private luxurious lodg- Credit: Dan Broun What happened on the Three Capes, he says, ing within an otherwise wild environment. “would be relatively minor compared to Again, there’s nothing wrong with luxury, just what would transpire on the South Coast.” provided it’s outside park boundaries.

Now, the question may be—and it’s a valid And the walking, well, that too no lonquestion—how does one person’s activities ger feels like wilderness walking. It feels affect the mindset of another? Surely somelike you’re on a path. One through stunning one else staying in a lodge shouldn’t alter country, no doubt, but as Chris Armstrong— your experience of staying in a tent. It’s true. another Wild regular, and who guides in the In some ways, it shouldn’t. But it does. It’s a area—told me, it feels “industrial”. “You do fundamental flaw in the human psyche, but not dodge a rock. You cannot trip over. You’re there’s no doubt that for most people, seeon boardwalk, compacted gravel, or handing others travel in ease while you travel hewn rock. It is brutally hard on your feet and in more challenging circumstances affects your legs. I do a lot of walking, and the track your experience. It’s for that reason putting to Cape Pillar is one of the hardest—as in cona road, or steps, or ladders, to a peak’s sumcrete hardest—tracks I’ve ever walked.” mit devalues the climb for mountaineers.

There’s another element here: this loss of But it goes further still. How will these wilderness is not accidental. Brett Godfrey, lodges be serviced? How will gas for cooking Proposals for accommodation and other quoted by the ABC, said his target demo- infrastructure across the TWWHA as of be transported to them? Wine? Food? Clean graphic was a “52-year-old single female who early 2020. Credit: Grant Dixon linen? How will lodge guests’ poo be shuttled finds going into the wilderness not her cup of out? The obvious answer is by helicopter, tea”. What’s Godfrey’s answer? It isn’t to take his clients to approthus ruining the wilderness experience of independent walkers. priate locations; it’s to make locations ‘appropriate’ to his clients Grant Dixon told me the 2016 management plan made provision by removing wilderness from the equation. As Bob Brown said for five helicopter landing sites in the Southwest. But who knows? during our chat: “A wilderness lodge is a non-sequitur.” Once the There could be more. Again, the public is kept in the dark. In any lodge is there, it’s no longer wilderness. case, presuming Malbena is one site, where are the others? The Godfrey isn’t alone in trying to rid Tasmania of its pesky wilproposed SCT lodges are obvious targets. derness. That effort goes to the state’s very top. The Tasmanian Then there’s the track itself. Will it, for commercially viabilWilderness WHA is the only World Heritage site on the planet ity, be ‘defanged’? Will the mud need to go? Will it need steps? with the word ‘wilderness’ in its name. When he was premier, More duckboarding? More hardening? Will it be necessary to however, Will Hodgman tried to change that, running a cam“industrialise” it like the Three Capes Track, so that it’s not so paign to expunge the word wilderness from the name. much track as hardened path? And if choppers are ferrying in

2. Actually, there’s another option. Although rarely publicised, you can do the Three Capes without staying in the lodges. In Wild’s Autumn 2021 issue, we’ll have track notes explaining how to do the walk for next to nothing.

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WILD Summer 2020

3. cg.tas.gov.au/home/investment_attraction/expressions_of_interest_in_ tourism/eoi_tourism_projects 4. Read Craig Pearce’s story about the SCT in this issue on p 68

Do we really need a village on the pristine coastline at Sanderson Bay?

Lenny at the rally (see below)

Credit: Rick Andrews

Protest on steps of SA Parliament

Credit: Bev Maxwell

grog, grub and linen, will they soon bring lodge guests to amethe trail would be needed. Worse yet, the proposed site locations liorate the costs of flying? Which, of course, will lead to more were shocking. Just two structures exist along Flinders Chase choppers. The sky over the once-wild Southwest will be buzzNP’s almost 100km of coastline: Cape Borda and Cape du Couedic ing. The notion of wilderness for independent walkers here will Lighthouses. But with the AWC’s proposals for coastal developbe forever destroyed. ments at Sanderson Bay and Sandy Creek, that would change.

There’s further absurdity, Bob Brown told me: “Not only is the Sandy Creek, in particular, is a vulnerable but until now developer putting double-storey luxury villas with helicopter untouched pristine area. Bev told me it’s “magical.” But what’s pads along one of the wildest, most scenic and remote walks proposed there, she said, “is a village comprising ten buildings on Earth; he’s being given three or four million dollars of public on the headland…stuck up where people can see th em.” Getting money to do it.” supplies to the village—with satellite huts clustered around The proposals don’t stop at the SCT. Private lodging is proa main structure nearly 20m long—needs construction of a posed for Frenchmans Cap. In the Walls of Jerusalem. In the nearly three kilometre vehicular track. Significant vegetation Tyndall Range. We’re facing the Southwest’s wholesale gutclearing would also be necessary, and there’d be disruption to ting. And with more private accommodation proposed for the animals like the endangered Kangaroo Island dunnart, whose Overland Track, it’s worthy noting that Bob Brown and others habitat has been identified near the sites. Need I remind you— opposed the original decision many decades ago to allow prithis is all within a ‘protected’ national park. vate huts along the track. “It was clear it was Locals were incensed. Surveys showed opposithe thin edge of the wedge.”

If this goes ahead, tion to the plan ran as high as 97%. The Flinders Chase chapter of Friends of Parks—an SA volunNOT ALL THOSE PROPOSALS involve lodges; teer organisation dedicated to assisting the state’s some are for glamping-style pods. But here’s in South Australia national parks—went on strike, withdrawing the thing: Are they, too, the wedge’s thin edge? their labour. And some rangers resigned. That’s Will they be glamping tents one day, villas right, people actually quit their jobs. Additionally, the next? Because that’s what happened in a range of traditional, sometimes conservative Flinders Chase NP on SA’s Kangaroo Island. I spoke with Bev groups came out publicly against it: The National Trust, Friends Maxwell, spokesperson for ‘Public Parks, Not Private Playof the Heysen Trail, Friends of the Museum, the Nature Foundagrounds’ (see their logo at this story’s head), a group formed tion, the Field Naturalists Society. But as Bev said to me, “If this to oppose the Australian Walking Company’s plans to build in goes ahead, there there’s no park in South Australia that’s safe.” the park what Bev and others call “villages”. A few years back, Protest rallies with hundreds of participants were held in Adeshe told me, the state government invited proposals from busilaide. Opposition to the proposal, Bev told me, “really crossed nesses to provide facilities in SA’s national parks. In response, the boundaries, politically, socially, as well as age. People spoke to AWC proposed glamping accommodation along the Kangaroo me saying, ‘This is the first ever rally I’ve been to in my life.’”

Island Wilderness Track. Locals uneasily accepted the plan; at A local group, Eco-Action KI, took both South Australia’s least the glamping was at campsites within appropriate manDepartment of Environment and Water and the AWC to the agement zones, and would be—and this is the crucial word, Bob state’s Supreme Court. “Our argument is that three kilometres Huxtable, another KI local, told me—near the track. But at the is not near,” says Bob Huxtable. Fraser Vickery, also involved project’s final unveiling, the community, excluded from the planwith Eco-Action, told me, “Fundamentally, it’s a planning objecning process, was horrified; the plan had changed significantly. tion. The management plan and zoning doesn’t allow for the The glamping tents, well, they were now permanent strucscale and nature of this development.” The fight is ongoing, and tures. And they were no longer to be co-located with other campthere have been multiple adjournments. The case will likely be sites. They were now far off the track; considerable extensions to heard in the state’s Supreme Court in May next year.

there’s no park

that’s safe.”

Summer 2020 WILD

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CONSERVATION 28

National Parks for Sale Queensland is another state where government initiated a public land sell-off. I spoke with David Haigh, who taught environmental law at James Cook University for several decades. He explained that in 2018, Kate Jones, Minister of Tourism, called for tenders to develop private tourist resorts along walks in three national parks: The Thorsborne Trail in Hinchinbrook NP, the Whitsunday Trail in Whitsunday NP, and the Cooloola Great Walk in the Great Sandy NP. All run through World Heritage Areas. “But on what basis,” asks Haigh, “does the Minister of Tourism, not the Minister for Environment, claim jurisdiction over national parks? The Nature Conservation Act is clearly intended to be run by the Department of Environment.”

It’s worth noting that a year prior, the Palaszczuk Government made a pre-election commitment NOT to allow such development in national parks. But why stick by the promise once re-elected?

To kickstart the privatisation process, the government offered significant incentives. Approvals would be fast-tracked. And whoever won the Whitsunday Island Trail contract would receive up to $5 million in taxpayer funds to assist ‘eco-accommodation’ construction. As in Tasmania, taxpayers would be slugged to help private companies turn a profit by alienating that same taxpaying public from its own lands.

Thumbs down for lodges And while technically the land along on Hinchinbrook Island the trails isn’t being ‘sold’—it’s being leased—those leases run for 60 years; in essence, these are de facto sales.

There’s another twist here. The Chair of Tourism and Events Queensland—the government body that recommended these projects—was none other than Brett Godfrey, who as an AWC Director potentially stood to gain significantly Mowarry Beach from them. The conflict of interest is obvious. “But Godfrey,” Bob Brown told me, “claims to have a firewall in the middle of his brain so that one thing doesn’t influence the other,” before adding, “You can believe that if you want to.” Most don’t. “It’s a clear public interest problem,” David Haigh told me. “When it goes to tender, who gets the profit? He does. A public servant!”

The most significant resistance to development along the trails in question has been with respect to Hinchinbrook’s stunning Thorsborne Trail. When the plans were announced, the local community rose up. Crystal Falknau—a representative of the Townsville-based North Queensland Conservation Council (NQCC)—told me locals had memories of an earlier alienation of national park land on Hinchinbrook: the Cape Richards Resort, which now lies in ruins years after being destroyed by Cyclone Yasi. Falknau added, “Once the Thorsborne Trail is no longer under public ownership, its future is really uncertain. It’s an area that should belong to anyone and everyone, not private interests.” And then there’s the threat to Hinchinbrook’s wilderness nature, which, Laura Holm—Conservation Principal of National Parks Association of Queensland (NPAQ)—told me, “is incompatible with private development.”

There’s hope, at least; Falknau told me it appears the Thorsborne project is languishing, with development timelines not being met. But while it—and the Whitsunday and Cooloola projects—seemingly stagnate, in the meantime, Queensland’s first instance of private accommodation along a national park walking trail has occurred elsewhere: on the Scenic Rim Trail in Main Range NP. The SRT only opened months ago, and in this very issue we’re running track notes on it for independent bushwalkers.

It’s a beautiful walk, but strung along it are collections of WILD Summer 2020

lodges. Some are outside the park; I have no problem with them.

In fact, they could be considered good examples of siting accommodation beyond park boundaries. Two, however, are within park lands. Both have ten buildings. Looking at the brochure, the cabins at Timber Getters seem lovely. But at $3,390 for five days, they should be, I guess. What they shouldn’t be, however, is within a national park. As Tarquin Moon of the NQCC has said, “If you think that commercial development within [Queensland] National Parks is for the public good, then think again. This is about Government caving into commercial interests.”

It was mainland Queensland’s first private development in a national park in over 110 years. Much of the planning process took place in circumstances the NPAQ called “opaque.” Citing a gap in transparency, NPAQ’s Laura Holm told me, “[we have] been fighting for a community say on proposals for private development in national parks. The community has a right to know all impacts.”

There is, however, some nuance to the SRT (even if the within-park lodges shouldn’t have been allowed); unlike most other proposals, there have been some gains for the general public. I chatted with John Marshall of Bushwalking Queensland, and while having reservations about private development in parks, he said in this specific instance the new track and three new campsites for ‘freedom’ walkers meant there were positives as well.

Credit: NQCC At the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of expanding benefits is what’s happening in NSW, where the goal seems to be to reduce options for independent tent-based bushwalkers. And it’s not private enterprise doing the land-grabbing; it’s government.

The Green Gully Track I mentioned earlier is the worst example of this perhaps anywhere in the country; it’s the only instance I know Credit: John Blay of that allows no independent walking whatsoever. Pay $600 for the huts, or don’t walk5.

But there’s another proposal that’s stirring outrage: the Light to Light Track on NSW’s Far South Coast. Running for roughly 30km in Ben Boyd NP between Boyd’s Tower and Cape Green Lighthouse, the track is planned to be ‘upgraded’; that process involves constructing two new accommodation sites—run by the NPWS—along the route.

Mowarry Point, long used as an unofficial campsite by local bushwalkers, is one of the sites. I spoke with John Blay, author of Wild Nature—a poetic, insightful, ruminative exploration

A FEW SITES TO CHECK OUT:

- ppnotpp.org/ Private Parks Not Public Playgrounds is a grassroots organisation on Kangaroo Island fighting the Flinders Chase NP development - facebook.com/FAWAHATas/ Fishers And Walkers Against Helicopter Access Tasmania - nqcc.org.au/save_our_national_parks The North Queensland Conservation Council has been leading the fight against private lodge developments on Hinchinbrook Island - npaq.org.au/current-issues/ecotourism-in-national-parks/ The National Parks Association of Queensland’s take on ecotourism - tnpa.org.au/planning-matters/ Tasmanian National Parks Association has loads of link to planning and development issues within the state - vnpa.org.au/hands-off-parks/ Victorian National Parks Association’s‘Hands Off Parks’ campaign 5. Actually the park’s Plan of Management states you can camp anywhere as long as it’s 200m from a formed track, road, picnic area, etc. But few are likely to search out and then wade 43 pages into the document to discover this when the website states you can only walk the track by booking online.

Victoria’s high country: Home to a chain of new villages?

Credit: Craig Pearce

of the forests and coastlines of NSW’s Southeast and Victoria’s Gippsland regions; the book highilights many instances of the area’s national parks being sabotaged, including along the Light to Light—and he told me Mowarry was a beautiful spot: a small scoop of grassed hillside running down to a little, classic beach.

It seems only natural people would want to camp there. But actually, along the entire stretch of coast there are, John told me, “lots of beautiful little [spots] amongst the melaleucas or down along the shoreline where you can have a primitive campsite and without mucking it all up. It’s been working really well so far.”

That will end with the upgraded Light to Light Track. All primitive campsites—including the long-used one at Mowarry, and the one Hegartys Bay, which, incidentally, is the site of the second lodge—will be closed; bushwalkers will be herded into two campsites near roads. To be fair to National Parks, some closures are likely driven out of environmental concerns. But if Mowarry Point and Hegartys Bay are ecologically able to sustain lodges, surely they could support camping, too. And if some of these campsites do indeed have environmental issues, can’t they be ‘hardened’ by creating tent platforms rather than herding all walkers into just two sites?

“From my perspective,” Gary Dunnett—Executive Officer of the National Parks Association of NSW—told me, “it’s putting the cart in front of the horse. They’ve got an existing strong user base for the park, and they’re trying to create a boutique experience. But rather than that being a low-impact addition to the existing user base, it’s actually supplanting it. It seems perverse, to be blunt.”

It’s hard not to be cynical here, as indeed it is with Three Capes: To what extent are campsites being closed to make lodges commercially viable? Why pay for views—the thinking would go if the campsites remained—when just around the corner you can get a similarly superb view for free? And on the subject of commercial viability, there’s the fact that with the precedent set it’s not at all implausible—in fact it’s incredibly easy—to envisage a scenario where the NPWS decides it’s not making enough profit, and so sells them off to a private-for profit operator like AWC. That likelihood actually rises if they are profitable; the state government would then gain far more from their privatisation.

Victoria seemed headed for a similar but more extensive system of publicly-owned huts along the still-being-constructed Grampians Peak Trail. But when I chatted with Phil Ingamells of the Victorian National Parks Association, he told me that, in the face of opposition, hut proposals had been scaled back; for the time being, it seems only some semi-permanent, glamping-style accommodation at one end of the track is being developed.

The key question is whether that expands over time. But Phil then brought up a more imminent Victorian threat: the Falls to Hotham Track. Four accommodation ‘nodes’ are proposed along the five-day track. At least, unlike some other proposals,

independent camping will still be allowed both away from the nodes and—apparently—at the nodes themselves, where huge hut complexes are planned. As with Flinders Chase, characterisation them as villages wouldn’t be amiss. There will be large central communal buildings surrounded by perhaps a dozen satellite huts, and the Master Plan’s preferred model is for them to be privately operated for the benefit of private walking tours.

The node of most concern, Phil told me, is on Diamantina Spur near Mt Feathertop. “Feathertop is the only sizeable freestanding mountain in Victoria,” said Phil. “This would be a real intrusion on it.” Getting walkers up this, the steepest walkers’ approach to the peak, involves constructing a new, enormously expensive track. Getting supplies up there would be a struggle, too. To that end, it’s proposed helicopters will service the node. If the hut complexes alone don’t alter the entire wild high country’s ambience, it’s hard to see how choppers won’t. But the whole walk, Phil told me, “wasn’t Parks Victoria’s idea; it was the tourism industry’s. They said they needed a spectacular view and a spectacular place to have people in their doonas, with bottles of wine and everything. The other thing is, they’re going to plan the track, then develop a business case for it. And after that, then do the environmental impact statement.”

WE HAVE, IN AUSTRALIA, BEEN FACING increasing inequality over recent decades. But not in the bush, not in our national parks, not in our wilderness. Out in those places, we could escape that. In the bush, we just were. In the bush, everyone was equal. But with these sales—because a lease of 60 years or more may as well be considered a sale—those days are no more. With parts of our public parks being sold to private interests, we will no longer be equal in them. And you needn’t be against soft beds and massages to be against choppers buzzing the sky or ATV tracks being carved through our parks, or for our wilderness being compromised, our wildlife threatened, our wild vistas ruined and park access being limited. And as each project gets approved, that only encourages more developments. There’s a buck to be made. And then another buck elsewhere. And elsewhere again.

Where does it end? Where does it end?

James McCormack is the Editor of Wild.

COMING UP: Part Two of this story will look at what’s driving this process besides the obvious one—profit. The answers aren’t merely economic; there are deep philosophical issues at play. It will also address why the jobs argument touted by lodge backers is flawed, as is their argument of “athletic elitism”, and why there are differences between low-key public huts and the proposed private infrastructure. And it will look in more depth at what’s at stake: the loss of wilderness, the loss of challenge, the loss of equal access, and the loss of our lands.

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NONE OF THE ABOVE

[ Opinion ]

How to react to

The Closure of Taipan Wall Words Simon Madden

Last year, Australia’s climbing world was rocked when, in response to concerns of the Traditional Owners of Gariwerd (aka the Grampians), Parks Victoria banned climbing on many of Australia’s—indeed the world’s—most iconic routes. The bans include the famed Taipan Wall, an area that’s been described as ‘an astonishing tidal wave of the best sandstone in the universe’. Many routes here are beyond the abilities of mere mortals; some are among the hardest in the country. But even if you don’t have the ability to climb Taipan Wall, its symbolism is such that its closure reverberates through the entire global climbing community. Here Simon Madden, co-editor of Vertical Life Magazine, looks at what it means.

F

EEL TERRIBLE

Taipan is as much an idea as it is a place of climbing. A wall that dominates both the landscape and the mindscape. A towering, intimidating wall that burns orange in the afternoon, not just from the rays of the setting sun but also because millions of climbers project their dreams onto it. It is brilliantly illuminated by desire.

It is no wonder then that its closure has been towering over my mind, dominating my thoughts, as it has for many climbers. How do we react to its closure? It has taken some time to write something about it and I have deleted it all and started again more than once.

Knowing that something is inevitable doesn’t protect you when that thing comes to pass.

When the bans first came down upon Gariwerd, and the world was filled with sadness and regret and hostility, I remember my Vertical Life co-editor Ross immediately reminding me there was obvious quarrying at Taipan. If you simply followed the logic that underpinned the initial bans, it was inevitable that Taipan would be closed.

I ‘knew’ the closure of Taipan was coming, though clearly there was some latent denial as still I wasn’t prepared for my emotional response. I was despondent.

BUT HOLD ON TO A SPRIG OF HOPE

There is, though, a positive reading, some light amidst the swirling pattern of dark clouds: For the first time, climbers were invited to Gariwerd to explain climbing to Traditional Owners. Furthermore, the language around these new bans suggests they’ll be temporary with the potential for concessions to be made for climbing.

