Bushwalking

Have you ever felt "This is not my forte, but how I wish it was!". Well! That about sums up my weekend in bush territory.

Bushwalking is a distinctive pastime of the fair-dinkum Aussie. Every weekend they would pack their gear (tents, sleeping bags, compass, maps, sunglasses, sun-block and a million other things stuffed in a Brobdingnagian bag), fuel up their 4WDs and disappear into one of those numerous 'National Parks' to have a good time Bushwalking.



To be 100 kms from the nearest civilization is not my idea of a 'good time'. However, a friend of mine advocated, rather glibly that we plunge into bushwalking and I buckled. It didn't sound too depressing and I was convinced it wouldn't hurt to try. So we packed our gear (borrowed it from a bushwalker), fuelled up my car (who said size mattered) and set-off to the bush for the weekend.

To be fair, it was an amazing experience. The drive was great till we entered the forest and then it became an almost celestial experience. On Saturday we climbed the “Pigeons House” – a trail up a rattling steep mountain. I am positive that no pigeon would build a house at such frightening heights, even if it could fly to it and not climb as we had to. Nevertheless, it was a marked trail and there were a few fellow-climbers and I was happy for it. I was more than exhausted by the ascent and ‘managed’ to complete it with ample (and immensely irritating) time-outs. My poor friend must have cussed himself for convincing me to join him. The denouement, alas! was less than happy – for the summit was closed to the public. Whoever said the “juice was worth the squeeze” - for all my huffing and puffing I couldn’t catch the view from the top. Sigh !

Camping that night was fun- with the knowledge that there was not a soul around for miles. Surprisingly sleep was forthcoming. Well! Not really surprising. If you walked up ‘Pigeons house’, you could sleep even in the center of Mt. Road. In the silence of the night, it was no struggle. The cold weather we were so anxious about didn’t mar the sleep (owing to our incredibly good gear).

Sunday was no less exciting with a fair few Kangaroos hopping out of the field of vision of my camera before I clicked (The cursed Kodak I have took a good 5 seconds from the time I switch it on to be in a position to click). Not to be beaten we drove to an obscure place by the sea where a lovely couple (of Kangaroos) basked in the morning sun and showed little resistance to our insistent clicking.



The Mt. Budawang that we intended to conquer that day didn’t want us to, I guess and it took us more than quite a while to find the hidden trial. In fact we were so lost driving with not an idea about where we were that I was afraid we had reached Peru when we came across Llamas in a farm. The scramble up Mt. Budawang was less eventful – for one I took less time-outs. Then, of course there was the fact that we were the only ones walking the trail.

My trusted Mazda warrants a mention here. In spite of being the car it is, it fared well. Quite well, I must say. In fact it was the heartening lesson of the trip. You may not be ‘built’ for it but it sure doesn’t connote that you cannot or should not attempt a particularly unsuitable task.

Anyway, as I began saying, there are some things in the world that you know are just not your métier but that doesn’t entail you can’t enjoy it once. Or twice. Or a few times.

p.s. Due to popular demand, am including the pictures in the blog (actually took me this long to figure out how to do it)