7 posts tagged “blue mountains”
It was Saturday. I wasn't really in the mood for a walk, but one of the other "exciting" things happening in my life right now is that the place I'm renting is for sale. There was going to be a viewing at 4 pm. I didn't really want to be around for that, and my car was temporarily out of commission, so I decided that I'd go for a walk into Sassafras Gully, one of the very nice places which I can reach on foot from where I live.
Soon enough time had passed that had I turned back, I would have definitely missed the real estate agent and prospective buyer. But I had just passed Clarinda Falls, which actually seemed like a real waterfall today and not a pathetic trickle over a cliff. I wanted to go further in. Because of the recent switch to daylight savings, I could walk for at least another ninety minutes before the sunset, and then there'd be some twilight before it got really dark.
Soon I was deep in Sassafras Gully, which is a rugged twisting valley. The floor of the gully is broad, and is a mess of hillocks and ridges, rainforest and creeks and ponds. I was thinking of this one lovely waterhole which was possibly half an hour away, which would be a good place to turn around. I heard a strange sound, could it have been somebody yelling or a crow or lyrebird? I stopped, waiting to hear if the noise repeated. Within a minute it did, it was definitely a person, but I couldn't understand what was being said. It repeated again, I decided to call out, "Hello?" Most of the time I am soft spoken, but my voice can be very loud when it needs to be. There was an immediate response - I thought I caught the word "lost" in there. I now had an idea where this person was, towards the top of a ridge off the track on my right. I wasn't going to be able to have any sort of conversation like this. I decided to leave the track so I could climb the ridge a little to see what was happening.
I did not do this lightly - when I walk, I never stray far from the track. Especially in a place like the Blue Mountains, where the twisting valleys and creeks make it really easy to lose one's sense of direction. I have heard more than one horror story of experienced walkers losing their way, and still being lost at nightfall. There are so many cliffs and ridges in the area, the Blue Mountains is definitely not a good place to be at night.
It was not easy going to reach halfway up the ridge where the voice came from, the vegetation was very thick and treacherous to walk on. But I made it and yelled out again, I could see a young man wave at me from the top of the ridge. He said that he'd been lost for seven hours and asked if I knew where the track was. I told him that it was 200 metres down the slope, and that I could show it to him.
So that's how I met Josh. He had started walking at 9 am, and had been planning on just walking for an hour. He hadn't even had breakfast, he had planned to get that in Springwood after this walk. But he left the track to get a different view of Clarinda Falls, and then got disoriented and then completely lost. At some point the panic must have set in and then he wouldn't have noticed the track even if he'd stumbled upon it. He had exhausted himself from seven hours of scrub bashing, and of course he didn't have any food or drink with him. Oh, and he hadn't told anyone where he'd gone. Josh had broken just about every single rule of safe bushwalking. I wasn't going to judge him too harshly, because I break a couple regularly - such as not walking alone - but I try to keep the most important ones.
I guided him back to the track. Early on, I still felt a little leery of this stranger, but he seemed genuine and as somebody said to me later, "muggers are lazy and are not likely to walk for two hours to a ridge in the middle of nowhere to find somebody." I could see how exhausted he was and there was no way that I could just leave him on the track to make his own way home. He wouldn't make it before nightfall and he'd get lost again. Luckily he was just exhausted and dehydrated and hadn't been injured. He was still able to walk, albeit slowly and with frequent rests.
On the way back, we came to a creek. Ordinarily I would be quite entranced, it was a lovely spot in the filtered late afternoon sun. Today it was a good place for Josh to have a drink. I've been warned off drinking from Blue Mountains creeks. Because all the population of the Blue Mountains is on the ridge top, it is not recommended to drink from the creeks in the valleys because run off from the developed areas. I mentioned this, but Josh decided to take this chances because he felt so dehhydrated.
I had a real effort to engage him in conversation during the long and slow walk out of Sassafras Gully, hoping to calm him down and distract him from his exhaustion. I found that we had a few things in common with me. He was new to Sydney, was originally from Hamilton in New Zealand but had spent a number of years living in Perth. He worked in IT and lived in Penrith, but was thinking of buying a place in Springwood. He was really into lawn bowls, and reckoned that I should think about getting involved in the Springwood bowls club.
Towards the end of the track, during one of the final really steep sections, Josh didn't think he could go any further. I told him to sit down, while I got some refreshments from the nearby petrol station - which was only 5 minutes walk away (for me). That did the trick. He made it to his car, sat down, paid me back for what I bought and we parted.
I don't know what would have happened to Josh if I hadn't been there to help him out. On the walk back, at one point we came across a place which he thought he'd been to several times while lost, yet it was on the track! I think that in his in panicked mental state, he would have almost zero chance of finding his way out before dark. So it's quite possible that I saved this person's life - or saved him from injury. It made me feel good about myself.
This morning everything seemed to be conspiring to make me a little late leaving the house. I'd forgotten my mobile phone, then my ultrasound referral, I've left a light on.