We do not want climbing banned. Equally, the vast majority of climbers want cultural heritage properly protected.

We have been calling for access to be resolved through a

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collaborative process in which climbers are included. We want to have a voice, to be considered legitimate and not illicit, vigilant and not vandals. For the smears to stop.

We want to have a respectful relationship with Traditional Owners (TOs) and to climb with their blessing where we can.

The vast majority of climbers believe climbing can co-exist with protecting cultural heritage—the hope is that those on the other side of the equation believe the same thing.

Climbers—members of Gariwerd Wimmera Reconciliation Network (GWRN)—went to Taipan with TOs and Parks Victoria (PV). Because of the work GWRN has done, a nascent, fragile dialogue between climbers and TOs now exists. That’s a good thing, as until GWRN came on the scene there was no dialogue, only slanging matches on social media. The word is there is a willingness by TOs to find a way for climbing to coexist with cultural heritage protection, and that Taipan, so special to so many climbers, may provide the test case of this new approach. We want to figure out a mechanism whereby any climbing site bans are as targeted and granular as possible rather than being blanket and blunt. This could be that chance.

I really hope so.

ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO

Educate yourself on what reconciliation means, and think about how it might intersect with rock climbing. This is a difficult thing for all Australians, not solely climbers, but we are in a particularly exposed position given where it is that we love to go climbing.

Think clearly about who best represents your ideas in the access debate. There are differing philosophies and differing strategies, we should all take the time to think hard on what it is that we value, the type of climbers we want to be, the people we want to be.

Adam Long on the classic Taipan Wall route Mr Joshua (25)

Evidence of quarrying at Taipan Wall

TRY NOT TO TRIP OVER THE LINE IN THE SAND It’s also worth asking what the climbing representative Since the earliest days of the Gariwerd/Grampians access bodies that represent you are doing. What is the message disaster, there have been those who have called for mass prothey are sending, what efforts are they making to talk to Tratest, and I heard more than one person refer to Taipan as the ditional Owners, what alliances are they forging and what line in the sand that might provoke such action. I can underare the values of the groups they are seeking alliances with?

If we are going to build a respectful relationship with TOs, stand that because of Taipan’s status as an ideal held up above that takes time and we need to demonstrate our goodwill. all other crags, the canvas upon which dreams are projected.

The wheels of bureaucracy move slowly, as do the wheels In the mass protest argument, people are at pains to say of building respectful relationships. that our fight is with the scoundrels That doesn’t mean we need to be of PV; any civil disobedience would silent, it just means we need to press be only between PV and climbers.

There is, though, our point in a respectful, construcI don’t think this is how it will be , tive way. Be respectful, be patient, be seen. There is no respectfully aimadvocates for climbing. ing climbing’s guns at PV and not some light amidst the swirling Some of the despair resulting from blowing up TOs in the same way dark clouds: the bans comes from feeling there is that there is no waving the consticlimbers were little that we can do. We feel disemtution in the air without affecting powered, we feel PV are against us, relations with TOs. Acts of mass invited to explain climbing to bans are only increasing, we have civil disobedience will likely be Traditional Owners." little understanding of how TOs operseen as acts against TOs by TOs and ate, climbing representative bodies by the public at large, and it will be have been unstable and ineffective, promises of swift legal easily framed that way by PV, for whom having climbers look victories have proven hollow, we don’t know who GWRN are bad is the established MO. and the work they are doing is unfamiliar, it’s no wonder that There are indications that the way the closure of Taipan is some amongst us are angry and adrift. being managed is the start of a new process, in which climbSome feel great anger towards GWRN. GWRN exists ers are included, where climbers have a relationship with because the bodies that represent climbers have failed to TOs. We should allow that to play out, to see how cultural form constructive relationships with TOs. And despite the heritage and climbing may co-exist at Taipan, before considearly thinking that underpinned the formation of the Ausering any drastic action. tralian Climbing Association Victoria (ACAV), climbers are That said, we should be prepared to fight hard in the event unlikely to get access without dealing directly with TOs. Into the draft management plan comes back and it’s draconian, that breach, GWRN has stepped as a reconciliation organiwith little or no climbing returned. It would be prudent to sation dedicated to forging a relationship with Traditional prepare for the worst, even if only emotionally, but still hope Owners and helping them to understand climbing. for the best.

a positive reading For the first time,

Image credits (both): Ross Taylor

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OPINION: Taipan Wall Closure

If you want something badly, get on it right away. Nothing lasts forever, and the end of forever is always closer than you think."

Things taken away are rarely given back lightly. No site banned under earlier PV declarations has had climbing re-allowed, aside from the convoluted and bastard situation of pay-toplay-only at Summerday Valley, which is not a satisfactory model for many reasons.

That said, none of the earlier bans have resulted in climbers being invited to give input directly to TOs—Taipan’s closure then signals a change in the way things are being done.

Change for the better.

The fruit of that change will be slow in ripening. But not only is the process slow, but there may also be disagreement about what the process is. All parties involved believe the process is playing out, but ‘the process’ may actually be a different thing for each of them.

With only a small step back, you could easily conclude climbers think the process is moving towards a targeted approach to climbing access and being able to once again climb in Gariwerd. For TOs, the process is about protecting cultural heritage. For PV, it’s more difficult to pin down succinctly, but normative reading would be that it is protecting cultural and environmental values while enabling public access to public lands. The problem is that how you understand the framework of ‘the process’ sets your expectations.

Climbers expect to be getting access back; when that isn’t happening we are getting frustrated.

PV could go some way to resetting the relationship between themselves and climbers by demonstrating a willingness to review and amend bans where appropriate by giving back access to areas that are deemed not to be culturally sensitive.

It would demonstrate a willingness to move beyond their slurs and smears of climbers.

ASK WHAT IS LEFT?

I still can’t shake a darkness. Sitting in tightly locked down Melbourne, helicopters buzzing the streets at night, people not allowed to leave their houses for more than an hour a day, things are very dark, and in the darkness we are left with nothing to do but dream. One of the illuminating things about this second lockdown has been that when your life is stripped of all distractions (and here I count climbing as a distraction), your thoughts expand to fill an infinite space. You think about all the decisions you’ve made that have brought you to this point and about what your life is going to look like on the other side. You dream of changes you will make, things you will do differently. But what are we dreaming about?

It’s hard to drag your increasingly-bloated body away from necking another bottle of wine or scoffing another block of chocolate and retreating to whatever cluttered space you

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have a hangboard set up. This is because training is planning, and planning must have a vision of the future. Training then is fuelled by dreams. But no one dreams of climbing at Van Diemen’s Land. No one channels Tribute Wall when they are straining for just one more set of hangs. There is nothing iconic, and very few hard routes, in Gariwerd that are not currently banned. There is precious little in Victoria that’s worthy to stick up in a picture on your wall and dream, “One day, one day.” The obvious lesson—and the virus has made clear this applies to far more than climbing—is: Do not wait. If you want something badly, get on it right away. Nothing lasts forever, and the end of forever is always closer than you think.

STRIVE

There may be precious few routes worthy of dreaming about now, but we can and we must still strive for a future in which we can climb things of majesty and beauty, things that have visited us in our dreams. We must hold on to a vision of the future where we are able to climb and protect cultural heritage, where climbing representative groups are involved with reconciliation and where PV no longer contemptuously positions climbers as enemies.

That is why I am still dragging myself to the hangboard, even if the level of intensity is tokenistic and my arse is bloated until it weighs me down like two saddlebags filled with lead; it might be out of habit, it might be wrapped in denial, but really I must still have hope.

So how should we feel? We should feel bad as the best cliff in the world is closed but hopeful that it might signal the blossoming of a respectful and understanding relationship with TOs, and it could be the start of negotiating access in a way that we want.

It’s okay to feel terrible. Feeling terrible doesn’t make you a bad person. You can be upset at the parlous state of climbing in Victoria and still be supportive of Traditional Owners. You can also have hope. Navigating these feelings is what makes this issue particularly difficult. Humans are complex, and we can hold many ideas in our heads at the same time. Often change comes slowly, then all in a rush.

One thing is unequivocal, this year can get directly in the bin.

CONTRIBUTOR: Simon Madden is the co-editor of Vertical Life Magazine. After a covid-19-induced hiatus, the magazine is resuming printing again in December: VerticalLifeMag.com.au

UPDATE: After this was written, and just before going to print, Parks Vic released its Draft Plan of Managament for gariwerd. The thrust of this piece still holds, but you can access the PoM here: engage.vic.gov.au/gariwerd-management-plan

Image credit: Simon Madden

STAY CIRCUMSPECT

JJ O’Brien on the crux of the first pitch of Mr Joshua (25)

CORSE CAN I TAKE ON EUROPE’S TOUGHEST HIKE?

I CAN Is this Europe’s most gruelling walk? Although Dan Slater doesn’t find an answer to that particular question while tackling Corsica’s GR20, he finds an answer to another: What’s the difference between an arduous trek and enjoyable one? Friends.

Words & Photography Dan Slater

‘L

ong,steep,rocky descent.’

Four words to strike fear into the heart of any hiker. This threatening combination, repeated with worrying frequency in my guidebook, is an accurate description of roughly 45% of the 180km trail to which I’ve committed the next two weeks of my life.

Replace the last word with ‘ascent’ and you’ve got another 45%. Such is the task awaiting anyone crossing of the corrugated granite spine of the humpbacked Mediterranean island of Corse, or as English-speakers know it, Corsica.

Mention the GR20—the 20th in France’s system of Grande Randonée walking paths—in any group of self-respecting walkers and you’ll hear the mantra ‘Europe’s Toughest Hike’ confidently repeated. When I first heard it, that was all I needed to know. Europe’s toughest hike? Pah! I stopped listening there and then, lodged it in my frontal lobe and waited for an opportunity. And now here I am, except twenty years have passed and I’m well into my fifth decade, boyish bravado overtaken by a grey beard, sagging skin, and a musculoskeletal system slowly taking on the consistency of jellied meringue. Not such a tough guy now, huh? Hell, I’ve even started using trekking poles!

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Rooted to the spot—reaching the lookout at Bocca Picaia is one of the walk’s undoubted highlights

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Grande Randonée 20, CORSIC A

Corsica

I

console myself by reasoning that the generalisation ‘Toughest Hike’ is plainly ridiculous. Each individual’s experience is influenced by a number of complex and interwoven factors: weather, fitness, schedule, pack weight, and company all contribute to a a long-distance walk’s ease or difficulty. A gentle week along Scotland’s West Highland Way is achievable by any reasonably fit hiker. A three-day, solo winter traverse of that same route—not so much. Such are my thoughts as I leave the quaint village of Calenzana on the first morning, confident the GR20 can do me no harm. Under a perfect blue sky, a rubble track leads me between two ancient stone walls to a sunstained landscape of bent trees and maquis—a matted amalgam of prickly bushes designed to catch threads and pierce skin. I know this because five minutes later I’m face down in it.

NEWSFLASH!—Reading a guidebook while ascending a mountain is an excellent way to a bloody knee and a handful of thorns. I may as well have been running with scissors, an item dutifully included in my first aid kit, unlike tweezers, which I now need for thorn extraction. I have scant hope of borrowing any from a fellow trekker either since, having emerged from my tent at Calenzana’s Gite d’Étape at 7:15am, I’d discovered all the previous night’s occupants had already left. Apparently, alpine starts are de rigeur. I think little of it until six hours later when I find the first hut, Refuge d’Ortu di u Piobbu, little more than a burnt-out shell. Terrific.

Shelters have been torched before for reasons of, shall we say, ‘business rivalry’ but according to Paddy Dillon, author of Cicerone’s GR20 guidebook, this incident was particularly Corsican. The (unconfirmed) story goes that the previous caretaker, having run the PNRC-owned (Parc Naturel Régional de Corse) refuge independently for many years, was informed by the organisation that from this season he’d be working alongside a park agent. Not keen on that idea, he took the only available course of action, to a Corsican at least. He burnt the building to the ground. Welcome to the Land of the Vendetta.

Room with a view; Dan sets about studying the guidebook

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WILD Summer 2020

This strategically-located island has been the site of countless military campaigns over the centuries, imbuing the Corsican people with a heartfelt desire for freedom. Its classification of ‘territorial collectivity’ gives the island a degree more autonomy than other regions of France, an allowance welcomed by the fiercely independent population. They have their own distinct language and culture; pro-separatist graffiti adorns the walls of major cities and small villages alike. Even isolated mountain farms fly the Corsican flag, a bold monochrome design of a moor with a white bandana fluttering in defiance. It’s no surprise that one inhabitant of this harsh land, Napoleon Bonaparte, ended up ruling most of Europe.

Without having evolved an effective judicial process, the island’s residents resorted to simple revenge for even the slightest wrongs, real or imagined. The concept of vendetta was to take blood retribution, preferably fatal, against a rival family for any crime against one’s own. This naturally led to a return round of violence and a downward spiral of murder,

Is it safe?” I grilled the refuge

guardian, utterly failing to replicate the menace of Laurence Olivier’s Nazi dentist in Marathon Man. His only

reply was a Gallic shrug.”

often lasting generations, until one or both families’ supply of males were exhausted. It’s estimated that at the height of the practice, in the 18th and 19th centuries, 1% of the population died every year from feuds.

Hopefully the dispute over the administration of Piobbu Refuge won’t go that far, but for now there will be no beds until the hut is rebuilt. Fortunately, the campsite is still in working order. Tent pitches are generally scraped out of the hillside, sometimes effectively, sometimes not. Properly flat ones are in short supply, so your time of arrival can make the difference between a reinvigorating sleep and a slow slide downhill to crumple into a ball, face pressed against the flysheet. Showers might, on a good day, be heated; otherwise water is piped straight from a high mountain stream. You know something is amiss when your shower is colder than your beer!

I’d come to Corsica alone, confident I wouldn’t be for long.

True to my plans I soon fall in with a loosely-coalesced group of English speakers. Nick, Richard and Chris had each arrived separately before succumbing to the language equivalent of Brownian Motion, knocking between French, German and Italian speakers until they found each other. Chatterbox Nick had only discovered the GR20 a few weeks before, while cruising the internet in search of a European hiking holiday. Richard is a retired Irishman, slower than the rest of us but determined to walk all the way to his grave. Chris is actually German but actively spurns his compatriots, scuttling away from any Germanic conversation without revealing his mother tongue.

The daunting granite spine of Corsica

New friends + shared hardships = fast bonding

The Moor’s head: This Gite was basic but friendly, Corsica’s traditional symbol and the beer was cheap and cold!

Some of the smaller pinnacles of the Aiguilles du Bavella

Without the Virgin watching over us, we may not have made it

I’m the last to latch onto the group, paradoxically by leading them astray early on the third morning. I’d given into peer pressure and risen at 6am to the beautifully disturbing sight of a plasma ball above camp. Flickering from within, forked lightning was trying to escape its spherical cloud prison and zap us. Afternoon summer storms regularly lash these high peaks and this harbinger of doom had everyone concerned. I’d already been warned that death by lightning is a real danger on Corsica, then a nervous trekker revealed that Cicerone author Connie Roos had been killed by a strike while researching an earlier edition of the very book I had in my hands! I glanced down at it in dismay, wood pulp and ink transformed into portentous talisman.

The mood that day was tense. Most hikers milled around discussing whether they should try to beat the storm, wait a day, or bus around. “Is it safe?” I grilled the refuge guardian, utterly failing to replicate the menace of Laurence Olivier’s Nazi dentist in Marathon Man. His only reply was a Gallic shrug. It didn’t help matters that this section had previously included the Cirque de la Solitude, undisputed highlight of the trek. Not anymore. In 2015 a group had attempted the

The cool pools of Ravin de Valle di Stagni were irresistable

traverse in terrible rain conditions, not unlike those predicted for this afternoon. A section of mountainside, wet snow overlying steep, compacted rubble, had collapsed, burying seven.

The Cirque was permanently closed and the GR20 re-routed over Monte Cinto (2,706m), the island’s highest point. This

This was not

a day to be taking chances, but I’d only allowed thirteen days to complete the sixteen day walk.”

was not a day to be taking chances, but I’d only allowed thirteen days to complete the sixteen day walk, so not only could I ill afford to wait, I had three double-stage days ahead of me.

“Sod it,” I thought, and threw on my pack, trying to avoid the red aura emanating from Connie’s paperback memorial.

Back in the present, I’ve somehow overlooked the distinctive white-and-red painted symbols which mark the route for its entire length. The trio following me, having mistakenly assumed I have working eyes in my head, realise During eventually low water, Harwoods’ pools are crystal clear

Summer 2020 WILD

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Wall of granite: The GR20 will remind you of your insignificance in this world

Sometimes the GR20 feels like the Eurovision song contest, in which I am

representing Australia. I toy with idea of sprinting ahead to ‘win’ the GR20 for our country.” their error and turn around. “Do you speak English?” Nick asks when I catch-up. “Like a native,” I joke, breaking the ice after my navigational faux pas. We keep pace for the remainder of the day, during which the storm never eventuates, much to the chagrin of the two busloads of people that have paid a fortune to be ferried around Monte Cinto.

In fact, I escape the fortnight with less rain than it takes to rehydrate a sachet of freeze-dried spag bol. The extreme heat brings its own challenges, though; unquenchable thirst, solar-powered headaches, and light-headedness on exposed heights. When Chris trips and falls headlong on one of those notorious descents, we all stop and wait until he feels able to continue. Despite the macho exchanges (‘You guys go on ahead,’

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WILD Summer 2020

‘Nah, I was about to stop for a snack anyway’), it’s an unspoken signal that we’re now a group. We stick together. As typical caveman-types, however, we only express our pleasure in finding likeminded companions through sarcasm.

“Coming here on my own,” says Nick a few days later, “I always hoped that I’d bump into people that I’d like walking with.”

“But sadly, that didn’t happen,” I commiserate.

“No, but when I finally meet those people...” he laughs.

As it turns out, we encounter few other endemic Anglophones, and the only Aussies I meet are two that stop to comment on my Aarn backpack. Sometimes the GR20 feels like a mobile version of the Eurovision song contest, in which I am representing Australia. Other nationalities look at me askance, like ‘What are you even doing here?’ I toy with idea of sprinting ahead in an attempt to ‘win’ the GR20 for our country. Maybe then we could host it next year. The Western Arthurs would make a good venue, possibly the only Aussie location that can compare to l’Île de Beauté, the Island of Beauty.

I’ve always been cynical when reading accounts of a spectacular view taking someone’s breath away—romantic balderdash—but reaching the saddle at Bocca Picaia, I am

Grande Randonée 20, CORSIC A Yes, this is what the French call a trail

Another day, another mountain top campsite

Do they chopper in sacks of boulders to spread along the path, or

have they trained cows to kick stones into position?”

genuinely rooted to the spot. The sight of ridge upon ridge of 250 million-year-old pinnacles, stacked up like croissants in a boulangerie window, firmly but delicately smacked my gob.

And that is merely the frontispiece of an island-wide gallery of geological artworks. Cracked granite valleys smoothed by aeons of pristine water flow, such as Ravin de Valle di Stagni, compete with freestanding towers like the Rocher de la Penta, sprouting skyward from the pine-forest below. When I first spy the Aiguilles du Bavella, a long, spiny ridge of spires that uncannily resembles the elevation profile of the GR20 in full, I can’t wait to get amongst it.

Tackling such terrain may be hard going but it’s immense fun—well, if you enjoy exposed scrambling, anyway. If not, there’s always the remaining 10%, which is divided between the blessed relief of contour paths, occasional roads around

It’s green! A rare section of boulder-free walking

built-up areas, and birch, oak and sycamore forests that resemble England or Wales. Some sections are so removed from the ubiquitous serrated cliffs it’s hard to believe we’re still on the same island. Somehow the tracks here are always choked with rubble, while the ground either side remains relatively clear. Do they chopper in sacks of boulders to spread along the path, I speculate, or have they trained cows to kick stones into position? Either way, it seems like an arduous way to weed out weak-ankled walkers. These level stretches are like being on a little holiday from Corsica, at least until coming across yet another section of angled slabs. “Welcome back to the GR20,” jokes Nick. “We haven’t spat you out just yet!”

