I went hiking in Mt. Barney National Park today, with two old university friends. We live in Brisbane – a city not famous for being amazing in itself, but for being close to lots of amazing things – and we’ve decided to begin cultivating a love and appreciation for as many of those things as possible.
Starting with hikes and camp sites.
Our mission was to get to the Lower Portals (a gorge-like site with rock pools and wallabies) which we did, albeit a little late, as we’d accidentally climbed up part of the more difficult and unmarked South Ridge; giving us the time to have lunch, and me the time to bump my head on a flyaway branch while jumping rocks and contemplating the life of Steve Jobs.
We stayed several hours and were swimming in the pool formed at the base of several smooth, sheer granite blocks, when our mate was stung by the still kicking stinger of a recently drowned bee while attempting to scramble up a small, slippery boulder. As he had been allergic to bees last time he’d checked (20 years ago: aged 5), we freaked out sufficiently enough to realise that help was an hour’s hike away and none of the party had an EpiPen, nor knew anything about dealing with allergic reactions. And so, breathing quickly, we skidaddled outta that pool and hopped our way over the rocks and back to the path. Luckily within ten minutes, it became clear that nothing was swelling, colouring or tightening; but by that time a bank of clouds which had been threatening to rain on our parade did finally start to look more menacing that we wanted. And so we headed back up the hill, piled into the car and began to drive out.
Back on the road, celebrating the fact that our friend had not carked it due to anaphylactic shock, and realising that we needed a warm up to counteract the freezing effects of the wet boots we’d suffered from a rock pool mishap or two, we decided to head to a roadside joint for coffee.
But first, the now-broken sky gave us a visual treat. It was looking decidedly grey and disgruntled at this point and soon took a big enough breath to begin splattering the landscape with fat, cold raindrops. Huddled into my seat, I settled back to watch the spectacle of the skies over the green plains, dotted with gums.
The sky at the horizon took on a ominously blackish shade, like disagreement settling over someone’s face, surging up from behind a hill in front of us and lighting its profile against the twilight sky, creating a play of dark grey, moss green, brilliant, fluorescent green, silver sky and the slim, black trunks of gums sliding up and down the hill’s slanted sides.
Gaped at it.
Happy.