I ended up missing my normal train by a few minutes. Would I drive down to Blaxland at speed, hoping to overtake that train and board it there? Nah, I could't be arsed - especially when there was a good chance I wouldn't catch it by Blaxland anyways.
I resigned myself to waiting another 15 minutes at Faulconbridge and being 10 minutes late for work.
I was very surprised when an eastbound train approached when I'd been waiting on the platform for less than a minute, The stationmaster told me that was the train I'd thought I'd missed - it was running late. The train I had actually missed was the next one running early.
So now I'm on a pleasantly empty train. It's making good time as it skips the smaller stops as it tries make up lost time.
If I hadn't been running late, I would have been a crowded train having a fairly miserable journey. That's happening many times before. Today I managed to find the silver lining in today's train schedule fuckups.
What's the best way to spend a rainy day?
Submitted by Vee.
I would sleep in until the soft sound of rain entered my dreams. Once out of bed, I would brew a pot of tea, and open all the blinds and curtains, drinking my tea looking at the mist and rain. Occasionally I would glance at a newspaper (which somebody else had got from outside). Then I would go back to bed for another nap. If it was still raining after that, I would put on some old bushwalking/hiking clothes and my raincoat and go for a walk in a rainforest. It could be Sassafras Gully. I would breathe deeply the rich loamy scent which is the smell of a rainforest in the rain, and see the vivid wet colours and listen to the loud exuberant birds and the bubbling of the invigorated creek. I would not mind if I were saturated, because when I finished my walk, I would have a long hot bath with my bathroom window slightly open, letting in the sound of the rain and the occasional cool drop.
Today is my late shift, which means that I work from 11 am to 7 pm. On days like this I get to wake up a little after 7 am, which is nice. It's around the time I used to wake up before I moved to the Blue Mountains.
Just before leaving for work, I remembered that I needed to test some of the off-campus access to our databases. So I did that, even though it caused me to run a little late. I almost missed my train, but didn't, thanks to my running.
Anyway, the train ride is going smoothly until we hit the section between Glenbrook and Lapstone. This is one of the prettiest sections of the whole track, as it overlooks a beautiful gorge. On the downside, there's no mobile phone coverage there and the track is prone to rockfalls.
All of a sudden, the train stops. An unexplained stop for 5 minutes is nothing out of the ordinary. Soon 10 minutes have passed. Eventually the driver says something on the intercom, but the intercom is so garbled that it's only possible to understand one in every three words. Something about a problem with the track, something about returning to Springwood. Springwood? That's practically where I started. What would we do from there - catch a bus? Then I'd never get to work...
There is much more confusion and delays. There is little more information about the problem, something about a damaged track ahead, caused by a rockfall? Eventually, after sitting still for almost an hour, we start moving again, forwards. Apparently it's ok to continue. In the end I'm only 30 minutes late to work because in my original plan I was going to be getting in a little early.
Most of the time the rail system works well for me. I could not imagine driving all the way to work and back every day. But when there are problems with it, it really sucks.
I have a new toy. No, it's not a toy, it's a practical thing which
I've been needing for quite a while. Well, whatever it is, I'm happy so
far.
My life is blessed and cursed by the fact that I live in the
beautiful Blue Mountains and have a job which I like which is a two
hour trip away in Sydney.
Ever since I moved to the Blue Mountains and started this arduous 4
hour each day commute, my blogging and other writing has suffered. I
tried a paper journal, but discovered that I loathe transcribing my
messing handwriting in to plain old text. It just didn't work.
So I've got a new pda with a fold-up keyboard which enables me to
type during the hours that I'm sitting on a train. A laptop would have
been nice, but that was out of my budget plus I find that laptops can
be too bulky and nerve-wracking to carry around. Here's to drafting
blog posts and Vox posts and other writing on the train.
Listening to:
I had a good week with my parents. Things we did, in no apparent order:
- catch up with an elderly relative of my mother's in Springwood
- visit Tessa the Arabian horse
- go for walks in Sassafras Gully, Mount Blackheath and Olympian Rock in Leura
- visit the Norman Lindsey musuem/gallery in Faulconbridge
- go to Sydney and see the Museum of Contempory Art, have a hot chocolate from the Lindt shop, do shopping in the big Borders on Pitt St and the Queen Victoria Building
- go to the botanical gardens in Mount Tomah
- see the amazing views from Govett's Leap and Evan's Lookout
- watch season 1 of Blackbooks on dvd
I am so wanting to buy the Eraser right now, but I'm thinking twice about all purchases as I'm saving for my annual pilgrimage to the US to extend my green card and have a few expenses relating to outfitting a spare room for my parent's visit next week.
But I am generally happy. I am glad to be living in the Blue Mountains with lovely walks literally on my doorstep - and even better walks just a short drive away. During the lunch I can walk around campus, or go to Randwick or if I'm feeling particularly energetic, walk down to Coogee Beach.
It's a very interesting time for me - in my writing and blogging (particularly all the developments with lint during this past week), things happening at work and in my personal life.