The flora matches its desolate home: spiny maquis, hardy juniper bushes, and laricio pines blown sideways by the fierce wind. Now and again, however, delicate pink crocuses nestle on the forest floor, providing smatterings of colour. Of fauna we see little. The legendary mouflon, an endangered wild sheep, remains elusive, as do the thieving wild pigs that apparently disappear into the bush with unguarded backpacks, never to be found. As usual, the conversation eventually turns to the deadliness of Australian wildlife, and somehow cane toads.

Summer 2020 WILD

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Grande Randonée 20, CORSIC A Harwoods from the air

Done, and done. My knees still haven’t forgiven me

Dinner of champions

Nick and Chris—worst hiking buddies ever

I bumped into this German couple at the airport, then periodically over the course of the 180km

My dreams of unlimited wifi and pizza dashed, we continue walking. Fortunately, one thing is available at every refuge—cold Pietra beer, and lots of it.”

“They’re invading the country,” I tell my audience. “It’s an environmental disaster. They’re poisonous so they have no natural predators. Pet dogs often die from chewing them.”

“Are they an introduced species?” asks Richard.

“Yeah, introduced to Queensland from the Americas, probably to control some other introduced1 species,” I guess. “I can’t remember what .”

“Dogs?” suggests Chris, impishly.

The hamlet of Vizzavona has grown in my imagination into a bustling metropolis thanks to a week of wilderness hiking, repetitive cuisine and ‘challenging’ amenities. (Toilets can be centuries apart in quality: “That was supposed to be a nice, relaxing break,” remarks Nick, after managing to pick one of the few remaining squat latrines for a bowel movement during a 30km day. “Instead it turned into a very stressful experience!”) In reality, Vizzavona is comprised of a single hotel, two eateries and a train station where many hikers start or end their journey. The southern half of the GR20 is unfairly maligned as being less interesting than its northern counterpart, so those short of time often use Vizzavona as their trailhead. Then there are the quitters and the walking wounded, for whom the station is a godsend. We meet quite a few who give into the temptation of this escape route, mentally or physically broken by their granite nemesis.

My dreams of unlimited wifi and pizza cruelly dashed, we continue walking, passing the days on a diet of bread, cheese and salami purchased from remote farmhouses. Evening 1. Cane beetles, the larvae of which ate the roots of the sugar cane plants, are actually native to Australia.

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WILD Summer 2020

A friendly local

Cavers heading to the top of the shaft

meals are supplemented with wild mushrooms, for which Chris forages daily. Fortunately, one thing is available at every refuge—cold Pietra beer, and lots of it.

The last long, steep, rocky descent is to Conca and the end of the road. The sleepy village has clearly convened the Couldn’t-Care-Less Committee for our arrival, but instead of champagne and fireworks we shake hands manfully before the finishers’ plaque.

There’s a fine line buried within any long physical challenge. On one side of that line, the exertion is still enjoyable, the sweat and soreness rewarding, and adrenaline brings euphoria at the finish. Cross the line, though, and all pleasure ends; the continuing grind brings only pain and frustration.

Everyone’s been there at one time or another, usually accompanied by a muttered ‘This isn’t fun anymore!’ My GR20 never crossed that line. Of all the contributing factors—the fine weather, residual fitness and achievable schedule—it was the company, this trio of strangers I met by chance just ten days ago, that defined the difference between a consistently arduous trek and a thoroughly enjoyable one.

“It’s weird,” I say, clumsily trying to express my gratitude over our final Pietra. “But for an accident of ten minutes I could have ended up being friends with a completely different group of people.”

“And you’re gutted that didn’t happen?” interrupts Nick, sparking a burst of laughter. “Don’t worry,” he continues, “we’re in the same boat!”

Yes, we Neanderthals have a peculiar way of bonding. Europe’s Toughest Hike? Not with these guys. Europe’s Best Hike? Now that’s a real possibility. W CONTRIBUTOR: Dan Slater, a lifelong bushwalker, is a ten year veteran in the retail sector. He keeps forgetting, losing, breaking or drowning headlamps, and is thinking instead of mounting a candle on his head.

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41

"Y

ou came from where?" asked

42

a lady standing on a short, wooden jetty.

Behind her, sat the rest of her family eating afternoon tea, but she hadn't directed the question at them. She had posed it to the end of her jetty. There, bobbing in the small swell of the windblown Murray River, sat two bedraggled men in long yellow/green kayaks.

"The top" they replied again, followed by a rushed, "Kosciuszko…The Snowy Mountains…near the ski resorts?" but the lady only looked more puzzled with each word. And fair enough. The two paddlers—Jason and myself—were well over 2,000km from the Snowy Mountains where our 76-day journey down the Murray River had started. Now, just outside the town of Wellington, there wasn't a hill in sight, the river was wide, and the smell of salt was in the air. We were almost to the sea.

WILD Summer 2020

CORD THE

At 2,508km, the Murray is Australia's greatest river. Xavier Anderson and Jason Macqueen spent 76 days paddling it from source to sea, hoping to answer a seemingly simple question: "What is the Murray River?"

Words Xavier Anderson Photography Jason Macqueen

At sunrise looking west into Victoria and Gunbower National Park Summer 2020 WILD

43

Murray River: Source to Sea

Lake Alexandrina

T

he barrage of questions was an almost daily occurrence for us. Nearly every conversation consisted of, "How long have you been paddling for?", "I bet you're glad you aren't going the other way" And, "Aren't you sick of each other yet?". But, when we crossed the trip's halfway mark near Swan Hill, Jason noticed that people were more impressed with where we’d come from rather than where we were going.

And people's idea of the upper Murray also grew increasingly obscure. The lady standing on the jetty was a case in point; almost a year later, her comments have still stuck with me. She didn't know where the river had been, what it looked like or where it had been. Then again, neither did I before the trip. It made me realise—she was like most people along the Murray. They had grown to know their part of the river intimately.

They knew the good fishing spots, the best places to camp and where the water had reached in the big floods of the past.

To them, their part of the river was the Murray. But rivers don't live in isolation. What happens in one part of the system affects everything. Rivers are not just a channel full of water; they connect vast landscapes, communities, and ecosystems.

Through our journey, this was what Jason and I were trying to capture.

Our paddle down the Murray River was actually part of a joint project between the Australian National University's Fenner School of Environment and Society, and the ANU’s School of Music. The project—still ongoing—will create a public installation combining a music composition created from scientific data of the Murray, audio recordings from the field, and video footage captured by Jason at key places. By doing so, we hope to answer the seemingly simple question, "What is the Murray River?"

Drowned trees in Lake Hume

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WILD Summer 2020

THE MANY FACES

Murray River Kosciuszko NP

Let's travel back to where our journey began. High up in a remote section of Kosciuszko National Park, where the Murray offers a remote and challenging adventure. To get to the source of the river, Jason and I walked for three days with heavy packs bulging with packrafting gear. The trip was always going to be challenging; heading out after a massive snowfall made it far spicier still. Instead of the expected muddy fire-trail, we spent the first day post-holing through thigh-deep snow.

At one point, as I struggled through the crust of snow, I looked at Jason's pack. His paddles stuck out mockingly, like giant rabbit ears. "All that gear,” I thought, “but nothing can help us now."

Of course, getting to the river was only halfway to being able to paddle, we still had to hike along the bubbling creek until it was deep enough to use our boats. For that, we had to venture off-track. We followed the river as the valley sides closed in on us, and the bush grew thick on the riverbanks. At first, it was manageable. Soon, however, it was almost impenetrable.

We tried every way we could to move faster. We tried walking in the river, which was like drunk ice skating. We tried moving to higher ground, which had shonky footing and an increased risk of being cliffed-out. We tried walking gently.

We tried crashing through the bush. None of it worked. Not efficiently, anyway.

The weight of our gear took a toll, too. I was like a shambling tinker: bits and pieces strung all over my pack, knocking and swaying with each troubled step.

It eventually took five days of bone-grinding walking—two more than anticipated—to reach a point from which we could start paddling. On the way, there were 12-hour days. Days when I reached my physical limit. Days when I was humbled.

At lunch on our last day of hiking, I checked the GPS to see our progress. After five hours of sweaty scrub bashing, we’d made it just two kilometres from camp, Jason had lost one of his paddle blades, and I’d tripped over more times than I could count. But the exhaustion was worth it; once on the river, we experienced day after day of some of Australia’s most pristine paddling. It will stick with me for a long time.

We followed the cold, clear water in silence as it swirled into eddies, rippled over gravel races, and crashing into rapids. On either side, golden wattle—thick with yellow flowers—lined the banks, frogs croaked amongst the reeds, and carved limestone formed impossible architecture.

The river grew from ankle deep to well over our chests, the rapids becoming more muscular with each entering creek. When we went through the Gates—where the Murray broke and reformed amongst jumbles of limestone boulders, bordered by steep, tree-covered slopes—we had a kilometre-long section of class III+ rapids.

We had gotten so used to this pristine landscape that when we hit Kosciuszko National Park’s border, it was jarring. At the fence line, native eucalypts and reeds immediately wiped to

Cascade Hut, Kosciuszko NP

The first water sample, from the source

Warming up in Cascade Hut

On the edge of the Pilot Wilderness, Kosciuszko NP

A snowstorm on the way to the source

Class III whitewater on 'The Gates' Boulder garden fun

Farmland near Biggara

cleared farmland and willows. Cow moos replaced the complex chorus of birdsong. Don't get me wrong, the farmland looked healthy and idyllic, but there was no gradual change.

Where protection ended on paper was where it ended in practice too. We were out of the untamed.

There were many more national parks across our trip; none matched the isolation and ruggedness of the Upper Murray.

Besides a few stray willow branches almost unseating me a few times, the paddling was less demanding; the days took on a more contemplative feel. At the time, I missed the exhilaration of the rapids. Looking back now, though, I realise the long, slow days on the river taught me so much more.

Perhaps no lesson was greater than the joy of taking things slow. At our pace, we picked up on things otherwise easy to miss: pelicans riding invisible thermals in sweeping arcs. A seal brushing its face in a quiet corner of Lake Alexandrina.

The clouds gently flowing above silhouetted red gums in the evening. So many small moments, where the world turned

Floating out of Kosciuszko NP

I'd be completely fixated;

my paddle dangled in the water as I floated downstream. Then I’d catch myself. Like that,

the moment was gone."

without a care for us. I would be completely fixated; my paddle dangled in the water as I floated downstream. Then I’d catch myself. Like that, the moment was gone.

Of course, there were other connections. Spending 76 days outside seemed to inextricably link us with the flux of the world. Most notably, there was the weather; never indoors, we began to feel the fronts pass through. There was no need for weather reports either. The signs of change were everywhere, if you knew where to look. That slight shift in the wind on a still day? It would grow over the week, reaching a crescendo days later. The stippled water would then etch with texture after each gust like the wake of an invisible force Summer 2020 WILD

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Murray River: Source to Sea charging up the river. We would then sleep in rippling tents, only to wake to still and cool air. On and on it would continue; always changing, just like the river itself.

Each bend held something new: a town, a person, or countless birds; wetlands, farmland, redgum forests, sandstone cliffs, dry-cracked soil, mountains and flats. The changes were gradual, but at the same time diverse, bleeding into each other over the kilometres.

Central to all these landscapes, though, was the Murray. The river offered life even in the driest landscape. It was where fish rose, where kids swung from redgums and where birds played in the breeze. It felt odd to walk away from it: the river had its own pull.

I had always envisioned rivers as carving through the landscape, but with the Murray, it was like everything was drawn to it. It is not a place to escape to; it is central to people's identities, to their livelihoods and history. The river and its people are entwined.

GREEN AGAINST RED

Throughout our trip, we made the time to pull up to each pub. You could even make the case that our paddle was nothing but one giant pub crawl.

Almost every town boasted some Extensive agriculture form of drinking establishment: in around Robinvale some cases, multiple. And we tried just about all of them.

The best pubs were in the smaller towns, with a few locals hanging about and where you could feel the floorboards bend with each step, pubs without the glaring screens of horse racing and betting, where— after wolfing down our first hot meal after a long week of paddling—we could actually converse.

We enjoyed a few late nights chatting with people at the bar, discussing everything from their favourite fishing spots to climate change.

From our conversations, two things shone through. Firstly, people deeply cared about the river.

They loved to fish and to go boating, Feral horse damage and they were concerned about its management. It was odd that, however, that they seemed almost embarrassed to care about the latter. Every concern seemed to be prefixed with "I'm not a greenie but…". It was like you couldn't both care for the river and care about farming. Like two camps were established in their minds. And this was the second point that stood out to me—the divide.

The problem with the Murray always seemed to be “someone else”. What should've been bringing all these communities together—the Murray—was instead dividing them.

Upstream blamed downstream. Downstream blamed upstream. The northern basin was against the southern.

Dairy was against almonds.

Who is to blame? Now I'll be honest, going into the trip, I was sceptical of irrigation. I was expecting the trip to confirm my

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WILD Summer 2020

beliefs, but my thinking towards irrigation instead grew only more complicated. For starters, we saw how crucial it was. It fundamentally influenced the character of a town. Places like Mildura—with large amounts of irrigation—were vibrant and full of life, while areas with little to no water allocation seemed to be drained of it. Workers and money flowed through the irrigation towns, along with new roads, shops and parks.

But at what point does it go beyond this?

At Robinvale, Jason sent his drone up to see where all the pipes entering the river went. He let out a “Whoa!” On his small phone screen, lush green squares with row upon row of crops continued out as far as we could see, the land so flat we could almost see the curvature of the earth. The money-green trees—anyone who says money doesn't grow on trees has never seen an almond plantation— stood brightly against the deep red dirt below them; everything else—the redgums and saltbush— seemed leached of colour. I had never seen farming on this scale before. It was more than farming. It was landscape engineering.

In principle, I am not against development. We should all have the option of a better life. And if it were sustainable, then I would leave it at that. But the scale isn't right. The Murray is not OK. What we are doing now is not working, and the river is at risk along its entire length.

THE RISKS

Let's head back to alpine headwaters of the Murray. This small area represents just one per cent of the Murray-Darling Basin's land area, but it provides 30% of the water yield for the entire basin.

Even small disturbances here can amplify out across the system.

And the disturbances start from the river’s literal birthplace. When Jason and I commenced our trip by journeying to the Murray’s source—high and deep in the mountains, in a place as remote as you can get—we realised we weren't the only visitors. In front of us, with the river not yet one metre out of the ground, it was being snuffed out.

What should have been delicate peat moss, which can hold water throughout the year, instead resembled a mud-wrestling pit. The moss and a small trickle of water had been marred with large hoof prints and droppings, as if someone had wiped a filthy paintbrush over the ground.

The culprit was obvious—feral horses. We spent days following their churned-up trails, walking past large piles of stallion poo, and over swathes of grass eaten to a nub. But while management of the horses within the national park is a hotly debated issue, the science is clear—they must go. If they don't, the health of the Murray River and other alpine catchments are at risk.

The river offered life even in

the driest landscape. It was where fish rose, where kids swung from redgums and where birds played in the breeze.

It felt odd to walk away from it:

the river had its own pull.

Majestic red gums were constant companions

Murray River: Source to Sea

In the Lower Murray, some floodplain wetlands were converted into disposal basins to store and evaporate excess irrigation water. Many became highly salinised, and although the decision was made to revert these wetlands to a more ntural state, remediationof these deggraded areas is highly challenging

Eroded shoreline and exposed roots

As shocking as it is that even the high mountains and national park protection cannot keep the Murray’s headwaters safe, lower down, where there are no safeguards, the problems of erosion are only worse. Like at Echuca, where the riverbanks had eroded through to the root balls of the trees; it looked as if they’d been stripped to their tangled bones.

Jason and I slinked along the river sides, trying to avoid the constant traffic of boats and jet-skis. It was like pedalling a bicycle down a six-lane freeway. The smell of burning petrol and the perpetual drone of boat engines was punctuated only by the dull beat of bass. It gave a manic energy to the place.

Jason and I did not talk. We couldn’t have heard each other anyway; the sound of engines was constant. Even after dark, generators thrummed throughout the night.

At first, I found the speed boats annoying. As we continued, however, I almost felt sorry for their occupants. They were missing what the Murray was about. Of course, they were faster than us, but they were going fast to nowhere. They missed all the small moments which make up the river. Water skiing is essential for the communities in the basin, and I think it has a place on the lakes and the Murray’s broader sections. However, the rest of the river, with its delicate banks and vegetation, is not meant for fast speeds and loud motors.

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WILD Summer 2020

Thankfully for us, relief from the noise finally came at Torrumbarry Weir, the first lock of the trip. As the large steel doors closed behind us, the din of engines dropped away.

We chatted with the lockmaster as we descended, our voices growing echoes as the water level dropped. Then the doors ahead of us opened. We poked our boats out, ready to head to the side of the river, but there were only a couple of fisherman casting lines from some sedate tinnies. It was like we had taken an elevator to another river.

As we continued to the Murray’s lower reaches, we started to see signs of ill health. Dieback tinged the trees, leaving the branches exposed. The wind was both loud here but quiet as well. It filled our ears with powerful gusts, but where it should've been stirring the leaves, it instead ran without sound through bare trees. It only continued to get worse too—the forest growing emptier until we arrived at Psyche Bend, just outside of Mildura.

When we stopped there at the heat of midday, there was a foulness in the air. We’d been warned about the health of this wetland; as we came to a regulator, it was worse than

Instead of viewing the Murray as a source of division, it should pull

everyone together.”

we thought. Regulators are essentially gates which let water in and out of the wetlands; like the one at Psyche Bend, they are placed all along the Murray to improve water efficiency.

However, this interrupts the natural seasons the wetlands are built on, and on the other side of the Psyche Bend regulator, the creek bed was dry, cracked and stinking.

The wetlands need seasonality, the dry as much as the wet.

But now, rather than water bleeding out to the wetlands during high rainfall—which would naturally occur in winter when the river red gums need it to germinate—water is stored and released mainly in summer, on the back of irrigation flows, when the wetlands don't need it (assuming they get any water at all). These increased flows can then combine with boat wash to cause significant shearing, as was the case in Echuca. The process treats the wetlands as ponds, devoid of seasonality. They are allocated water. Water is delivered.

To hell with the timing; the job is done, right?

There is not just one bend that can sum up the Murray. It has too many faces. Rather, the Murray is the cord, the thing that connects all these places from the mountains to the sea.”

But not only had Psyche Bend been cut off; it’s also part of the Murray River Salt Interception Scheme, which aims to divert highly saline groundwater from entering the river. This is done through pumping salty groundwater to places like Psyche Bend. The water then evaporates, leaving the salt behind.

Salt is a natural part of the basin's system, but land clearing and irrigation have mobilised these salts in the ground. They are now flowing into the river. At normal flow levels, these salts might be diluted to safe levels. Now, however, thanks to drought and diverted flows for irrigation, that is not the case.

On the subject of drought, Jason struck up a telling conversation in the Wentworth Visitor Centre. He asked when it had last rained in the area, to which he was told, "November 17".

It seemed oddly specific. He asked how they remembered the exact date. But it turned out 17 didn’t refer to the day at all; it referred to the year. "November 2017,” they told him, “was the last time we had any proper rain." They’d gone two years without rain. We were dumbfounded.

This drought left the ground so dry that dust storms had become frequent. But I didn't realise this when we pulled into Wentworth. After over a month of paddling, I thought it would be a great idea to clean my kayak thoroughly inside and out. By the time I was done, it was practically gleaming. That was until the first dust storm I’d ever experienced rolled into town. We spent the following day in a deep red world. It was almost apocalyptic.

Thankfully the owners of the caravan park we were staying in offered us respite from stifling hot tents and let us sit in a cabin. From the safety inside, we watched surges of dust coat and clog everything around. Boats. Tents. Cars.

River campsite a couple of days' paddle from Robinvale

Nothing was safe. For us, though, despite our extended stay on the river, our exposure to these dust storms and parched land was only temporary. Locals, however, have no escape; for them dry coughs, stinging eyes and cloudless days are becoming the norm.

TO THE SEA

Changing attitudes is no easy task. Take, for instance, one of the most common complaints we heard during our conversations along the river: "All that water just flowing out to sea".

