Ever since I got pissed on from great heights in Kosciuszko NP, where 25mm of rain dropped when the BOM said a max of 4.5mm, I have been advocating for a Royal Commission into the governance, accuracy, and cost/benefit of the Bureau of so-called Meteorology. Once more I call for such a Commission. The forecast for both Cairns and Innisfail said that the rain would be either negligible or nonexistent. They were wrong.
After a period of unemployment (by choice I stress to add, just not my choice), I got a job, and to celebrate/commiserate my return to societal contribution I decided to get one more mountain. Who would know when I next had a good shot at one. In reality it was the encouragement of the Polevault Princess which really made me consider and look into the possibility of seeking revenge against Mt Bartle Frere. To say I had a score to settle against this mountain would be an understatement, I had been well and truly beaten by this mountain, and being a rather competitive personality (I’m working on it, promise), I don’t take being beaten very well. My first attempt gave my mother great joy as she got to say ‘I told you so’ for two different reasons, the summer rain in Cairns, and the leeches, both of which I underestimated.
There was no other mountain that I could get to, logistically, before I started my job, so it had to be Bartle Frere. The price was right, the weather was right, despite my mother telling me that ‘Queensland rain is different to Canberra rain’ and the time was adequate. I have come to take my parent’s advice with a grain of salt as they also said that I wouldn’t be able to climb Mt Bogong or even get to Mt Woodroffe.
I can handle unemployment, but it always seems to be in winter, where hiking is useless because the sun goes down at 5:30pm and it freezes you to your bones, there isn’t very good hiking to be had. The solution? Go to Cairns.
As with all my State 8 attempts I started a little later than expected, getting down the Bruce Highway and starting at 7:55. The hike is just as hard as it was last time, but I was making good time until the rain started. Ok, not too bad, I can handle this. But in true Queensland style, the rain only continued and got harder. I’m sure the BOM was watching me and changing the weather like in Hunger Games, and when they are appointed I’m sure the new Director of the BOM will have a ridiculous beard like Wes Bentley. And if that is so, we need another Royal Commission into their ridiculous beard.
As the track started to flood, and the leeches started to attach I approached the area where I had to turn back last time. The track is pretty easy until you get to the river crossing. The river crossing was where I ran into some problems. The track ducks down to the river early so you can sit on a rock and pick all the leeches off (I can’t remember if i made it to the river the first time, I think I may have). I thought that it was at this point the track crossed the river. I saw a rough track straight up on the other side of the river, and there was no other point at which you could cross the river and no continuing path where I came from.
I was aware that the track crossed the river and that it started getting steep right after that, so balls to the wall, I crossed the river and walked/climed up the vertical rough track. I suppose if it hadn’t been raining this would have been a small, frustrating, but harmless mistake. As it had been raining the ground shifted underneath me and only just managed to cling to a branch to stop a 4 or 5m fall, back into the river. And a similar but possibly more dangerous fall when a tree I was using as balance to make a lunge for a stable area broke at the base and left me on the ground clutching at a stronger branch, with gravity again attempting to pull me back down into the river. ‘Well this is either fucking dangerous or not the track’ methought and went back across the river.
Occums Razor the track didn’t end and I was back on the track as it crossed the river quite safely 20m up the track. I often hike alone so I don’t really have a sounding board to discuss my stupid plans with and the mind does silly things.
There is a theory that time always goes faster on the way back rather than the way to your destination, that goes for travelling, exercising, and HI sets at training. However for this hike it was the opposite as I pointed my head upwards and kept slugging up the track passing the 4, 5 and 6k markers in quick succession. I was getting rather cold as the rain had stopped, but kept coming down from the rainforest canopy and the wind picked up cold across the top of the range. Don’t get me wrong, it was a tough slug, but it didn’t take as long as I thought it would. As there was mobile reception getting up my dearest was sending me inspirational gifs as I got up to the treeline.
I was less than overwhelmed once I got up to a point where you could see past/over the trees and it was a brilliant grey. As I said to my sister, you need to travel 2500km to see this quality of grey, who replied that she had to travel to New Zealand to see that kind of grey, so I should enjoy the privilege. Point taken. I stopped at the emergency shelter for lunch and was quite surprised to find someone there, as there were no other cars at the carpark and nobody had passed me I asked if they had camped or come from the western approach, nope. They were from Newy and we chatted a little while we both had a bite to eat and sorted out leech bites. He was wearing shorts and still had less of the cowards on him than I had. He pointed out a leech on my neck just below my adam’s apple which then bled badly which gave me a few good snaps up the top. Interestingly he too had attempted to hike Bartle Frere before too, and had failed, in vastly different circumstances to me. I joked as I left that I might catch up to him on the way down.
