Wild West Therapy — Brett Michael Smith

Therapy is in the spots for the author.

WILD WEST THERAPY

Brett Michael Smith enjoys some Western Wilderness therapy.

Iwas lucky enough to get some fishing done this summer. University study, work and campaining had starved me of a few Western lakes trips of late. So, when I was lucky enough to get a day off, I called a mate with the same enthusiasm for a walk out west. The reaffirming phone call ensued the evening before the trip, a warning from him, that he prefers to cover a lot of ground in a day, opposite to myself who likes to take in the experience, sneak around and play a patient game. I usually preference overnight trips, to be able to stop and smell the roses so to speak. The agreed rendezvous at 3am and a terrible night’s sleep both awaited me. I don’t particularly like the feeling, but the following day is always worth the tiredness induced headache. Consequently, Panadol is always thrown into the day pack, just in case. Old mates meet in a driveway at 3am the next morning, via a face to face headlamp duel, one that temporarily blinds you when you try to be polite and look the other in the eye whilst both proclaiming how great it is that there is no wind. You both jump into the car, the smell of the wakeup coffee on the other’s breath is the most standout feature of the drive up to the carpark, as well as some of the nonsense spoken, perhaps some ongoing effects of the old condition known as the tired sillies, or the fact that we can act like kids again, talk smack like excited schoolboys heading to the lolly shop.

Walking in was a mixed bag of one foot in front of the other via torchlight, taking care not to break an ankle whilst trying to keep up with someone who takes one step to your three. As the faint pre-dawn light soaks up the remaining darkness of the night, the sound of the TWWHA waking up enlightened my soul once again, with birds singing their dawn ritual and the currawongs in the pencil pines letting us know that they are the sound of the Tasmanian highlands. I thought I’d enjoy the sounds much more without a headache, so I popped those pills. An hour along the way and the lakes were still there as I remembered from the previous season. In the overcast morning light, they looked like scalloped out silver basins below blue rolling hills, those glaciers did a marvellous job all those thousands of years ago I thought. We looked to each horizon in the hope of seeing clear blue skies, however the prevailing northerly front had other ideas, the best we could hope for were patches.

Being severely out of fish spotting practice, the intermittent cloud cover made the task of seeing fish difficult for me, not for my companion. Our partnership was best described in cricket terms, myself at one end whose edged a few through the slips and is seeing them like a golf ball, while the bloke up the other end was seeing them like basketballs and was about to raise the bat for a stellar innings. Consequently, sight fishing in the morning ended up consisting of my companion doing all the pointing, whilst I squinted in the general direction he pointed, nodded in agreeance