It was as if all the Murray’s issues could be explained by it. In reality, this couldn't be further from the truth.

Firstly, keeping the river mouth open in South Australia is essential for discharging salt and nutrients. Each year, over two million tonnes of salt needs to leave the Murray River; the only way to achieve this naturally is through keeping the river's mouth open. The other method, as we discussed before, is salt interception, which requires killing off parts of the river.

Secondly, the water isn't rushing out to sea. Along much of the Murray’s length, it felt as though the river was surging through the landscape, carving large bends through an ancient sandstone landscape. But as we left the vast irrigation districts behind, it was like all the energy had been sucked out. The bends grew straighter. The cliffs closed in from either side. It seemed like the river had grown tired and was being mustered towards the sea.

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Dry country a few days out of Mildura A typical evening

Precisely halfway

Red river cliffs approaching Renmark, SA The Darling River

Crossing Lake Alexandrina

paddling speeds of almost 10km/h; on the final days, supposedly at our fittest, we were lucky to break 2km/h.

This culminated in a thirteen and a half hour second last day across Lake Alexandrina, where strong headwinds and shallow breaking waves reduced both of us to exhausted silence when we arrived at our final camp of the trip.

We had brought some beers with us to sit and enjoy the last sunset of the trip, but we were in our tents almost immediately after landing, ready for another pre-dawn start for our last day. Thankfully though, the wind was kinder to us the following day, but like us, it was as if the river was limping to the sea.

At the barrages—the last weir before the ocean—that limp came to a complete stop. The gates were shut tight.

Only a dribble of water escaped from a few, small leaks in the massive concrete structure. This was matched by two smoke-spewing dredges, which—in the absence of any flows out to sea—were working hard to keep the mouth open. But with the sound of crashing waves calling us, Jason and I paid little attention to them. We instead rounded one of them and paddled through the turquoise channel of the Murray.

The rough waves from the Southern Ocean stopped us from going too far out, but at long last we looked out to where the

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river met the sea. There was nothing else on the horizon.

Nowhere else to go. Our singular goal for over two months was now complete.

We had come to know the river so well, it was almost like leaving a friend behind. A few months ago, we were walking through snow; now we paddled past sand dunes. To me, that’s what the Murray is.

There is not just one bend that can sum up the Murray. It has too many faces. Rather, the Murray is the cord, the thing that connects all these places from the mountains to the sea.

It is more than just a drainage ditch that transports water. It is a slice of vibrance amongst the landscape. It is a place to contemplate, to feel the weather fronts and rise with the sun, or in our case, before it.

But the Murray is at risk. Rivers die from the bottom up, meaning that actions upstream are felt downstream first, and not the other way round. Instead of viewing the Murray as a source of division, it should pull everyone together. For that to happen, it needs to be understood and respected. Through our project, we hope—if only in a small way—to help achieve this.

On our drive back home, we visited the Darling River—the basin's other major river—and saw what can happen if we

We had come to know the river so well, it was almost like leaving a friend behind. A few months ago, we were walking through snow; now we paddled past sand dunes. To me, that’s what the Murray is." get it wrong. We walked up a dry riverbed with cray pots and fishing gear embedded in the parched ground. They were like artefacts from an ancient time; they seemed so at odds with the desperate place. And for what? No one was enjoying this river now. The Barkindji People—whose name literally means ‘People of the River’—have lost their identity, the southern irrigators have lost their livelihoods, and as we saw with the Menindee fish kills, ecosystems have lost their health.

We need to take the Darling River as a warning. And if the Murray is used to bind rather than divide, we may have a chance. Like the jetskis, we have been insulating ourselves from the river. Instead, we need to look back and see what has been left in our wake.

Our rivers are telling us what's happening. If only we'd listen. W

Nearing our journey's end

CONTRIBUTORS: Xavier Anderson is studying environmental science at ANU. Or at least should be. Instead, he spends most of his time packrafting and hiking. Jason Macqueen is a frustrated rafting guide who's turned to adventure photography and other increasingly futile ways to live while waiting for it to ever rain in Australia.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Funding for this paddle and the resultant sound installation project is courtesy of the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society, the ANU School of Music and the ANU Mountaineering Club. Using sonification, river data will be translated into a soundscape, giving the Murray an auditory fingerprint. This will also be combined with sights and other sounds from the river to create an interactive museum installation. For more information and updates on the project, visit fennerschool.anu.edu.au/research/projects/ helping-river-sing-innovative-approach-communicating-river-health

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Y

UKI GUNI (literally, Snow Country) is a resonant term in Japan. It’s the title of one of Japan’s all-time classic novels, written by Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata in 1930s and 40s. Set on the border of Gunma and Niigata Prefectures in Central Honshu, it’s here that, in Winter, moisture-laden air—having travelled across the Japan Sea—slams into soaring peaks and smothers them with metres upon metres upon metres of pristine white fluff. But Kawabata got it wrong; on the other side of Niigata, on the border with Nagano, it’s snowier still. In fact, locals claim the Shinetsu Shizenkyo region—straddling both prefectures, and centred on the town of Iiyama—is the snowiest area in the entire country. Shizenkyo means ’Nature Park’, and the area is one of exquiiste beauty. On the east, it’s bordered by the area surrounding Nozawa Onsen, and on the west by Mt Hiuchi and the aesthetic conical form of Mt Myoko. Put those areas together, and you’re looking at one of the finest backcountry skiing destinations on the planet.

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[ Photo Essay ]

YUKI GUNI THE REAL

Photography Shaun Mittwollen

Shinetsu Shizenkyo is the snowiest area in the snowiest country on the planet: Japan. At least, that’s what locals say. Shaun Mittwollen decided to head out on a string of backcountry jaunts there to see if they were exaggerating. (Hint: They weren’t.)

Mt Myoko

Drew Jolowicz skis into the setting sun near Nozawa Onsen, framed perfectly by frosted birch. I had been envisaging this shot for many years and after several failed attempts, it finally all came together. It’d snowed about half a metre the night before, and as the weather broke during the afternoon, Drew and I headed out, setting up camp among the trees. We scored some wild sunset lines in pristine powder snow and sensational light before bunkering down for a freezing night up in the mountains.

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Shinetsu Shizenkyo, JAPAN

Clockwise from top left High camp in the Myoko backcountry en route to Hiuchi in spring. Here we camped on the edge of an ancient caldera rim with a grandstand view of the volcano and its spectacular chutes cascading from the summit. The next day we continued over the opposing ridge, skiing through an alpine landscape so far removed from civilisation. Japan is a busy place, but not here in the high alps.

Drew Jolowicz skis into the setting sun right as it breaks below a layer of mist cloaking in the Nozawa Onsen backcountry.

We’d been waiting out a spring storm in the mountain refuge near Hiuchi-yama for a few days before the weather finally broke. Pavel Simek and I made the climb to the summit only to find the mountain covered in metre-high sastrugi. Instead, we opted for this sheltered lower pyramid loaded with untouched drifted powder.

Another casual metre of snow falls near the village of Nozawa Onsen. Such is the precipitation, some days can become dangerously deep with a real risk of suffocation in an awkward fall. Here Drew Jolowicz skis next to a striking red Shinto shrine on the lower mountain on one such day.

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Shinetsu Shizenkyo, JAPAN

Clockwise from top left Pavel Simek and the long way up, Myoko backcountry.

Following on from the opening spread, this was the morning after a night spent camped in the Nozawa backcountry. Drew Jolowicz shivered through temperatures approaching -15°C in two layered summer sleeping bags to score this shot on perhaps the most scenic face of the area in crisp morning light. If you ever run into Drew, ask him if it was worth it.

This is the best sunset I have ever seen. Kelsey McNamara and I were camped out in the Nozawa backcountry on a moody evening after an epic day of riding. All of a sudden the sun burst through a gap in the clouds illuminating the frigid scene with warmth, and I scrambled to take this photo just in time. It lasted all of 30 seconds before the sun disappeared behind Myoko for the night.

Each spring hundreds of kilometres of roadways are unearthed from deep winter snows, the most famous of which is Tateyama in the heart of the Japan Alps. However we found another version here on the climb to Hiuchi-yama. On some trips when we’ve taken a hire car to the trailhead, the road operators have been kind enough to carve a parking spot for us out of the snow bank.

The novelty of taking the local train to the backcountry never wears off. From the town of Iiyama, it’s a short ride to Myoko, traversing snowed-in rice paddies and apple orchards. Loaded up with supplies for five days, it’s then time to hail a taxi to the start of the climb.

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Clockwise from top left The imposing east face of Myoko-san stands tall over the region, heavy in mid winter snow.

For those with big mountain aspirations the face is skiable but very dangerous leading down into active fumaroles scattered around the base. Viewed from Nozawa with a 400mm lens, the night shot earlier in this essay was taken from the caldera ridgeline to the left.

Pavel Simek slices off a tasty morsel of afternoon fresh powder at Nozawa Onsen.

Self-portrait camped out near Hiuchi.

Sometimes it’s nice to just lay down and enjoy the view.

A quintessential view from the Nozawa Onsen backcountry, with the village of Iiyama—hub of the the Shinetsu Shizenkyo region—in the distant valley below. Drew heads far from the resort boundaries in search of powder solitude against a crisp winter backdrop. Part of the fun in backcountry skiing here is the chance to explore. You never know what you might find. On this day it was cold enough to ski the south faces and we discovered some great new terrain.

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Shinetsu Shizenkyo, JAPAN

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NINE

LIVES After journeying into New Zealand’s Serpentine Range, Ryan Hansen rethinks his ‘She’ll be right’ attitude.

Words Ryan Hansen Photography Ryan Hansen & Steve Hansen

I

t’s a surreal experience to watch someone’s life hang in the balance. To be almost within reach, yet unable to help or intervene. Frozen with shock, as the events unfold before your eyes.

Powerless.

It wasn’t supposed to be dangerous. This is Plan B. The safer option. The fallback. How have the tables turned so quickly?

Unexpected.

The descent off the North Col at the head of NZ’s North Routeburn River makes for an epic vista. Squinting through the sleet, down through the V of the pass, surrounded by sheer, glacially sculpted bluffs and swathes of loose scree, the grassy river flats and meandering streams hundreds of vertical metres below feel hopelessly like a mirage. Distant, tormenting figments of the imagination, with our passage to them thwarted by a snow-choked icefield. The track notes had warned us, though: The couloir is usually snow-filled so it might be appropriate to have ice axes for this section. But do we have such mountaineering gear?

Nope.

Unprepared.

At the icefield’s perimeter, the gentle gush of a stream is audible. But these soothing sounds are an almost wicked disguise, distracting us from the twin dangers of a sheer ice cliff and a jagged crevasse, rock-lined and hungry.

Deadly.

Aiming for seemingly safer ground, I arc cautiously across the icy surface.

Avoiding glancing downwards—it seems that if I ignore the perilous ice cliff, it will somehow eliminate the danger—I focus on carving out footholds with my boots and precisely transferring my weight. Each step is a step closer to safety.

Finally, on stable ground, I yell across to Nikki: “Follow my footprints!” Nervously, I watch and wait. Steve fruitlessly tries scrambling higher up. The storm clouds build ominously. The sleet thickens.

“I’m trying,” she yells.

And that’s when she slips.

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The North Routeburn: miracle or mirage?

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Serpentine Range, NEW ZEAL AND

Sugarloaf Pass

SANDFLIES AND SUGARLOAVES

New Zealand is unique. The kind of place where, as an Aussie, you can quickly feel out of your depth. Like when the locals talk about an introduced “pest” and you think they’re telling you to go and get pissed. Or when you mistake a $1 coin for a $2 coin (having the $2 bigger than the $1 makes so much sense: Why didn’t we think of that?) Then there are the conniving, dinosaur-like native parrots (AKA, the kea). Whatever you do, don’t let them near your car or you won’t have windscreen wipers for long.

And there’s the dancing. And the sandflies. Actually, there’s the unusual confluence of the two. Here in NZ, you see people stepping out of their cars to immediately begin gruelling adaptations of the Macarena, slapping and tapping all parts of their bodies, with no rhythm whatsoever. Perhaps, if you’ve been here, you’ve done this dance. It’s called the Sandfly Swatter.

Yep, New Zealand is definitely different. Perhaps that’s why we keep coming back for more, inspired by the many wild and wonderful anecdotes and images from travellers before us.

This time, our objective is the Serpentine Range—an alpine route which traverses majestic, pristine lakes and unforgiving, rugged mountains. The kind of stuff that demands another Peter Jackson film.

Or maybe there’s another reason. Two years ago, Nikki and Steve conquered (or should I say, barely survived?) the Five Passes route. You name it, everything went wrong. Weather, navigation, bloody everything. It could be we’re really here to salvage Steve’s pride.

Nevertheless, in a single word, I’d describe this years’ plans as…typical. We have an uncanny knack for scheduling extravagant missions that never go to plan, characterised by rarely reaching our intended destinations. Oh, and we tend to get injured. Usually, this is due to a mix of overenthusiasm and ignorance of our physical capabilities (see pic below). Can’t half tell we’re Aussies. She’ll be right, mate.

Nikki finding out the definition of HARD

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So, in a desperate bid to change this undesirable trend, we’ve given ourselves extra time. A buffer, if you will. Locals complete most of our route in three or four days. We’ve given ourselves eleven. Seems legit.

What could possibly go wrong?

MOMENTS OF EMPATHY

“Sugarloaf Pass was the easiest of the Five Passes”.

That’s as motivational as Steve’s speeches get. And as empathetic, too. This climb ain’t nothing compared to what we endured, so suck it up, buttercup!

Encouragement and moral support don’t normally feature in Steve’s vernacular, either: “Enjoy the track while it lasts”.

In essence, it’s a more serious warning: “Prep yourself; it’s gonna get real hard real soon!”

That said, I’m unsure of the point at which it first became hard. Perhaps it was the 500m vertical descent off Sugarloaf Pass where—with each giant, jolting step downwards—my knees threatened to go on strike for the next ten days. Maybe it was when we finally reached the river “flats”, and then realised I wouldn’t encounter a level patch of ground for the rest of the hike. Arguably it was when I strained a shoulder muscle attempting to fling my pack on. Unquestionably, by Day Three, it’s hard with a capital HARD. The day had begun almost merrily, however. We were warm and dry. The shower was just a passing one. Until, two hours later, it became clear it wasn’t passing. In fact, it was relentless. As was the wind. Saturated and hungry, the frustration begins. Worst of all the water has entered our boots, and has decided it ain’t leaving any time soon. After four hours, we start channelling warm thoughts. Of a warm sleeping bag in a warm tent with a hot cup of tea. When the six-hour mark kicks in, frustration turns to hysteria. Everything becomes funny. Funny that it’s still raining. Funny that the track is now more of a stream than a track. Funny that I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve slipped over. Funny that we no longer give a shit about the pools of mud and water we now splash through, pools we desperately tried to avoid six hours earlier. Though it’s hard to see the funny side when we come to a flooded stream to ford.

In the late afternoon, more than a little psychologically damaged, we recover with a therapeutic cup of tea. Without fail, Nurofen and a good cuppa—even if it’s drunk out of a stained plastic cup, with out-of-date milk powder, and tastes more like last night’s spag bol—solves all problems.

Our campsite above Park Pass is spectacular. Perched high above cliffs, we’re rewarded with 360-degree views of deep, winding valleys, snow-capped peaks and majestic glaciers.

And as the day draws to a close, with the final rays of light dancing across the landscape like ancestral spirits performing an ancient ritual, above all else, I’m thankful. It’s been hard, yes, but I’m thankful that I’ve got the opportunity and the means to be out here doing what I love, with great people.

I’ll never take this for granted.

As the day draws to a close, with the final rays of light dancing across the landscape like ancestral spirits performing an ancient ritual, above all else, I’m thankful.”

This’ll do us. Our campsite at Park Pass

Tragedy, emptiness, death?

I’ll just take the view of Amphion Peak, thanks!

UNEXPECTED DELIGHTS

“These slopes would be very dangerous if covered in snow but I think the scree has consolidated a little since I first crossed this slope in 1971. I think the main danger to a tramping party in good conditions would be if someone put down their pack and it rolled away.”

Having a much-needed breather after an eventful hour, three thoughts spring to mind as I re-read the route notes.

Firstly, I’m glad the tussock slopes aren’t covered in snow.

If they were, not only would they be a royal pain in the arse, ‘very dangerous’ would be an almost absurd understatement.

Secondly, I’m relieved the scree has ‘consolidated’ since 1971. The thing about scree slopes is that with rocks everywhere; the job of spotting a couple of them piled into a cairn becomes a needles and haystacks task. Having missed such a marker, we end up on the wrong side of some bluffs. We slip and slide our way up (not down) a series of scree slopes to

This is starting to feel like the Five Passes all over again,” says Nikki.

“What, you mean wonderful?” That’s Steve.

“More like too much for us to handle.” higher ground. Which is precisely when I became grateful for the ‘consolidated’ rock, as even after 40-odd years of compaction, I feel like I’m on a treadmill. Going nowhere, in other words. The difference is that I’m not in a gym, nor on a treadmill. I am on the side of a mountain, at 1,400m elevation, with a bloody big drop below me.

Lastly, as for the main danger, that of packs rolling away; much as I’d love to be free of the weight on my back, I don’t plan on sending it tumbling down the hill just yet. Mainly because it’s got the jellybeans.

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Serpentine Range, NEW ZEAL AND A pristine tributary of the Rock Burn, pretorrential downpour

Where are the tinnies? Overlooking Park Pass Glacier and Poseidon Peak

THREE AND A HALF MAGICAL WORDS

“This’ll do us.”

Throughout 20 years of bushwalking together, those simple words have become universal. An exclamation which can have such vastly different meanings in different contexts. Sometimes they translate into “I’m buggered and I don’t care that there’s rocks and clumps of grass everywhere, we’re camping here for the night”. More often than not, they mean “I’m done for the day and I’m not moving”. On the rare occasion, “This’ll do us” actually means someone’s found somewhere incredible and unexpected, somewhere it would be an absolute travesty to keep walking past without spending a night. This is one of those times. We find ourselves on the shores of a small lake, with dazzling reflections of Minos Peak, Amphion Peak and Mt Chaos.

Fortunately, the view is so divine, it distracts me from the foreboding connotations of these mythological Greek names: tragedy; emptiness; death.

Yep, I’ll just take the view, thanks.

THE TURNING POINT

No matter what kind of adventurer you are, Lake Nerine should be near the top of your to-do list—a realm of sapphire-blue waters and knife-edge, snow-capped peaks. It’s the kind of place that puts the ‘wild’ in wilderness. Remarkably, we’ve got

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Thank God these tussock slopes aren’t snow-covered!

it to ourselves. Cue a few days of alpine swimming, exploring and card-playing. A couple of tinnies would go down well, if only one of us had been strong enough to lug in a six-pack.

But then Day Seven arrives. All bets are off. Suddenly, we’re faced with a crucial decision. Right about now, we should be on our way to North Col and Lake Wilson. But our run of stunning weather has abruptly ended. The wind has picked up. Our old friend, the rain, has returned with a vengeance.

Together, they introduce new dangers. Sidling steep, snowgrass-covered ridges and scree slopes has become treacherously risky. A slip could be fatal.

Ideally, we’d sit and wait. Give the weather some time to sort its shit out. But, let’s be honest, things are rarely ideal. We’ve got no access to an updated weather forecast, and only have four days until pick-up, with a lot of ground to cover between now and then. We could wait ‘til tomorrow and see what happens. But, then again, the weather could be even worse.

Move on? Or stay put?

Eventually, spurred into action by the fear of the unknown, Nikki makes the call.

It’s time to move.

DEJAVU ALL OVER AGAIN

“This is starting to feel like the Five Passes all over again,” says Nikki as she shelters under a large bivvy to stay warm.

This’ll do us. Our campsite above Park Pass Glacier

When the Sandfly Swatter fails, you’ll go to any length to escape Nikki trying to keep her remaining eight lives intact

Any windscreen wipers around here?

Last patch of ‘level’ ground for ten days

Sugarloaf Pass

Tragedy, emptiness, death?

I’ll just take the view of Amphion Peak, thanks!