The distance from the emergency hut to the summit is 1km, but it requires boulder hopping as there is no way to circle around the boulder field to the summit, due to the rain the boulder field was quite treacherous, and it was exceedingly cold, it was probably around 10 or 15, but with a freezing cold, and heavy wind, mist rushing over the top of the mountain, and a soaked shirt (I had left my jacket in the hut to see if it would dry out a little) it was probably an apparent temperature of 5 or 6, and I don’t exaggerate, I’m rather experienced in cold weather. I don’t expect to be believed, but there was definitely snow or sleet during that last jump to the top. The rocks were slippery and required negotiation to get over, but with all that completed it is just a bit more on a very swampy track to get to the top. No cairn or notebook to be seen, just a sign saying ‘you’re at the top’. No mind, I sang Jerusalem (surprisingly well I may add) and took a few snaps of my bleeding neck and jumped back down. I got to the top just before 12:30pm, so 4:30 to the summit, but slower than I would have liked, but no biggie, I figured that the screw up on the other side of the creek and chat to old mate probably cost 30+ minutes, I was hoping to make it in less than nine, so we were on track.
The hike back was a tough slog, and seemed to take a long time, from 6 to 5 I thought ‘well that was a long k, hope the next is a bit easier’ but at the end of 5 to 4 i thought ‘that was a long slog’ etc. I stopped at the creek to again scrape off leeches, and got most of them, I also drank a bit of the creek water, but had been raining and I haven’t died of dysentery yet, fingers crossed.
After the creek crossing, getting toward 2pm, around 300 odd metres past the crossing, I heard some people coming up, I assumed that they were going to the lookout that is away to the left as you go right across the creek. As they approached I noticed that they were either very fit or patently unprepared. There were four of them, all younger than me, wearing shorts and t-shirts and not carrying any backpacks, one had an american accent. ‘Hey guys’ I said as I passed them, ‘oh hey, umm, how far to the lookout?’ ‘geez dunno, I’ve come from the summit, but the turn off can’t be more than a few hundred metres, 500 at the most.’ ‘oh thanks, another question, can you drink the water? It looks pretty clean.’ ‘well I just did, and I haven’t died yet.’ At this point I immediately grouped them into the unprepared category. ‘Ha ha, cool, how long to the summit?’ ‘umm…’ ‘yeah a guy in front of you said about four hours.’ ‘yeah, it’d be around that or a bit more, you can’t go up there this late.’ ‘oh ok, thanks.’ As I walked away I was reminded that, generally, people who get lost and injured and find themselves in dangerous situations fall into two categories, people who are prepared, skilled, knowledgeable and unlucky, and people who are stupid and do stupid things. I hope I never fall into the later category.
As I was coming down I did catch up with old mate, and felt like a bit of a chat, so I asked if he had put the fear of god into the kids walking up. ‘Oh yeah, they were pretty set on going up to the summit.’ ‘you’re joking right?’ I asked in disbelief. ‘Oh no, they were asking how long it would take and where the track went.’ ‘Oh, christ, people tease me about how meticulous I am in planning, but every time you read more about a hike is one less thing that can take you by surprise up here, you need to know what to expect.’ I walked a little slow and chatted with him for the last k and a half. We chatted hiking and climbing. When we finished he immediately veered off to the right and said bye, so maybe he didn’t want to chat and I was annoying him. I knocked off the final 3.5k in pretty quick time, as that part of the track is pretty easy and finished around 4, smashing my nine hour goal. I went over to josephine falls and considered having a swim, but I had a brewery calling.
It was a long and dirty drive to MacAlister Brewing Company which had a lovely location, lovely beer and lovely people, I couldn’t quite get a read on the guy I was chatting with, but he seemed nice enough. The beer was damn good.
The next day I went up to Port Douglas and Mossman Gorge, stopped for a swim on the way back which was the nicest part of my day. The next day I left and everything was going great and we boarded on time until they found out that the plane was broken and we wouldn’t be flying out until a different plane had been found. Because of that I missed my haircut in Sydney. I hope you can live with that on your conscience, Jetstar. It’s not too bad because it meant I wasn’t stressing getting to my doctors appointment in the city (which was also late…) and I still managed to get a haircut, and a pizza from Lucio Pizzeria and a four pack of Wayward beer to wait for the gang to join me later that night.
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