It was five months later, in April 2023 when I was able to undertake a second attempt to visit the Fury River.
The route across Fury Gorge, similar to the line Hellyer and his men took in 1828. Spot the open buttongrass patch? Hasselblad 500CM, Portra 800, April 2023.
This time, I started from Cradle and allowed four days. The philosophy was the same; solo, no maps, no comms, just a compass, but this time, being late autumn, I opted to take a head torch due to the shorter days. I also took a different shelter this time, a Paddy made 'Golden Tan' canvas tent that was made about sixty years ago and originally belonged to Ian Boss-Walker, who wrote one of the first guides to the 'Reserve', titled 'Peaks and High Places'. This tent was probably not that different from the kind of tent Hellyer and his men would have used all those years ago.
The old paddy made tent. Hasselblad 500CM, Portra 800, April 2023.
It was a long day to reach Pencil Pine Bluff from the trailhead and I walked the last hour in the dark. The next morning I was standing on the edge of the precipice, looking into the abyss. The Fury River was down there, at the bottom, waiting for me. The scale of the landscape made me feel so small. In some ways, the most difficult part was to make the decision to descend. Some places we do not go because we want to go. Some places we go because we have to go.
Morning mist rising from Pencil Pine Bluff. Hasselblad 500CM, Portra 800, April 2023.
I opted for a direct spur heading straight for the only open buttongrass patch in the gorge I could see. As I descended, I traveled through time, from the deep past to the present. The top of the gorge contains rock that the river cut through millions of years ago. The bottom is freshly cut and still being shaped by the flow of the river.
About a third of the way down I entered a dry eucalypt tea-tree forest and was forced to skirt around quite a few cliff bands. The descent took about three hours in total. I lost 750m of elevation. About a hundred metres from the river, the vegetation turned to tangled rainforest. And then, there it was; the Fury River! I waded across without incident; the water came to just below my knees. I set up camp in a small buttongrass patch, with the walls of the gorge towering over me. I drank from the Fury River.
I felt like I was a very long way away from home.
The Fury River. Hasselblad 500CM, Portra 800, April 2023.