As soon as Nikki’s feet go from under her,

she’s in trouble. Serious trouble. It happens so fast, she can’t even scream.”

“What, you mean wonderful?” That’s Steve.

“More like too much for us to handle.”

No comment.

Despite now being at North Col, and somehow still unscathed, morale is at a devastating low. We are sore, fatigued and intolerant. And any faint hopes we had about the weather improving were extinguished long ago. Continuing on to Lake Wilson would be near suicidal. Optimism has been replaced by an uncompromising desire to get off the range.

Now, before it becomes too late.

We’ve got no other option.

EIGHT LIVES

As soon as Nikki’s feet go from under her, she’s in trouble.

Serious trouble. Without an ice axe to self-arrest, attempting to slow herself down by jamming her backpack into the ice is hopeless. It happens so fast, she can’t even scream. Nor can we. There is no sound whatsoever, except for that of a body scraping across the ice towards an imminent demise.

Call it luck. Call it fortune. Call it what you will. But Nikki doesn’t slide off the ice cliff. She stops right on the edge; her feet are literally dangling off the edge.

If Nikki’s got nine lives, she’s down to eight.

Strangely, no one says a word about what had just transpired. Nikki doesn’t even cry. She just stands up stoically, and dusts herself off. And then continues as if nothing had happened. Perhaps it’s because we know we’re not out of the woods yet.

NEW MATES AND MEMORIES

If you want to get to know someone well, share a tent with them. I can guarantee you that by eating, sleeping, farting and passing the time with them in a confined space, you’ll know them inside and out by the end of it.

When it rains constantly for days, there’s not a lot you can do. You can eat. You can nap. You can maybe read a book to try and wear away the boredom and ignore the ever-increasing urge to go to the toilet. Then eat again, though not so much that you actually have to go to the toilet. Play some cards, read some more, continue hoping that the rain will stop before your body decides that it’s going to relieve itself whether you like it or not. Have another nap. Wake up and eat again. Desperately beg the rain to stop. Eat some more.

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Serpentine Range, NEW ZEAL AND North Col (that little V-notch in the distance) doesn’t look so deadly from here!

Trying to channel warm thoughts

On the home stretch in the North Routeburn

Day Eleven dawns, and with the new day comes a break in the weather. After days of continuous rain, once gentle streams are now raging rivers. Even the slightest gullies are now bustling streams.

When we arrive at Routeburn Flats Hut, there’s a hum of frenetic activity. We stop and chat with the warden, who was wringing out sopping socks and saturated boots.

“We’ve had 100mm over the past two days,” he says. “You’re lucky the forecast didn’t eventuate; 180mm was expected.”

Lucky seems to be the theme of the trip.

The combined effect of longing for a beer, a hot shower and a bed (yes, in that order) means that we reach Routeburn Shelter four hours before our pick-up time. Just as we resume the Sandfly Swatter Dance, two guys—both of them inspirational—kindly offer us a lift. With our packs ratcheted to their roof, we cram ourselves into their car, upon which they proceed to put our latest experiences into perspective. One of them happened to be casually trail running the Routeburn as part of his recovery from a series of horrific strokes. His mate, meanwhile, had just nonchalantly sailed from America to New Zealand while contracting cancer and seeking treatment on an exotic island.

LIFESTYLE CHOICES

Adventuring isn’t just a pastime, it’s a lifestyle. It’s a worldview, an outlook, an attitude which governs how we live our lives. Adventurers possess an innate curiosity with the world around us, central to which is the notion of discovery. Discovering new places, new people, new ways of life.

But adventure is about more than novel discoveries; it’s about truly experiencing these encounters, and letting them

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Out here, there’s no place for a ‘she’ll be right’ attitude. One day, sooner or later, she won’t be right.” enrich our lives, give us purpose, and bless us with direction.

It’s about experiential learning—the process of constructing meaning through lived experience.

And it’s about learning, too. While risk and ad-libbing are inherent to outdoor adventure, I’ve learned in the Serpentines the value of having a well-thought-out Plan B. Caution and planning are paramount. It’s not good enough to simply say you’ve got a back-up. You need to know how to implement it safely. We weren’t adequately prepared, and Nikki nearly paid the price.

Don’t mistake me, though. I’m not suggesting everyone should map out exactly where they’re going to be and when. Or that you shouldn’t take risks. In fact, I’m suggesting the opposite. Explore, challenge yourself, take risks—these are the ingredients for epic adventures. Just be prepared for things to go wrong, and know how to respond. Out here, there’s no place for a “she’ll be right” attitude. One day, sooner or later, she won’t be right. Something will go wrong. And when things go wrong, second chances aren’t guaranteed. You don’t know how many of your nine lives you’ve already used up.

Plan for the worst, hope for the best. Because there’s always another adventure around the corner…

CONTRIBUTOR: Writer and photographer Ryan Hansen lives in Newcastle where, fortunately, there are no sandflies whatsoever. The fortunate bit is that no-one has to see him dance.

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Start preparing for your next adventure by making sure your PLB is bush ready • check the battery expiry date • register and update your beacon details • dispose of old beacons responsibly

Help us help you.

Register your PLB online with AMSA. It’s free and easy – just visit amsa.gov.au/beacons or phone 1800 406 406

GOODBYE TO

BEAUTY Tasmania’s iconic South Coast Track is beautiful, wild, inspiring and, yes, challenging. It is also under threat.

Words & Photography Craig Pearce

K

a-whump! It was 2am, dark as tar, and a cyclonic blast of wind semi-trailered into the tent. I woke with a spine-jarring jolt. I was 950m up on Southwest Tassie’s Ironbound Range—its upper reaches mimicking a craggy aircraft carrier deck—and in the face of this gale, the ‘protection’ offered by a nearby stockade of trees seemed increasingly scant. In fact, things felt grim. The wind snaked its Herculean arms underneath the tent, doing its damnedest to power-snatch me into the adjacent Southern Ocean. Next stop: Antarctica.

This was the forecast living large. Fate was tempted and fate was cackling. Nature is fine and all that, but this was on the comfort zone’s razor edge (and, more prosaically, on the calamitous drop off the Ironbounds). The incentive that drove me to camp up high— dawn photos—was not feeling so incentivising at this point.

Fierce percussions of rain bullets were being fired, bass booming wind grenades being hurled. It was all very heavy metal; but sleeping-friendly? Not. That blessing was ragged at best.

When dawn eventually struggled out of the banshee night, I gingerly emerged from trees gathered in the lee of the high tops onto an open heath. Then ka-whump! Groundhog Day, Another gust— brawny and steroidal—gridiron-tackled me. I was propelled 15m before octopus-splaying myself to terra firma, suckering on to something, anything, that would help abort another unscheduled Cape Canaveral lift-off.

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As the beach sweeps from Point Eric to Black Cliff and beyond, hill climbs beckon

Hobart Melaleuca Cockle Creek

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South Coast Track, TA S M A N I A Coastal pinkberry

Triggerplant

Pademelon

Suck it up, Princess, and stick to the track

Sea caves and cute islands at Louisa Bay Beach

Cox Bight and the distant Ironbounds, llustrate the track’s contrasts

I stood. I collapsed. I stood. I collapsed. And on it went until I realised that, under the wind’s spite, crawling was the only viable option.

Low clouds—pressing, leaden tectonic plates—screamed over the heights; the views across ocean and coast were a bullied mess of suppressed potential. There was just one escape from this Alcatraz of wind—the Ironbounds’ southern face, a tree-tangled obstacle course of pure malevolence.

There were low, mongrel branches at perfect head-smacking height. Mazes of twisted roots. Fallen limbs. Loose rocks.

Mud pits. A rain-swollen track-as-cascades. All were vindictively slimy.

I pinballed down in only vague control, the descent a wholeof-body immersion, cross-training gone feral. Every muscle was brought into play to maintain some semblance of progression and, more pointedly, of balance. Avoiding a joint force wreckage zone of mangled knee cartilage, bone and ligament was top of mind.

It took four hours to make just six kilometres. Navigating the day before had been supremely idyllic, but on this, my fourth day on Tasmania’s South Coast Track, the latent beast inhabiting this iconic adventure had bared its fangs.

REQUIEM FOR A WILDERNESS?

Wholly within the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, the South Coast Track (SCT) was the toughest and most satisfying trek of my life. My version—several are possible—was 90km over seven days, and it lived up to the legend.

There were, however, two welcome exceptions: The weather was mainly benign; and the mud was not overly prevalent (a result of a dry summer and the existence of more duckboarding than anticipated).

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The track is at a point where its future and wild character is

under serious threat.”

The track generously delivered, however, on its reputation for wildness, diversity and an annihilating beauty. From mudpits to blow-you-to-kingdom-come mountain tops, its disparate and totemic elements comprise an incomparable whole.

You walk along hip-height, rain-carved holloways; on open plains with duckboard runways; and across beaches that range from elongated sandy scimitars to granite-bouldered ankle-busters. You wander through thick sclerophyll forests of 50m tall stringybark and peppermint gums, through gnarly shin-gouging heath and, at times, through Chewbacca conglomerations of razor-edged cutting grass.

Vigilance is required, too. It’s not merely the wind (when it’s not flattening you, it revels in constantly shoving you sideways) nor pack-infiltrating mice—dusky antechinus?—that you need be careful of (or at least to hang your food-laden pack from a tree each night). Water hazards, too, require attention. When the tide is up and you’re rounding headlands like Black Bluff, waves fling arbitrary gauntlets. Where rivers dissect the beaches, outfall currents and inflowing tides conjugate in hard-to-read chaos. The fluctuating water levels in rivers and creeks result in a no one-sizefits-all approach being applicable (although feet-wrapping sandals will prove useful). And then there’s the New River boat crossing which—when the wind is blowing (I think it’s always blowing!) and there’s just one person to row two connected boats one-way—is a certain way of torqueing shoulder muscles into life.

What ultimately nudged me to pull the trigger was the increasing threat of its wildness being significantly

compromised.”

Wind-buffeted and lift-off threatened, an ‘interesting’ early morning on the Ironbounds

The walk, in short, is an epic. It demands outdoors competence, endurance and tolerance for remoteness. (There are no 4WD tracks in this part of the world and, when you eventually reach the end-point of Cockle Creek, you arrive at the southernmost street in Australia.) Despite its challenges, however, you’ll find many solo and/or—and this tells you something—repeat offender SCT walkers.

It’s been a long-held ambition of mine to walk the track, but what ultimately nudged me to pull the trigger was the increasing threat of its wildness being significantly compromised. Over the years, through the implementation of track improvements and the increase in duckboarding, its difficulty has clearly diminished. Much of this work, for the sake of environmental protection, is understandable.

But the track is at a point now where its future and wild character is under serious threat. The Tasmanian Government is considering increasing the amount of duckboarding, building (seven!) huts for commercial and public use (none currently exist on the track), and cutting a low track around the Ironbound (God forbid) and South Cape Ranges.

Nature tourism brings with it a tension, a tension more tangible here in Tasmania than most other places because it’s such an adventurers’ paradise. The grey line between eco-tourism that helps fund the wild dimension of wilderness and that which significantly compromises it, has blurry, subjective edges.

The tension is exacerbated by the issue of access. To a degree, all taxpayers make indirect contributions to national parks and what occurs within them. As such, should the track be made easier to access for all sorts of people, including Dawn on cliffs above those whoin are This seems reasonable. campsite Dalesmobility-challenged?

Gorge Yet by taming the wilderness, those aspects which so attract

people in the first place (including much-treasured solitude and physical demands) will dissipate into…disappointment.

More people equals the potential for more environmental damage. But what makes me—and others like me—so exceptional all wilderness must be kept for us alone? A balanced approach to wilderness access seems appropriate, with options such as the Three Capes Track being available for those who aren’t physically capable of cracking the SCT. While not having all the answers, I do believe the South Coast Track should be left as it is. (And there should be no helipads at the Walls of Jerusalem. And we should protect the Tarkine). If we don’t protect these places will we, in the words of rock’n’roll philosopher Mark Lanegan, be saying goodbye to beauty?

THE CRUX OF THE MATTER

The Ironbounds, for me, are the SCT’s chief totem; the one, more than any other, that instilled foreboding. They provide the journey’s most significant challenge, a physically ruinous up-and-down, a test of cardio and quads. The western face is an exposed animal, often close to sheer-sided. And its southern side is a twisted, technical slalom.

Weather is a critical factor on the Ironbounds. The prospect of debilitatingly strong winds on the western façade is not appetising. Yet the views! From the high tops they clamour for attention: West: Over Louisa Bay and Cox Bight to South West Cape.

North: To the Arthurs, whose serrations bite into the blue firmament.

East: Where Precipitous Bluff lords over the hinterland and where New River slices through Prion Beach.

South: Towards Antarctica, with De Witt Island the Maatsuyker Group (of islands) near-side.

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Looking east from the Ironbounds on a placid afternoon

Hirsute rocks at Point Eric

Just as compelling, on a more intimate level, across the roughly hewn roof of the Ironbounds are random Stonehenge sarsens: scoured, skittled and sculpted by wind and Earth’s implacable geological flexing. Heath and hidey-holed micro-climates abound, often resplendent with purples, whites, reds and blues of organic ornaments such as Tasmanian Waratah, Tasmanian purplestar, coastal pinkberry, Christmas bells and triggerplants.

It is a staircase from hell to get there, but time invested up high is a heavenly reward (just allow enough time for a

The track proved its reputation as a sacred place which people come to out of reverence as much as for immersion.”

careful descent). Constant wind is part of the chemistry that placates movement-obsessed minds and bodies. Raw nature leaches through. Imagination is cast adrift. And the body’s depleted muscles take deep, rejuvenating breaths.

But let me return to Day One, where I faced a different sort of drama, this one wholly unexpected and characterised by a comparative simplicity—the dreamlike experience of traversing from Melaleuca to Point Eric. Quartzite-glinting hills barged their way out of swampy button grass plains. In a westerly and northerly direction, reefs of cloud surrounded distant peaks. Parrots bolted from the heath. And then Cox Bight emerged, mirage-like, girded by Red Point Hills and New Harbour Range, presaged by the expanse of Freney Lagoon.

The purity of this grandeur was given depth by the track’s folklore and legend: from indigenous predecessors to shipwrecked sailors to tin mining inhabitants such as the legendary Deny King (of the Wilderness), not to mention more

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contemporary wayfarers. In only hours, the track proved its reputation as a sacred place which people come to out of reverence as much as for immersion. For me, it was a voyage of the imagination, too (and a useful exercise in expectation-examination).

The small things cut just as deep as the grand. At Point Eric there were a constellation of orange/crimson starfish, and thick belts of luscious kelp. Eucalypts beckoned over the beach in a sinuous Hula Kahiko, framed by a pink sky-infused evening. There was even a modern art micro-installation—a camper community-compiled shrine of cowries, cockles and warreners on a moss-thick branch at camp.

MONSTER DAYS

The diversion to Louisa Bay was a cracker. I negotiated a track resembling, I imagine, that of old skool SCT, with its rougher edges and bludgeoning thick scrub just before dropping down a steep, rope-aided incline to the beach. The campsite was expansive and protected, if a bit scrappy. Sadly, there was an unappealing scatter of human detritus.

Streams of water fell from a cliff near the camp. There were deep caves here, too, one of which was a ragged tube through which waves rushed and receded. Islands provided a rich perspective: Close by the beach was a leaf-clad cone; at the beach’s far reach, Louisa Island was just about joined by a risk-it-atyour-own-peril sand bar; and De Witt Island and a silhouetted Maatsuyker Group were suspended, planets in distant space, rather than big rocks in the great Southern Ocean.

Along with the Ironbound high camp, this was one of two campsites where solitude reigned. Situated on a grassy throne on the dunes, there was a royal box view to the islands. The ocean bloomed light from within, doing what oceans do, relentlessly throwing itself onto the beach and distant rocky shores.

The following morning, as dawn cast its burnished glow on the wave-slicked beach, spectral salt plumes shifted inland

South Coast Track, TA S M A N I A

Pool in Hancock Gorge

The wind frolicking at New RIver Lagoon while Precipitous Bluff looks on. Normally, three trips are required: Row across; hook up the boat on the other side and tow it back; leave the boat you just towed across on your starting side; row back across and continue walking. If the wind’s up and you’re solo—enjoy!

This was nature making a Machiavellian effort to reclaim the track, or at

the very least to impede the traveller’s progress. At times, it was more

wrestle than walk.”

off the ocean. Clouds, meanwhile, swarmed Havelock Bluff, the Ironbounds’ intimidating southern face.

From here destiny, and the walk’s two biggest days, beckoned; it was 18km, and a 950m climb, from Louisa Bay to the high camp. On the following 20km day, the plunge back to sea level and onto Osmiridium Beach took me all of 11 hours. And that was despite fortune favouring me. The wind barrelled me along Prion Beach, accompanied by flustered spirals of willy-willies.

And at the New River crossing, I hitchhiked with a returning row-boating couple, so only needed to cross once, not thrice.

Following the Ironbounds’ signature days, there was the less tiring section to Granite Beach, although unexpected and disconcerting double-legged plunges into mud-pits took their toll, even if I did avoid the imminent threats of full-on face plants.

For much of the time, however, being on the track was like being in the throes of a languorous tidal undertow—all flow and buoyancy. The paradox, however, was the 20kg strapped on my back. Up-hill and down-mud pits, my pack didn’t feel particularly buoyant, especially when extracting myself from those thigh-deep bogs. Deepening the buoyancy paradox was the anarchic undergrowth. While not camouflaging the track, it certainly barricaded it for long stretches. And then there was the impact of walkers unhelpfully avoiding the mud, resulting in a braid of tracks on which hikers can lose their way.

In tougher moments, if grasses weren’t flailing my face (a good reason for carrying trekking pole ‘deflectors’), then grasping

branches or traffic-jams of fallen trees made their presence felt.

This was nature making a Machiavellian effort to reclaim the track or, if unsuccessful in that, at the very least to impede the traveller’s progress. At times, it was more wrestle than walk.

COMPOSING THE ATOMS

It was deflation, not elation, I felt on reaching Cockle Creek, the dread dead end of the SCT. That, and an internal crumpling.

Traversing the sensory feast of the track, I felt alive. The tactile dimensions of the walk had never been far away, although some felt better than others. The skin-shocking refreshment of bathing in rockpools or under the Granite Beach waterfall was more pleasing than, say, mud baths, bough-delivered concussions or being assailed by Chewbacca grasses.

Physically, mentally and emotionally, this country cleaved itself to me. Moments were strung together with a vivid clarity that is the wild’s welcome custom, and this hyperreality induced a near delirium. I could see myself atomising, subsumed into its kaleidoscopic fabric: sea eagles, starfish, purplestars and sassafras—anything living. It was all dimensions, all directions, all-encompassing.

Nicholas Shakespeare, however, has suggested the opposite occurs when walking, it being an act of composing, or reassembling, yourself. I can see that, too. Perhaps that’s the solace to cling to when coming to terms with the loss of your amour, of your all-consuming passion, of this wilderness.

Ultimately, there is only one cure for this loss: for me to join the South Coast Track’s repeat offenders, and do it all again. W CONTRIBUTOR: Sydney-based Craig Pearce escapes, whenever possible, the wilderness of the corporate canyons for the non-anthropocentric society of snakes, snow gums and wallabies.

To read more about the threats to the South Coast Track, go to the story ‘Luxury Huts = Wilderness Lost’ on p24.

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Return to

Lamington Jennifer Johnston has been visiting Queensland’s Lamington National Park since childhood. Twelve months after destructive bushfires tore through the park in September 2019, she returns to its Gondwanan rainforests to check in on her treasured paradise.

Words & Photography Jennifer Johnston

O

n Friday September 6, 2019, the air was dry and hot on Binna Burra Mountain. Humidity sat at a miserly eight percent, and the usually lush forest surrounding the heritage-listed Binna Burra Lodge—which sits high within Lamington National Park in the Gold Coast hinterland—was parched.

For almost a week, since August 31st, volunteer fire crews had been battling spot fires burning since teenagers thoughtlessly discarded cigarette butts into the dry tinder. Around mid-afternoon that Friday, winds from the west-northwest gusted up to 90km/h, fuelling a fireball which rushed down the range. In just ten minutes, it moved a staggering four kilometres. Locals described the sky as ‘eerie’, an apocalyptic mixture of light purple and dusty orange. Ash tumbled from its inky depths, swirling, spinning, scattering on the houses and rainforest below.

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Lamington NP, QUEENSL AND The author at Elabana Falls

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Lamington NP, QUEENSL AND

Lamington NP

When the staff working at Binna Burra Lodge—which was 100% occupied at the time—felt the heat blow up the valley, at 3.30pm they made the call: Evacuate the lodge. Staff who lived locally had left earlier in the morning to be with family and friends, ready to defend their properties.

By Saturday, 18m high flames ripped across the tops of the bone-dry eucalyptus trees in Beechmont, a small mountain hamlet located between the Lamington Plateau and nearby Mount Tamborine. Fires continued to burn in multiple areas around Binna Burra and down the Numingbah Valley towards Springbrook. With fire trucks unable to access Binna Burra because of fallen trees, planes dropped water from the air.

But when the wind picked up momentum on Saturday night,

by Sunday morning, Binna Burra Lodge and eleven homes in the Beechmont community were destroyed.

That same morning, a Greenpeace helicopter landed near Binna Burra, and nature tour guide Lisa Groom and her father Tony Groom—one of three sons of original Binna Burra owner Arthur Groom—were passengers. They made the solemn walk up the road towards where the Main Lodge had stood for 86 years. The stone chimney was the only surviving structure. Some sections of the ashen rubble were still smoking.

The lodge was the first tourism structure to be destroyed in the extraordinary 2019 Australian bushfires. Nearby Groom’s Cottage, however, had survived intact. The Greenpeace activists aboard the chopper unfurled a banner across the lawn in front of the cottage. The simple message: “Climate Emergency.”

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En route to a family holiday via Mt Tibrogargan

BUT FIRST, SOME HISTORY

The traditional custodians of the Gold Coast and its hinterland were a family of Aboriginal people belonging to the Yugambeh language people. The custodians who lived closest to where the Park is now—the Birinburra, Kombumerri, Wangerriburra and Migunberri Peoples—believed the mountains to be sacred. For thousands of years, Yugambeh people hunted and gathered food from the area; in the early 1900s, however, European colonisation sadly displaced them.

(The Yugambeh Museum and Research Centre in Beenleigh endeavours to maintain Yugambeh cultural awareness and preserve their unique language. www.yugambeh.com) In 1878, conservationist Robert Collins began a campaign to designate the region around the McPherson Range a protected scenic area. In 1911, four years before the Queensland Government signed papers affirming national park status, eight O’Reilly men—five brothers and three cousins—purchased land on the range’s northern slopes, planning to clear it for dairy farming. Younger brother Bernard O’Reilly describes the landscape in his book, Green Mountains (published 1941): “The blocks were sprawled across the rugged top of a high volcanic plateau; the soil was bright red, deep and rich enough to support a lavish rain forest; giant trees stood together thicker than the pillars in a cathedral with an undergrowth of tangled vine where every step has to be won by the chop of a brush hook.”

These pioneering O’Reilly’s possessed an indomitable spirit, carrying all food and equipment 16 miles up the range, on a bridle path over which only the hardiest of mountain horses could travel. Much of the kit was carried on the men’s backs to lessen the chance of losing it over the cliffs of the steep escarpments. The brothers spent a few years clearing parts of their land Bernard O’Reilly described “as a green wall over a hundred feet high, as definite and almost impenetrable as the ramparts of a medieval city.” After three years of hard labour clearing their blocks of land, the O’Reilly’s faced another battle. Lobbyists who were keen to avoid potential conflict with private landlords inside a National Park were pushing for the O’Reilly brothers to sell their land to the government. The O’Reilly brothers successfully held onto their land and four years after the official establishment as a park in 1915, Herb, Luke, Mick and Bernard O’Reilly were appointed honorary park rangers, with the unique status as private landholders within a national park.

Tom O’Reilly instigated the building of a ‘proper’ guest house. He saw the opportunity to capitalise on the steady stream of nature lovers making the precarious journey up the mountain. From Easter 1926, when the O’Reilly Guesthouse officially opened, visitors have continually made their way to this side of Green Mountains, as the western section of Lamington is known. In 1955, second-generation O’Reilly brothers, Peter and Vince, took over the running of the guest house; now Peter’s son Shane manages the family property, along with other O’Reilly family members.

Groom’s Cottage

Taking time out on the Elabana Falls Trail

Forest bathing on the Border Track

As a kid, I didn’t know of shinrin-yoku. I doubt many in Australia at the time, child or adult, had ever heard of the concept.”

On the northern side of the range at Mount Roberts, Romeo Lahey and Arthur Groom purchased 178 acres of native land (without access). In 1933, they founded Binna Burra Mountain Lodge. Beginning as a tented site, they charged visitors five shillings a day, and provided accommodation, food and guided walks. Permanent log cabins were added in 1939, to accommodate up to 54 guests. And the intentions for Binna Burra were the same as for O’Reilly’s Guesthouse—for people to stay and experience the magic of Lamington National Park.

MY OWN MAGICAL MEMORIES

In August 2019, four weeks prior to the fires that would soon reduce the sections of the park to ashes, I was back in the heart of Lamington National Park. I wandered down to Python Rock Lookout. Clouds hung low in a misty veil, shrouding the jagged peaks of the Scenic Rim. Looking at the scene before me, stirred my senses. My memories were stirred too. Childhood memories.

My childhood was interspersed with long walks in nature.

They may not actually have been far in distance, but on little legs and with a short (ish) attention span, they felt long. I have memories of family adventures. My parents, the initiators; my two brothers and I, the reluctant tag-alongs. Growing up in Brisbane, we wandered through Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve near Maleny before a picnic lunch gazing out over the array of ancient gnarly volcanic peaks belonging to the Glass House Mountains, named by Captain James Cook (in 1770) because they reminded him of the glass furnace chimneys from his homeland of Yorkshire. We explored trails in the Gold Coast hinterland on Mount Tamborine and inside Lamington National Park. And closer to Brisbane, we took Sunday morning strolls through D’Aguilar National Park.

View from Python Rock

As kids we failed to fully appreciate the majesty of our surroundings. These outings were ‘just’ an adventure in the bush, usually associated with a fair amount of whinging.

“Do we have to go?” But reluctantly we went, bribed with the promise of an ice-cream afterwards—the simple pleasures.

These walks, however, were transformative. As a kid, I didn’t know of shinrin-yoku. I doubt many in Australia at the time, child or adult, had ever heard of the concept.

“Listen to the birds singing and the breeze rustling in the leaves of the trees. Look at the different greens and the sunlight filtering through the branches. Smell the fragrance of the forest, breathe in the natural aromatherapy, and taste the freshness of the air as you take deep breaths. Place your hands on the trunk of a tree.

Dip your fingers in a stream. Lie on the ground. Do all these things and you will feel a sense of joy and calm. This is your sixth sense – a state of mind.” (Excerpt from Forest Bathing by Dr Qing Li.) Dr Li, a 54-year-old physician and President of the Japanese Society of Forest Medicine, suggests by allowing nature to enter your senses—via your ears, nose, mouth, hands and feet—you unlock the power of the forest. The Japanese call it shinrin-yoku: shinrin means “forest” and yoku means “bath”— forest bathing. Li’s research indicates there are health benefits associated with shinrin-yoku, including reducing blood pressure, lowering stress levels and boosting your immune system.

As a nine-year-old, while I never consciously thought about shinrin-yoku, I did practice my own form of it. During walks I would stop regularly, to stare upwards without stumbling.

Through my young eyes I thought those lanky straight tree trunks reaching skywards, their tips touching the blue expanse, were soldiers, standing guard. I always felt secure and safe in their presence. Many decades later, as I walked a forest trail inside Lamington National Park (no longer as a reluctant tagalong) I found myself stopping, shifting my gaze to the tops of these towering giants, seeking out those interconnecting leafy fans which mesmerised me as a child. Although my shoulders were now much higher from the ground, these ancient trees appeared taller, growing as they clamoured Passingwith trees their in full neighautumn colour bours for rare pockets of sunlight. while descending to the valley floor Summer 2020 WILD

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Dwarfed by a giant Brush Box tree (Arol in the Yugambeh language) on the Elabana Falls Trail

I breathed in the familiar fragrant rainforest smell. That combination of damp soil mixed with vegetation and decaying timber triggered childhood memories of ambling along Lamington’s well-trodden paths. Not that nature aesthetics were of interest to me as a kid. My recollections of Lamington are of the dinner bell at Binna Burra Lodge announcing mealtimes and the brightly coloured friendly birds flocking to the plates of bird food purchased at O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat.

THE BORDER TRACK

My August 2019 trip to Lamington was with a group on a twonight, three-day tour with walking adventure company, Life’s an Adventure. On the first night, after walking the Dave’s Circuit trail, we stayed at the historic Binna Burra Lodge, blissfully unaware we would never see it again.

The next day, we walked the Border Track to O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat. This 21km track is one of Lamington’s oldest paths and is dubbed the ‘backbone’ of the park’s 150km trail network. The Border Track name is apt; it travels up the McPherson Range crossing the NSW-Queensland border several times, following the route surveyors Francis Roberts (from Queensland) and Isaiah Rowland (from New South Wales) set out to create in June 1863. Their respective surveyor-generals requested they establish an ‘intercolonial’ boundary line for early settlers (landholders) to know which ‘colony’ they had to pay rent to for their pastoral leases. Navigating through virgin rainforest and rugged mountain terrain presented challenges - Rowland completed his survey in 1865 and Roberts in 1866. Nowadays the average completion time walking the Border Track is around six to seven hours, short enough for us—we hoped—to reach O’Reilly’s in time for sunset cocktails.

We entered the trail at the Binna Burra car park. At the 1.7-kilometre mark, we veered off to the Box Forest Circuit, then switched to the West Canungra Creek Circuit. We walked through temperate rainforest, dappled sunlight breaking through the trees throwing golden highlights across the path, a mixture of rocks, tree roots and spongy soil. My eyes

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remained fixed downwards, focusing on the ground’s unevenness. Our first break of the morning came at Wanungara Lookout. Despite its 1,192m elevation, the lookout—with its views of Limpinwood Valley—was sheltered, chosen specifically as a refuelling spot by our guide, Kate Jones, to hopefully avoid the windy gusts picking up on the more exposed western side.

“You can see where we’ve walked,” Kate said, gesturing towards the Binna Burra Ridge.

With the higher altitude came the cool temperate rainforest where southern or Antarctic Beech trees (Nothofagus moorei) reside. These mystical giants—with shamrock green, mosscoated limbs—are rainforest patriarchs; estimated to be around 2000-5000 years old, they are present-day links with ancient Gondwana. The ground around the knobbly, gnarled roots of one of these magnificent trees near the Wanungara Lookout was dusted with a layer of leaves, and I peered into one of the darkened chasms caused by decay, wondering how many storms this ancient relic had weathered.

Just over halfway, we stopped for lunch on the park’s highest peak, 1,195m Mount Bithongabel. The clear day offered vistas overlooking the north eastern corner of New South Wales. In between overgrown trees, I glimpsed the patchwork of the Tweed River Valley below and the misshapen tip of Mount Warning, the remnants of an ancient shield volcano that erupted repeatedly 20-23 million years ago. To the east were ocean glimpses, and to the south, Byron Bay. Wary of the hour and the ground yet to cover, we continued our gradual descent, before weary legs propelled us into O’Reilly’s in time for dinner, followed by a glass (or two) of red relaxing in front of the library’s fireplace.

THE RETURN

In early-August 2020, the COVID travel restrictions having eased in Queensland, I couldn’t wait to return to Lamington for some much-needed forest bathing. O’Reilly’s thankfully hadn’t been touched by the bushfires that struck Binna Burra.

Over two days, my 21-year-old son, James and I explored a few trails, indulging in mother–son time.

Lamington NP, QUEENSL AND King parrot crown

Hot cuppa at Mt Wanungara Lookout on the Border Track

Patchwork shadows and the crooked peak of Mt Warning from the Border Track

We walked the Border Track to the Wanungara Lookout.

The trail (at the time) was closed on the Binna Burra side, still being cleaned-up by Parks and Wildlife. James strode ahead, and I did ‘my thing,’ stopping regularly to look up and to allow nature to permeate my senses. As a child, birdcalls were of no interest, but with ‘maturity’ I’ve become fascinated, loving nothing more than hearing the ear-piercing whipcrack of the iconic eastern whipbird, calling out to his female companion.

Near the top of Mt Wanungara, I heard an unfamiliar bird call. I recorded it on my phone, intending to ask the guide who takes the morning bird tour at O’Reilly’s to identify its sound.

We lunched at the Wanungara lookout. The day was less windy than it was 12 months ago, but the views towards the ocean were equally spectacular. A low-lying horizontal bank of clouds cast a crazy collage of shadows on the valley below. This section of the Border Track was opened up by Herb, Mick, and Norb O’Reilly in 1912, and I wondered how different their view would have been to the one we looked out towards.

The following morning, our guide on the bird walk was Mary O’Reilly, one of Vince and Lona O’Reilly’s ten children, and a third generation of the mountain family. I asked her about the birdcall and held my phone to her ear.

“That’s the Albert lyrebird,” Mary said without hesitation.

“It’s so clever it can mimic the call of other birds, and has even been known to replicate the sound of a chain saw.”

I was chuffed, and told James about it later. He didn’t share the same excitement, but I know his day of birdcall appreciation will eventually come.

THE HEALING PROCESS

Twelve months after my group walk, I return to Binna Burra a few days prior to its official re-opening on September 1st.

(The Sky Lodges, campground, safari tents, the renovated Tea House, Groom’s Cottage, the Barn and Pottery Shed are now open to visitors.)

The demolition work clearing the remains of Binna Burra Lodge is complete, the site now an open space. Where the lodge and cabins once stood, the ground is flat; the uninterrupted views to the escarpment east and west are breathtaking. For safety reasons, I am escorted to the site, accompanied

by Louanne Byrnes, the HR and Compliance Manager for Binna Burra Lodge, along with a handful of volunteers from ‘Friends of Binna Burra.’

Green shoots near Binna Burra

Antarctic beech tree on the Border Track

A massive smoke cloud completely blocked out the sun. It was probably

the scariest and most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.”

Louanne was at Binna Burra that ominous Friday in September, and helped evacuate guests and staff. “A massive smoke cloud completely blocked out the sun,” she recollects. “It was probably the scariest and most incredible thing I have ever seen.”

Steve Noakes, Chairman of Binna Burra Lodge Limited, is confident the lodge will return. “Just like Daydream Island did after Cyclone Debbie decimated the resort in 2017,” he says. “It took them over two years to rebuild, but they are back. And will we be too; this area is too special for people not to return.”

Earlier in the day, I elect to walk the Ships Stern Circuit, to check on how the mountain had fared twelve months on from the bushfires. The entrance is opposite the driveway that lead to the old lodge. About 500m in, I see a few blackened trees, some discarded charred logs on the ground, and a couple of rainforest trees’ buttresses showing burn scars. These were burned from ‘ember drift’ emanating from the intense fire that ripped through the other side of this walk. I come across the tall 500-year-old Tallowwood tree rangers affectionately refer to as “Big Foot.” Defiantly he stands, a small burnt section behind his misshapen ‘toes’ the only mark of the fiery wrath that destroyed larger sections of Binna Burra.

My gaze wanders up the trees with their blackened trunks.

I note their tops are green. The area took a beating, but nature’s resilience is evident. I breathe a sigh of relief. Binna Burra is regenerating.

As a child I never expressed gratitude towards my parents for ‘forcing’ me as a gangly kid to take those walks. But I know their persistence has helped create within me a deep affinity for being in nature. I hope my kids and their kids will eventually have the same experiences I had as a child, and ultimately feel the familiar sense of calm that forest bathing here in Lamington brings me. W CONTRIBUTOR: Brisbane-based freelance writer and mother to three much taller sons, Jennifer finds any excuse to escape outdoors to flee the noise of her testosterone-filled home.

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DESTINATIONS

[ Destinations ] Credit: NZKS

WHITEWATER PADDLING IN

MURCHISON With six nearby rivers to choose from, this small New Zealand South Island town is a paddler’s nirvana.

Words Anja Fuechtbauer & Johannes Hendriks

You know you’re in a paddling mecca when—while sipping on a morning coffee on the main street of town—cars creaking under the load of too many boats strapped onto (often homemade wooden) roof-racks zip past in regular intervals. Such is the case in Murchison, a small village tucked deep in the mountains of New Zealand’s South Island. Surrounded by stunning rivers and alpine ridges, Murchison is a magical place, home to tiny bakeries, country pubs, and friendly locals.

Unlike the committing and often gnarly boating of the nearby West Coast, Murchison offers a variety of whitewater kayaking, ranging from beginner-friendly Class II jaunts to Class IV adrenaline rushes for more experienced paddlers.

Six different rivers are accessible from the town—the Buller/Kawatiri, Matakitaki, Maruia, Mangles, Glenroy and Matiri Rivers—and there are loads of paddle-able sections anywhere between five to forty minutes’ drive away.

The quality of paddling and low-key vibe of the town means Murchison experiences an annual influx of Aussies.

Many plan to come only once for a course at the local kayak school, but then keep leaving the dry Australian summer heat to return year after year. They’ll often bring friends and family along, too, who themselves either end up paddling or enjoying the tramping and biking, and likewise falling in love with Murch—it’s that kind of place.

Murchison

QUICK FACTS Activity: Whitewater paddling Levels: Class II to Class IV Other activities: Walking, mountain biking Nearest major airport: Christchurch Visas: None required for Australians; visa or NZeTA required for other nationalities Recommended websites: riverguide.co.nz; nzkayakschool.com

Temperature (C)

Rainfall (mm)

Climate: Murchison

Credit: NZKS

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Buller’s O’Sullies section offers stretches of calm between the rapids

Murchison, NEW ZEALAND

Whale Creek Rapid on O’Sullies, always a fun rollercoaster.

HISTORY

Many river features here were created by the 1929 Murchison and 1968 Inangahua Earthquakes (magnitude 7.8 and 7.3 respectively). Together, they shook the Buller region and caused massive landslides and widespread damage.

The ‘29 earthquake caused the deaths of 17 people and single-handedly created a ten-metre drop on the Maruia River, now known as Maruia Falls. The ‘68 earthquake landslides blocked the Buller River, backing the water up for seven kilometres and increasing the river level by 30m. A sudden burst of the blockage would have flooded Westport and everything in its wake, but luckily a slow drainage occurred, leaving us now some pristine sections of whitewater to play on the river.

WHEN TO GO

Kayakers from far and wide descend on Murchison during the NZ summer, but year-round paddling is possible. As early as November and as late as (early) March, the weather and water are pleasant enough to spend a fantastic time here. Sandflies are ever-present here, thirteen months of the year, 25 hours a day, so don’t get your hopes up for a scratch-free experience.

But no matter if you end up arriving in a high or low water year, there’s usually something to paddle for everyone. In high

water, the Mangles comes up for beginners, and the Glenroy’s boofs and hollers work for the experts. In low water years (or later in summer), Whale Creek Rapid on O’Sullies section and Earthquake on the Buller/Kawatiri river provide the goods.

If you choose a late summer outing to Murchison, don’t miss the Buller Fest, an annual kayaking festival in late February/ early March.

WATER LEVELS

With the climate getting more extreme, you just have to see what you get. 2018/19 was a record low summer; the ensuing 2019/20 season had a 50-year flood. For up-to-date river levels check www.tasman.govt.nz/my-region/environment/ environmental-data/river-flow/. Your two main gauges are ‘Buller at Longford’ and ‘Matakitaki at Horse Terrace’. Please make note of the location of those gauges. The Buller sections downriver of Murchison have several rivers joining it and will therefore be higher than the Longford Gauge shows.

GETTING THERE

The easiest option is to fly to Christchurch and then drive the four hours to Murchison. If travelling with kayaks, then (in the past at least; the company has been recently sold) Virgin Summer 2020 WILD

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Murchison, NEW ZEALAND

Peak hour in Murchison

New Zealand Kayak School

Australia has been the kayakers’ choice, as they accepted oversized luggage up to three metres in length. An extra piece of luggage, i.e. your kayak, only sets you back $70 AUD (at time of writing). We recommend arriving at the airport as early as possible, rock a big smile on your face and be courteous. Ensure your kayak is clean and dry to minimise time in customs in New Zealand (see ‘Precautions’ for more info).

There are plenty of hire car companies to choose from. ‘Go Rentals’ offer roof racks as an extra for around $50 NZD. Alternatively, you can catch or pre-book an airport transfer with ‘Supershuttle’ into Christchurch (remember your straps), and from there take an InterCity bus to Murchison (be there early; buses don’t guarantee taking the kayak if full).

FEES / PERMIT

For Australians, no visas are necessary. For other passport holders, an NZeTA or visa is required, and a $35 NZD visitor levy is also applicable. There are no costs for access to national parks and public lands in New Zealand (Good job, NZ!).

EQUIPMENT

Besides your personal kayaking equipment (PFD, helmet, rescue kit, thermals, etc) a drytop is highly recommended.

Also, even though there’s only one wilderness run (the Maruia), a split paddle and PLB never go amiss, particularly as mobile phone coverage is patchy and river access can be a slog. Kayak and kayak equipment rental are available at NZ Kayak School: nzkayakschool.com. A river runner is your boat of choice, though if you’re heading down the coast, you can still enjoy your creek boat here. We also recommend bringing at least one bike lock to secure unsupervised kayaks. We haven’t heard of any kayak thefts around Murchison, but they do happen in New Zealand.

GUIDEBOOK AND GUIDING

New Zealand Whitewater—180 Great Kayaking Runs (5th edition) by Graham Charles is the bible for kayaking in New Zealand. Additional information can be obtained from www. riverguide.co.nz which has most runs listed, including put in and take out information and recommended water levels.

NZ Kayak School (nzkayakschool.com) offers two-day and four-day skill courses, as well as two-day rescue courses.

Rescue courses usually require four participants, so get in touch in advance. Guided West Coast and custom trips can also be organised. If you’re after a rafting experience, then Ultimate Descents is the local provider.

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Tutaki Bakery

There’s always a rainbow over NZKS

Not really the ideal craft for Murchison’s whitewater

PRECAUTIONS

Didymo—lovingly called ‘rock snot’—is an invasive algae in New Zealand and is present in the rivers around Murchison. To prevent the algae’s spread, you’ll need to clean and dry your gear thoroughly when leaving Murchison. Many pristine West Coast rivers are still free of it; let’s keep it that way—no shortcuts! NZKS has a big tub where you can wash your gear. Also, when returning to Oz or heading to the North Island, we recommend taking photos of the cleaning process to show quarantine or the ferry crew. Full information for treating your equipment can be found at: www.mpi.govt.nz/ travel-and-recreation/outdoor-activities/check-clean-dry/

ACCOMODATION

There is no ‘freedom’ camping near Murchison. Riverside Holiday Park, located just out of town, offers camping ($15pp) and cabins ($30pp) and is popular with kayakers (as well as travellers, bikepackers and families). There’s a large, covered deck with couches and tables right on the Buller, along with a nice swimming spot. Even if you don’t stay here, stopping by in the morning usually results in a paddling buddy. They also offer free bicycle rental and helmets (useful for shuttles if you only have one car available). Other options include Kiwi Park Motels and Holiday Park, Mataki Motel, Murchison Motorhome and The Cow Shed (which also has amazing pizza).

WHAT ELSE BUT KAYAKING?

If you hate paddling, or just need a break from the water, you have other options in Murchison. There are several walks near town, with the closest being just across the bridge over the Matakitaki—the ‘Skyline Walk’ switchbacks up a small hill and reveals a nice view over the valley. ‘Six Mile Walk’ is a pleasant forest stroll that leads to an old weir which now looks more like a waterfall. There’s also ‘Johnsons Creek Walk’ that leads to a boulder field in the forest—a remnant of past earthquakes. ‘Eight Mile Walk’ visits a small lake tucked up in the hills. There are several backcountry huts in the Mangles and Rotoroa Valleys that are worth exploring for overnight trips. Matiri Hut is a beautiful short walk and great hut close by. Day walks in Nelson Lakes National Park (a destination well worth a visit in itself), or an overnight walk to Angelus Hut are fantastic trips an hour’s drive from town.

Mountain biking is also popular in the region. For multi-day rides, the Old Ghost Road isn’t too far away, as is the Paparoa Track (read about it in Wild #173). St Arnaud, Nelson and Kaiteriteri are also great riding spots

Whales Creek often feels like paddling into a churning wall of white

The Rivers

BULLER/K AWATIRI RIVER

Class II to Class IV

Collecting all the water from the Matakitaki, Matiri, Gowan, Maruia, and Mangles Rivers, and fed by Lake Rotora and Lake Rotoiti in Nelson Lakes National Park, the Buller is the big water river of the region. It can hold a LOT (!) of water. During the December ‘19 flood, the Buller (above of the confluences) was reading more than 1,100 m3/s at the Longford Gauge.

Back in 1926, the Buller at Te Kuha had NZ’s largest estimated flood peak: 12,700m3/s. The Buller floods from bottom up, so while downriver of Murchison might be flooded, the levels upriver might still be normal flows.

GRANITY CREEK RAPID

Class III+ to Class IV

An enjoyable Class II boulder garden at most water levels, with lots of chances to practice eddy turns. From the put-in at Gowan Bridge, a couple of kilometres of bouncy water lead up to Granity Creek Rapid. It’s the main rapid on the run, a Class III/IV depending on water levels, and is scouted from river right (you can also walk out from here). This rapid is an excellent chance to attempt to make some harder moves. A more adventurous line is to attempt the “superman boof” by riding up on the buffer that pushes off the left at the bottom of the rapid and launching into the eddy below. Graveyard Rapid

soon after will keep you busy with tight boulder gardens with lots of moves. Pay attention! The entire section is about 10km long and runs mostly along SH6, so a hitch-hike shuttle might be possible, but two cars are recommended.

OWENS RIVER TO CLAYBANK CREEK, CLAYBANK CREEK TO DOCTORS CREEK & DOCTORS CREEK TO THE MANGLES

All Class II

Glorious Class II the whole way, with some lovely slower pools, lots of rapids, and loads of eddies—there’s a reason it’s used for teaching all the time! You can do single sections or stitch them together all the way from Owens Creek to the campground. Ensure you watch for trees and wires everywhere. Doctor’s Creek access changed last year and is now on the upstream side of the Doctor’s Creek roadbridge.

Follow your nose through a track by the bridge to the river; it’s a short walk.

O’SULLIES TO ARIKI FALLS

Class II

A fun run at lower levels when the rapids are not washed out.

The three major rapids on this run are O’Sullivans, Whale Creek, and Jetboat. The water channels through the gorge, making for interesting paddling even at very low flows, and the eddy lines and boils are perfect for practicing stern squirts. Whale Creek always feels big with the waves crashing, but it offers plenty of time to roll-up if needed.

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Murchison, NEW ZEALAND The gorge on the middle Matakitaki is specactular even on the 5th lap

A quiet moment on the Buller

Credit: NZKS

When it rains, the Matiri calls

At Jetboat Rapid you can choose from two beautiful lines— or split the difference down the middle at the right flow. It has a ‘room of doom’ eddy (and ‘rope of hope’) on river left if you get caught out in higher flows. Watch out for Ariki Falls; takeout on river right upstream, or just above the falls on the left.

EARTHQUAKE

Class III to Class IV

The lowest section on the Buller. By now the river has had lots of time to collect waters from its tributaries and it’s therefore bigger. Paddlable at all flows, the higher the water the bigger the waves. And the holes. And arguably the smiles. Gunslinger is the largest rapid with a handful of other rapids of note, such as Whopper Stopper, Rodeo Rapid and Slide rapid. Surfing is excellent at most flows, and play spots are bountiful. Watch for the undercut wall at the bottom of Lyell Creek Wave.

MATAKITAKI RIVER

Class II+ to Class IV

The Matakitaki is one of the colder rivers here. Bring a drytop!

MIDDLES

Class II+

Probably one of the most run Class II sections in New Zealand. This is a fun and beautiful day out; the water usually a milky light blue, there are lots of little waves and eddies to catch, and there’s a stunning little gorge just before the takeout. What’s not to like? This section is often done in all sorts of watercrafts, so don’t restrict yourself to a kayak. Middles goes from low to high, but some water is recommended to avoid a flatwater paddle. Two vehicles for the shuttle are best; walking or cycling would take a while, and successful hitchhiking here is unlikely.

LOWERS

Class III+ to Class IV

Locals and NZKS teachers run laps on Lowers in the evening after work; the tight boulder gardens require technical moves

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Credit: Rob Springer

Linghu Liu on Lowers on the Matakitaki

and provide loads of entertainment. The run is also good practice for the West Coast as it’s similar in nature to classics there like the Styx and Toaroha. The multi-channel section of Lowers has two major rapids, one near the start and the other close to the end. See how many eddies you can get! If you can, let a local show you down the first time—or at least chat to the kayak school first; floods and wood in the river often change the rapids and channels. The section is paddleable in a huge range of flows, but when it gets low it gets manky (or also lovingly called ‘Australia-like’). This run has a short shuttle making it possible to run back up to the car or ride a bike.

Check the gauge at ‘Horse Terrace’ for water levels. Lowers has roughly double the amount of water as the gauge says.

MANGLES RIVER

Class II+ to Class IV (in higher flows)

A fantastic option when the Buller roars high. A single braid river, Mangles is fun at a variety of water levels, with plentiful opportunities for eddy catching practice. The river runs mainly along the road, so there are several options for putting-in and taking-out. Blackwater Bridge is usually the upper put-in, and it provides for a pleasant Class II paddle before the rapids get bigger downstream. You can take-out (or put-in) on river left at the suspension bridge halfway down, or paddle further to the confluence with the Buller. When the water is low, stay out of the river; let the fishermen enjoy their time.

MARUIA RIVER

Class II to Class III+

The Maruia offers short, sweet and steep, as well as an idyllic touch of wilderness that’s worth leaving Murchison for.

WILDERNESS RUN

Class II to Class III+

A stunning adventure paddle sometimes run as a friendly overnight trip. Wilderness Run isn’t done often but it’s worth it, especially after a fresh rain. It needs a shuttle vehicle.

You can’t get truer to ‘Park’n’Huck’ than at Maruia Falls

MARUIA FALLS

Class IV

The local ’park and huck’ with a ten-metre drop depending on water levels. Maruia Falls was first run by legendary paddler and NZKS founder Mick Hopkinson and Gillian Wratt in 1983.

At lower flows the landing can be hard; the safest line is to aim for a 45° entry to the water at the bottom, or a good ‘boof-tostomp’ if you know how to. And definitely don’t attempt a flat landing. Although usually things work out, paddles have been broken and many people have been injured here. There have been deaths, too. Stay safe! Even if you aren’t running it, it’s worth a quick detour off the main road to check it out.

MATIRI RIVER

Class II+ to Class IV

The Matiri needs rain to turn from its usual Class II+ into a really fun Class III and above run. There’s wonderful surfing and big waves in the main gorge. It can get incredibly fast in the gorge and high flows, with few places to stop. It’s recommended to either follow a local or start with a lower flow. The largest rapid is below the road bridge, go slow and find a safe line—there are lots to choose from. Again, watch for trees and wire in the river.

GLENROY RIVER Class IV

The local Class IV up in the Matakitaki Valley. The Glenroy River offers a continuous boulder garden style run with great clear water (except in flood) and nice scenery. The run starts with a Class II warm-up before increasing to Class III and then Class IV in the final gorge. The last big rapid is long and technical, and finishes in two drops with a smaller pool in between.

After heavy rain it will usually run for a few days. The paddle can take anywhere between 20 minutes to an hour, depending on how well you know the run and how much you stop to scout. After heavy rain, wire and wood are often washed in from upstream farms, so check with NZKS for new hazards. The gauge at ‘Horseshoe Terrace’ can also be used to check if the Glenroy is in—look for between 20-50 cumecs, though low-water Aussies will paddle the Glenroy at any flow!

It’s possible to jog the shuttle (about five kilometres) although a bike or second car are better options. Definitely plan on doing multiple laps to make the drive out worth it.

CONTRIBUTOR: Anja and Johannes actually met in Murchison at the kayak school. She doesn’t remember more than he was one of the guys who ‘crashed the BBQ and ate all our food’ but now they are married. There you go. Go to Murch and you might find love.

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TRACK NOTES

Overlooking Mt Beau Brummel on Day One

[ Track Notes ]

Brisbane

Scenic Rim Trail QUEENSLAND’S

Activity: Multi-day hiking

Words & Photography Lachlan Gardiner

Location: Southeast Queensland

Get set to be transported to another world on the newly opened Scenic Rim Trail. Just 90 minutes west of Brisbane, this four-day walk in Queensland’s beautiful Main Range National Park blends both newly constructed and existing sections of track, and traverses a staggeringly diverse range of terrain and ecology. Commencing from dry eucalypt regrowth, you gain an escarpment that’s home to fuzzy rock wallabies and ancient grass trees, some hundreds of years old. When the trail dips away off the ridges, you enter the jungle—or more accurately a dense, tangled sub-tropical rainforest.

Tree ferns, mosses, giant figs, cacophonous native birds, wildflowers, insects, and endless other natural treasures abound. Despite all that threatens— progress, climate, bushfires—this tract of UNESCO World Heritage Listed Gondwana Rainforest endures.

At first glance, however, people might dismiss the SRT (if they know about it at all; the trail—with its newly built campsites and toilet facilities—only opened mid-2020). On paper, it’s just 47km, quite close in proximity to Brisbane, and— by and large—the terrain it’s surrounded by is cleared farmland. Main Range National Park was also badly hit in the recent bushfires. And it’s not all in national park, either; the northern section begins in a nature reserve. But while the trail is not entirely untouched, it’s abundant, alive, and very, very beautiful.

In the years to come, the SRT (although controversial; see ‘A Troubling Precedent’ box) is set to become a local classic through-walk.

Distance: 47km

WILD Summer 2020

Duration: 4 days When to go: Apr-Nov (ideally, but all year round is possible) Maps: Free topographic map downloads from qtopo.information.qld.gov.au Permits required: Yes, $20.25/pp for 3 nights’ camping (parks.des.qld.gov.au) Car shuttle required: Yes

Rainfall (mm)

Climate: Warwick

Temperature (C)

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QUICK FACTS

Scenic Rim Trail, Q U EEN S L A N D

Tent platform at Banshee Junction Campsite

Trailhead facilities include a water tank and footwear hygiene station

WHEN TO GO

Anyone who has hiked in Queensland will likely attest that summer can bring brutally hot and humid conditions. For the majority of walkers, this hike will be most enjoyable in the cooler months, ie April to November. That said, completing the hike is possible year-round. Moreover, because most of the trail is around 1,000m above sea level, winter can be cold and windy, and overnight temps often dip below freezing. Be sure to pack a warm sleeping bag and insulated mattress!

GETTING THERE / ACCESS

For most groups, a car shuffle will be required. Our party of five drove from Brisbane (110km, 90mins) in two vehicles and dropped one car at the Crest Carpark, Cunninghams Gap (on the Cunningham Highway). From here we drove back down the range, looping around to Thornton View Trailhead, off Main Camp Creek Road (a further 112km, 90mins). This totaled over three hours and made for an early start that first day.

FEES/PERMITS

Visiting Main Range National Park doesn’t require a permit.

However, camping permits are required for the three walker’s camps along the SRT; they can be booked online via the Queensland Parks booking system. Each camp has three tent sites, with four people allowed per site. The fees at the time of writing are $20.25 per person for three nights. The system only allows for all three camps to be booked together over a consecutive three-night period: www.parks.des.qld.gov.au

DIFFICULTY

In terms of grading, the SRT falls somewhere between ‘Medium’ to ‘Hard’, or around 4-5 for the Australian Track Grading System. The hike is all on-trail, but it does have some steep sections requiring a bit of scrambling.

NAVIGATION

While the SRT route is all on-track, some sections were newly cut when we visited in July 2020. At several points, the track was minimally marked, rocky and steep. As traffic increases, the trail will become easier to follow. Look out for orange SRT markers along the route, and at all intersections. Some basic navigation skills are recommended, and be sure to carry a compass, and topographic maps (which can be downloaded for free from Q Topo: qtopo.information.qld.gov.au

SAFETY, EQUIPMENT & THINGS THAT BITE AND STING

In addition to the usual safety and navigation gear, walkers should carry insect repellant and snake bandages, and watch out for gympie-gympie. The leaves (even dead ones) of these giant stinging trees can be excruciatingly painful. If stung,

don’t rub the fine hairs that cause the pain; it’ll break them and then make removal impossible. Use tweezers and/or hair removal strips; make sure they’re in your first aid kit.

One of this walk’s features is that you trace the escarpment’s edge and the impressive views are constant. Be careful though; there are places that if you trip, it’s a long, long way down. Also, while much of the trail has mobile phone coverage, not all of it does; consider carrying a PLB or satellite comms device.

ACCOMMODATION

There are three walkers’ camps along the SRT: Mount Mistake, Castle View and Banshee Junction. All are easy to spot and have either cleared tent sites or, in the case of Banshee, timber tent platforms. A toilet and a small (rainfall dependent) drinking water tank are also provided.

WATER

Since much of this walk is on ridgelines, you’ll find few natural permanent watercourses (with the exception of Dalrymple Creek). You’ll be reliant on water tanks at the camps for water.

OTHER INFO

Got another two or three days? You can extend your walk down the Main Range to Mt Mitchell and to Teviot Gap (and, actually, even all the way to Lamington NP). Be aware the area is far less developed; the ‘trail’ is often no more than an off-track route.

Wild’s view: A TROUBLING PRECEDENT

The creation of the Scenic Rim Trail, and the development associated with it, was not without controversy. The opposition to it was justified. The SRT was created as part of a joint ecotourism venture between the Queensland Government and Spicers’ Retreats, with the $20million venture hinging around Spicers being given the right to construct a string of luxury private huts along it. Although some of the huts were built on private freehold land, others were built within Main Range National Park As far as we know, this was the first instance of privately built infrastructure being built along walking tracks in Queensland’s national parks. It’s a troubling precedent. National parks, in Wild’s opinion, should not be open to development by private parties.

Despite this, we have decided nonetheless to publish track notes for the SRT. The trail is here now; we can’t wind back the clock. Since public land has effectively been ‘sold’ to developers, the public may as well get something in return, and there’s no reason for independent walkers to leave the SRT as the sole preserve of catered guests. And at least—unlike some other ‘ecotourism’ proposals elsewhere in Australia where long-used campsites have been, or will be, closed to independent walkers—this development saw the expansion of camping facilities for the general walking public.

Go to p24 to read ‘Luxury Lodges = Wilderness Lost’ to learn more.

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Scenic Rim Trail, Q U EEN S L A N D P

Scenic Rim Trail

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Ma

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MAIN RANGE NP

Mt Mistake Camp

Mt Mistake (998m)

Flaggy Ck

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MAIN RANGE NP

IDI DIV NG RA

MAIN RANGE NP

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Castle View Camp

Mt Castle (969m)

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Sylvesters Lookout

Banshee Camp

MAIN RANGE NP BARE ROCK

Mt Cordeaux (1144m) Cunningh

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10 KM

The Walk in Sections DAY 1

SRT Trailhead to Mt Mistake Camp 9km (approx. 5-6 hours)

Following a 3hr+ drive and car-drop, you will depart the walk at the Thornton View Trailhead. There is a carpark, toilet, shelter and rainwater tank here, along with a map of the route. The trail begins in open eucalypt forest, and within minutes, the incline turns steeply upwards for another three kilometres. After about 1.5-2hrs, you’ll encounter “the ladder”. This is part of the eco-tourism development, and while it remains on a parcel of private land for now, it certainly doesn’t (in this writer’s opinion) add any appeal to the overall experience. The ladder is prohibited to the public, but the walk around this steel eyesore is much nicer anyway!

After gaining the ridge, the gradient eases for a while, and the view into the valley eastward as you begin to traverse south is

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FINISH

Map data © OpenStreetMap

impressive. The route takes some unusual detours here and there to avoid other sections of private land, and eventually crosses a fence which signifies the boundary of Main Range National Park. Keeping the fence-line on your right and the drop to your left, the walking is easy and the views expansive.

Right after passing an old homestead-turned eco-tourism accommodation, the first night’s camp, Mount Mistake, is signposted and positioned just back from the escarpment among some tall eucalypts. The campsite was spacious, the toilet clean and the small water tank full upon our visit. We enjoyed a peaceful sunset through the trees at camp and waited for the mercury to drop.

DAY 2

Mt Mistake Camp to Castle View Camp 14.5km (approx. 6-7 hours)

Low clouds often drape upon the range here; don’t be surprised to wake up in a sea of grey. High winds also often rush

Setting up camp at Mount Mistake

Open eucalypt forest on the first day

Rainforests—ranging from subtropical to high-altitude cool temperate—are a feature of the SRT

You can cool your heels at every creek crossing (and pluck off a few leeches too)

Sunset at Mount Mistake Camp

up the steep escarpment, which is a mere 50m away, and will make you thankful the camp has been positioned back from the edge a little ways! Continuing on, the route follows a newly re-established logging track heading south. After a few kilometres, the ecotone line between grassy eucalypt and dense sub-tropical rainforest is suddenly apparent. The bushfires in many places did not manage to penetrate the rainforest, thankfully rebuked by the moist, dense wall of green. In low clouds and fog, the rainforest here can be stunningly beautiful.

The elevation gain and loss for this entire day is marginal, and the navigation is straightforward. Just keep walking along the wide trail, perched high upon the Great Dividing Range, until

Sun piercing the dense forest canopy

you see camp. After about 8.5km, the newly reopened trail transitions to more trafficked old logging road known as the Winder. At this point, a steel cable winder—used for logging this forest many years ago—is encountered. Another 5.5km on, you’ll find the Castle View campsite beside the trail, and it features the same toilet and water tank setup as the previous night. (Tip: expect a lengthy water-filling experience; the valve is intentionally very low-flow). The tent sites here are level enough and views through the trees to the east—to Mount Castle and beyond—are splendid, presuming you get good weather.

In the cold, wet, windy conditions we experienced, it was a rather exposed spot.

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Scenic Rim Trail, Q U EEN S L A N D Passing by the cascades of Dalrymple Creek

Mt Castle Lookout

Don’t forget to look up! One of the many giant trees housing a complex ecosystem

DAY 3

Banshee Junction Camp to Crest Carpark

Departing from camp, continue heading along the Winder until reaching the obvious intersection. This is the terminus of Lookout Road. Turn left, pretend you’re still away from it all, and take the signposted Mount Castle Lookout Track for a further half-kilometre or so. After reaching the lookout, backtrack around 30m, and look for the orange SRT signpost. Commit this to memory, as you’ll need to stay alert to many more of these for the hike’s remainder. Leaving the wider and more established trails now, your navigation skills will become important. While the expansive views are fleeting, the vibrant details of the rainforest are everywhere to be seen.

The next landmark is Sylvesters Lookout, which you’ll reach in about 90 minutes. After soaking in the views, carry onwards by taking the side trail south of the main lookout track, plunging once again into the foliage and down into the rainforest wonderland. Several hours of slow, careful and beautifully immersive rainforest walking are up next. Veering away from the escarpment, the steeply switchbacking trail leads down to the headwaters of Dalrymple Creek. Cross the creek, and take the left branch turning south to join the established Cascades Circuit. Follow this trail along past bubbling cascades for another 1.5km, dropping even deeper into the valley. The next intersection is left once again, pointing you west up the Ridge Track for 350m. Turn uphill (south) and keep plugging up the slope. Hopefully the beauty, singing birds, hoop pines and giant figs will distract you from the burning in your legs.

The final camp at Banshee Junction is a special one. Unexpectedly, a stand of Chinese elm trees provides an idyllic setting. The raised tent platforms are nestled among the soft carpet of needles, and of course there are the same cute timber-cottage styled toilet and water tank. With camp perched around 1,100m asl, you should again be prepared for another chilly night if tackling the SRT in winter.

From camp, you turn left and head southward up the wide management trail for around 800m. A now-familiar SRT marker signals a left turn; straight into the forest you head once more! While this section includes some areas of rainforest that fell victim to the 2019 bushfires, it’s still beautiful nonetheless. While winding around mossy boulders and giant figs, keep your eyes and ears peeled for native birds. By now you’ve likely already heard the Albert’s lyrebirds and their sneaky mimic calls, but listen for others: brown cuckoo doves, crimson rosellas, eastern whipbirds, green catbird, grey fantails, southern boobooks, king parrots, stubble quails and many others. It’s a rare treat to traverse through wilderness that remains home to such a diversity of native wildlife.

After many ups and a few less downs, the trail climbs back to the escarpment, promptly heading south once again and hugging the ridge. About 7.5km from camp, the prominent and aptly named Bare Rock makes for an idyllic lunch spot.

Here you’ll be able to look back along almost the entirety of the range you’ve just traversed. You’ll likely also meet other day-hikers from here onwards; this is a popular trail.

From Bare Rock it’s basically all downhill on a well graded trail, past Mt Cordeaux and back to Crest Carpark. Enjoy the satisfaction of having completed your walk, then load into the car to do the car-shuffle again, but in reverse! On the way back to Brisbane (if that’s where you’re headed), bookending your fantastic four-day trip with a classic country pub meal at Laidley is highly recommended. The SRT isn’t very long, (and for Brisbanites, not very far away), but it’s definitely a beautiful and enticing walk that will likely eclipse your expectations. W

10.5km (approx. 6-7 hours)

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DAY 4

Castle View Camp to Banshee Junction Camp

WILD Summer 2020

13.3km (approx. 6-7 hours)

CONTRIBUTOR: Lachlan is a Brisbane-based adventure photographer, writer and filmmaker. Like any good climber, he has a perverse masochistic streak and revels in altitude-induced hardship.

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GEAR

[ Gear Talk ] ZORALI

Eden Reforestation Project A young Aussie company pledges to have a positive impact.

O

ne product sold, ten trees planted. That’s the pledge Zorali—a fledgling Aussie adventure wear and hardgoods company founded in 2019—has made. “A lot of people think it’s ten trees for every purchase,” says director Cam Greenwood. “But it’s actually every product.”

That’s right: Buy a spork; ten trees are planted. It’s actually part of the Eden Reforestation Project, an international NPO that focuses on ecological restoration in poorer countries like Indonesia, Nepal, Kenya, Haiti, Mozambique and others. And it’s not just about tree planting, says Greenwood. “They take a strategic approach to the communities they’re working in, looking at local employment.”

Although the main inspiration for starting Zorali was to create an Aussie brand that, in Greenwood’s words, “could really stand for the Australian way of life, of camping down the coast with your mates and going on road trips”—their gear is low-key but youthful, with an emphasis not so much on high-end technical demands but instead on enjoying the journey—from the very beginning, there was another agenda, one reflected in the partnership with the Eden Reforestation Project.

[ Gear Talk ]

“Starting up, it was really important for us to build into the actual product some sort of way that we could give back to the planet.

We didn’t want it to be this thing that came as an afterthought, or after seeing how much Zorali Director Cam Greenwood money is in the account at the end.”

The young, independent company—which although skewing towards the clothing side of adventure goods also produces day packs, tents, sleeping bags, camp goods, and yes, sporks— had only just launched when the pandemic hit.

It was, perhaps, not ideal timing. But despite the challenges, Greenwood says in some ways it was a blessing in that it really made them decide to double down on sustainability. “The reality of the pandemic caused everyone to properly evaluate what they were doing.” For Zorali, that means having a positive impact on the planet.

This spork = To learn more, go to: zorali.com 10 trees planted

CRUMPLER

Country Mile Range

Crumpler heads outdoors with a new range of technical packs.

A

fter 25 years, Crumpler is moving. Moving into the outdoors, that is. Ever since being founded in Melbourne in 1995—initially growing in prominence as a maker of convenient yet bombproof messenger bags for cycle couriers who zipped around the city’s streets and laneways—Crumpler’s focus has been on hard goods for communting and travel in primarily urban environments.

Now, however, the company is broadening its horizons. In November 2020, it launched its Country Mile range. While the company has previously offered products with crossover use from urban travel into the outdoors, this new range is the first specifically designed for adventure, and it contains the company’s most technical packs ever.

The collection has four elements. There are two daypacks—the 30L Dusty Trail and the 20L Beaten Track—along with the Cross Road 2L waist pack, and the 4L Cliff Hanger, which Crumpler describes as a ‘multi purpose bucket bag’ but actually resembles an climber’s oversized chalk bag. In fact, in some ways, the whole series seems retro-climbing inspired, aesthetically at least, but what’s also noticeable is that the products, for all their toughness and features, are surprisingly lightweight. The 30L Dusty

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Trail—despite the robust hipbelt and heavy-duty rip stop nylon—weighs just 1,250g, on par with most other purely outdoors focussed packs around this size. But that’s before you take out the laptop sleeve and removable frame; lose those, and we weighed the pack at a svelte 1,070g.

Compression straps, an aluminium suspended frame, water resistant fabrics, breathable shoulder straps and heavy-duty YKK zips all point to the two packs’ adventure focus. That said, the range doesn’t scream ‘outdoors’; it looks surprisingly at home in urban environments. “We are, after all, a metropolitan brand that was born in the city,” says Valeria Fioretti, Head of Design at Crumpler. But this carries past aesthetics. “That everything is friendly and handy is in our design bible,” says Fioretti. And it shows; the Dusty Trail, for instance, has ten storage zones aimed at easy organisation for travel or commutes. Still, don’t let that fool you—this pack, and the whole range—is squarely designed for adventure.

For more info, go to: Crumpler.com

Dusty Trail 30L

Cliff Hanger

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Summer 2020 WILD

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GEAR

[ Gear Test ] OSPREY

Ace 38 Pack

Four days in the Warrumbungles put the Ace 38 through its paces

A fully-featured kids’ pack that’s actually comfortable.

K

ids are soft these days. Back in my day, if we got breakfast at all, it’d be nothing more than a bowl of poison. And it wouldn’t even be hot; it’d be cold poison. We then walked 15km to school, uphill all the way, lugging more than our body weight in schoolbooks. Eighteen hours later, we’d trudge home, again uphill all the way, now lugging twice our bodyweight loaded down with the 20 hours of nightly homework we had to do. And the packs we carried all the books in had straps made of barbed Pork Chops came Water bladder sleeve wire. Yeah, kids today are soft. for the ride I keep telling this to my sevenyear-old son Quincy, but he doesn’t believe me. But Osprey’s Ace series of kids’ packs are a case in point; there was nothing like this when I Suspended mesh back panel was young. And notwithstanding my slight exaggeration about barbed wire straps, even today the vast majority of kids’ The pack is light. It was the first adjective he packs seem like they’re hastily constructed afterused when I asked him for an adjective describthoughts, with inadequate hip belts (if they’re ing it. That said, it’s not flimsy. It feels sufficiently there at all), scant padding, little support, poor robust to see it get years of use, too. The base is a adjustability and few features. Not so Osprey’s 500-denier nylon, while main section is a 600D Ace 38L; although aimed for kids aged 5-11, it is nylon, which, by the way, is made from recycled a genuine, fully-featured, scaled-down version of plastic. Osprey is in the process of moving its all its Osprey’s adult packs. packs to having recycles source materials; the Ace Now Quin had got by in the past on overnightkids series, however, is the first in Osprey’s line to ers with just his school pack, but with him keen to make the move. try something longer, and with us deciding to head Also in the series are the Ace 50 and Ace 75. The up to NSW’s Warrumbungles for a four-day outing Ace 50 is recommended for kids aged 8-14, and we he needed a proper pack. There was an agenda on briefly considered getting it. I’m glad we didn’t. I my part, too; I actually wanted him to share some think it would have been too big. Firstly, I was surof the load. Given we had to go days without access prised at just how much we could fit into the Ace38; to water, my pack was going to be heavy enough even with as much weight as he could carry, there loaded with 10L-plus of water on top of food for both was plenty of room left. It’s also worth noting that, of us; every kilo Quin carried would save my back. in terms of the hip belt, we were bang on the limit About the pack itself: the features Quin and I of maximum tightness; had his waist been any narrespectively found the most impressive differed. rower, we couldn’t have gone any tighter. That said, For me, there were the features I’d expect to find if you’re young enough to max out the hip belt, you’re on my own packs: a padded hip belt that actually probably young enough you don’t want to be carworks; compression straps; daisy-chained gear rying a super heavy load that’s reliant on a hip belt. loops; a generous top lid compartment. Beyond this, It’s also worth noting that the Ace 50 does have a there was the adjustability; the torso length can be slightly different—and more adjustable—hip belt.

Need to Know adjusted by over 10cm as your young ‘un grows.

But really, much of what I’ve talked about thus Size: 38L Quin, however, wasn’t overly fussed by adjustabilfar was secondary; the Ace 38’s real value was the Intended age use: ity; the three features that most impressed him (the sheer excitement having his own ‘real’ pack. For 5-11yo first two being for reasons I can’t quite fathom) were weeks after getting it, he wandered around the the rain-cover, the water bladder sleeve, and the house with it on. And one Saturday morning, I arose Weight (as tested, w/o raincover): 1,209g whistle. Especially the whistle. (That one I get.) at 7AM to find him sitting on the couch watching Other features included three stretchy exterior cartoons with his pack donned. In short, perhaps Weight (raincover): 98g pockets (two on the side and one on the back), the more than anything, this pack makes him want to RRP: $199.95 largest of which had ample room for Quin’s favouget outdoors. As adults, it’s easy to forget just how More info: rite soft toy, a pig called Pork Chops, to come along darn thrilling your first pack is. Especially if it’s one Osprey.com for the ride. There was also a mesh backpanel of the rare ones that’s actually comfortable. allowing airflow to keep his back a little cooler.

James McCormack

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WILD Summer 2020

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GEAR

[ Brand Heritage ]

Arc’teryx

British Columbia’s Coast Mountains have seeped into the company’s DNA.

B

asements in Vancouver, British Columbia, aren’t necessarily places you want to be. The city is, well, to be blunt, wet. Actually, make it sodden. Averaging around 2,500mm of precipitation, being stuck under your house—especially if climbing is your passion—is few peoples’ idea of fun.

And it’s not like you want to be there when it’s dry in Vancouver either; the Coast Mountains—so proximate to the city, literally on its doorstep—are a climber’s (and a hiker’s and a skier’s) nirvana. There are few places in the world you want less to be stuck in a basement. Yet, in 1989, that’s exactly where Vancouverite Dave Lane was. Lane had become frustrated with what he saw as a lack of quality equipment available to climbers in BC. He set about changing that, starting by making climbing harnesses in his basement.

He called his fledgling company Rock Solid.

Word spread about his well-crafted harnesses; soon he had four sewing machines at work. Wanting to a partner to expand the business with, he teamed up with Jeremy Guard, another local climber but who also had financial expertise and design flair.

In 1991, they renamed the company Arc’teryx.

It was named for Archaeopteryx lithographica, a Jurassic Age creature that was the link between dinosaurs and their avian successors. The company’s first slogan explained the rationale: “Arc’teryx— Evolution Through Action”. With the pair wanting to implement technical progression into their equipment, they started, naturally enough, with climbing harnesses. Through trial and error, they tinkered with buckles until they perfected a technology that stopped webbing slippage and eliminated the need for retightening. The resultant Skaha buckle and harness received Climbing Magazine’s highest marks in its 1991 annual harness review.

It brought the young company validation, but the next harness innovation came not from climbing but mountain biking. Designer Mike Blenkarn, who’d later join Arc’teryx’s R+D, had tinkered in his workshop to mould a ‘yoke’ so that he could shoulder his mountain bike when the famed North Vancouver trails got so steep they couldn’t be ridden. When the Arc’teryx crew saw the yoke, it reminded them of something: a climbing harness’s leg loops.

Until that point, harnesses had been laid flat and sewn. But now Arc’teryx saw the possibility of thermomoulding to create far better harnesses; the problem was there were no precedents to follow. They began constructing prototypes by buying a second-hand pizza oven, some sheets of foam and then started baking. The process was tedious.

Temperatures, pressures, materials needed absolute precision; small adjustments meant new problems. Even once they’d sorted the baking, the plastic still needed to be moulded. But using what? In the end, they went to Ikea and bought a variable radius wastebasket. Presto! The Vapor Harness was born.

Thermomoulding was too good to restrict to harness production, however. Arc’teryx took the technology

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WILD Summer 2020

to backpack design, creating curved and cupped hipbelts that distributed loads comfortably, and shoulder straps that conformed to hikers’ bodies.

Later that year, the Bora pack was born. Backpacker Magazine gave it its Editor’s Choice Award.

In 1996, Jeremy Guard was climbing in the Tetons. He’d purchased a Arc’teryx’s product testing top-of-the-line jacket for lab: BC’s Coast Mountains the trip, but upon using it he knew immediately that, despite never having had produced a single jacket, Arc’teryx could do better. He assembled a team to work on creating one; it included Mike Blenkarn (the guy who’d inspired thermomoulding harnesses). At that time, GORETEX was still the clear leader when it came to waterproof/breathables, but they hadn’t issued any usage licences in years. Without permission to use GORETEX, Arc’teryx’s project wouldn’t succeed. It put real pressure on Jeremy Guard, who had everything riding on this. “If we didn’t get the Gore licence, it was a big problem. It was my house and my kids. That’s enough to really shake a man.”

In the ensuing meeting with Gore to discuss licensing, Arc’teryx took a, well, unexpected approach. Mike Blenkarn essentially told Gore their fabric wasn’t quite up to scratch. It needed tweaking, he said, and Arc’teryx was the company to do it. “They were shocked,” said Blenkarn. “No one had ever talked to them like that. We were David and they were Goliath.”

But Gore was impressed enough to take the punt; the rest, as they say, is history. Arc’teryx’s crew set to work, taking weight away, reducing seam tape, and applying adhesives. But arguably the biggest progression in their new jacket’s design came in part from Blenkarn being a Vancouverite. In other words, he was out in the wet—a lot. It led to his obsession with developing a watertight zip. Until then, zips were covered by bulky double-flaps. But Blenkarn had been tinkering with ideas for nearly a decade, and with Arc’teryx backing him, he came up with a design for a smooth-sliding, urethane-coated, flapless zipper. The resultant jackets revolutionised the industry.

Arc’teryx has gone on in the decades since to become one of the industry’s biggest players. But it’s still based in Vancouver, and its location there has remained one of Arc’teryx’s biggest influences.

In under an hour, you can be out of the company’s HQ and in the wild, rugged backcountry of the Coast Mountains. “There is no better proving ground,” says Dan Green, Arc’teryx’s VP of Design. “[The] terrain is big, it’s serious and there’s hardly anyone.

You can’t half-ass it.”

James McCormack

Dave Lane

Jeremy Guard

There is no better proving ground. [The] terrain is big, it’s serious and there’s hardly anyone.

You can’t halfass it."

Watertight zip

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[ Wild Shot ]

Dan McKenzie, AKA Batman, wondering if he’s stuck or just figured out some fancy new beta before settling in for a night in the Bat Cave. The plan was for a night climbing session and I had barely arrived when a stormy sunset lit up the cave walls, turning them a golden yellow. With Dan being the only person climbing, I quickly jugged up any available rope to capture the spectacle.

Blissfully unaware of Dan’s next moves, I painfully contorted my body in order to keep the camera aimed at him as my rope spun me in the opposite direction. “Click-clickclick.” I mashed the shutter three times and hoped for the best” Nathan McNeil, Bonogin, QLD

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WILD Summer 2020

Nathan wins an OSPREY TRANSPORTER 65 DUFFEL, valued at $199.95. Designed to be tied to yaks on faint footpaths, organising your gear library at home, or packing for the biggest trip of your life, the double coated TPU Nylon Transporter Duffel will take you there, and bring your gear back safe.

SEND US YOUR WILD SHOT TO WIN GREAT GEAR! For a chance to win some quality outdoor kit, send your WILD SHOT and a 50-100 word caption to contributor@wild.com.au

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