Charging all batteries- A Comedy of Errors

Things don’t always go how we expect them to go.

The arch at Stackys Bight, Flinders Island, Pentax MX, Portra 800, Jan 2024.

I was so convinced that my final week of preparation in the lead up to my trip to New Zealand would be relaxed, leisurely. For once, the few days leading up to a big trip would not be a stressful bottleneck that left me wishing I was in the jaws of a giant anaconda instead. For once, things would go to plan and there would be no rush, no chaos, no dramas.

But it doesn’t take much to go from being in a state of total control to total chaos. In the space of 48 hours, I had stuffed up a big bank transfer, then my car broke down, and then my bike I was planning to take to NZ was also out of action. Stress, panic, chaos!

And here I thought I’d be spending my final week before my bike touring trip to New Zealand sipping hot chocolates, resting and catching up with my friends. Instead my entire week became a divine comedy of errors, and the cruisy week I anticipated became the opposite.

Instead of building my reserves, I had lost two kilos by the end of the week. But the main thing was accomplished; my bike was fixed, and then it was in a box, ready to fly. I even managed to charge all of my batteries. My car was still at the mechanic and I would have to call the ATO from New Zealand, but they are minor details in the scheme of the big picture.

Castle rock, but I think it should be called happy whale rock. Flinders Island. Pentax MX, Portra 800, Jan 2024.

All of these little hiccups were exactly that, minuscule mistakes, errors that a reasonable level of resourcefulness and a bit of help from your friends can sort out. My housemate Kelsey has my eternal gratitude for lending me her van while my car was broken down so I could go to work, and also for driving me to the airport at the completely unreasonable hour of 3:40AM on Easter Monday.

And so I stepped on a plane to fly to New Zealand. My bike was coming with me and I had two months to cycle from Queenstown to Auckland. My plan? Cycle the least direct route possible.

-A.S. - Te Anau, NZ, 6/4/24

Marshall Bay, Flinders Island. Pentax MX, Portra 800, Jan 2024.

Mending the broken helmet

“A reanimated world is one in which spirit and matter are not just equally regarded but recognized as mutually dependent. The great task of this late modern era is thus to bring together what the spiritual preoccupations of the old world and the material focus of the new world have torn apart. The psyche shows us this dependency whenever a person or group attempts to embrace one without the other, in the way the neglected side begins to rule the unconscious… But the earth process itself suggests we rediscover nature as spirit as well as understand it as matter — nature as presence, intelligence, and root source of inspiration and imagination… Both mind and earth are calling for perspectives capable of marrying these dimensions of reality.” - Carl Jung

Western Arthurs skyline, Pentax MX, 50mm, Portra 800. Feb 2024.

Misty morning in the Arthurs. Pentax MX, 50mm, Portra 800. Feb 2024.

Swirling mist. Pentax MX, 50mm, Portra 800. Feb 2024.

Ship without a mast...

“And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.”

-The Painted Drum, Louise Erdrich.

Banksia Marginata, SW Conservation Area. Hasselblad 500CM, Planar 80mm, f11/30. Ektar 100.

Lewis Plains, SW Conservation Area. Hasselblad 500CM, Sonnar 150mm, f11/15, Portra 400.

Huon Pine, Conder River. Hasselblad 500CM, f11/4 - 80mm Planar, f11/8 Sonnar 150mm, Portra 400.

Along the old road to the lighthouse...

“The greatest enemy of authority is defiance, and the surest way to undermine it is laughter.”

-Hannah Arendt

Gorge, SW Conservation Area, f16/125, Ektar 100, Hasselblad 500CM, 80mm Planar, Dec 2023.

Burnt buttongrass. SW Conservation Area, f8/250, Ektar 100, Hasselblad 500CM, 80mm Planar, Dec 2023.

D’Aguilar Range, f11/60, Ektar 100, Hasselblad 500CM, 80mm Planar, Dec 2023.

The Way of Dragons

“All that is of dragons belongs only to dragons.” -Robin Hobb

The Arena, Hasselblad 500CM, Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm, f8/30, Ektar 100, Nov 2023.

Mt Robinson. Hasselblad 500CM, Carl Zeiss Sonnar 150mm, f11/60, Ektar 100, Nov 2023.

Late light in the SW. Hasselblad 500CM, Carl Zeiss Sonnar 150mm, f11/15, Ektar 100, Nov 2023.

The narrowing path

“And the truth is that as a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do…”

-Ursula K Le Guin, The Books of Earthsea

Only one way to go. Hasselblad 500CM, Carl Zeiss Sonnar 150mm, f5.6/125, Ektar 100, Nov 2023.

The Arena, Hasselblad 500CM, Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm, f8/60 Ektar 100, Nov 2023.

Cliffs. Hasselblad 500CM, Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm, f8/125, Ektar 100, Nov 2023.

Grayscale

People come, people go,

The rock stands still,

Though the wind may blow.

-A.S. 21/01/2024, Lenah Valley

GB. Nov 2023. Hasselblad 500CM, Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm, Ilford Panf 50+, f11/30.

The Den, Nov 2023. Hasselblad 500CM, Carl Zeiss Sonnar 150mm, Ilford Panf 50+, f5.6/125.

Summit Stones, Nov 2023. Hasselblad 500CM, Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm, Ilford Panf 50+, f11/4.

Fury Gorge, The Call of the Abyss: Part IX The Return

When we are in the bottom of an abyss, we are already past the halfway mark. Even though the bulk of the labour is still ahead of us, there is no decision to be made. We must climb up and extricate ourselves. There is no choice, if we wish to return.

The paddy made tent on Little Plateau. April 2023, Hasselblad 500 CM, Ektar 100.

I started early the next morning. I climbed through a mixture of tangled rainforest and tea trees. In three hours, I gained about one kilometre of horizontal and about four hundred metres of vertical distance. I followed the ridge NE for another hour, and that brought me to a high point, with an open buttongrass lead in front of me.

As the view slowly opened up around me, I was able to appreciate the dramatic nature of the landscape I was in. The western end of the Cradle Plateau terminates in the gorge of Sutton's Creek, which rivals Fury Gorge in steepness and scale. I saw crumbling scree slopes of quartzite, and thick rainforest with patches of the golden fagus cloaking the precipitous slopes dropping down to the river.

The unfortunate turn of events for Hellyer and his men was that after they climbed out of Fury Gorge, they descended to the gorge of Sutton's Creek. I imagine they didn't realise that the plateau they were on connected to Cradle Mountain or the depth of the snow was too great for them to make progress through it and they were forced to descend again. Camping down the bottom of Sutton's Creek was the low point of their expedition. 'It now became a serious question whether we should extricate ourselves at all...'. The next day, Hellyer's party crossed a creek that was swollen by the snowmelt and he noted: 'a torrent that made us start, its fury was beyond anything we could conceive of water'. Perhaps it is from this reference that the Fury River got its name?

The old paddy made tent. April 2023, Hasselblad 500CM, Delta 100.

It was the 21st of November, 1828, the day they all thought they would perish. Instead, Hellyer and his men climbed out of Sutton's Creek, crossed Hounslow Heath and reached the more sheltered Cradle Valley. 'We felt we were in the land of the living once more... In fact it was an escape from a snow prison.'

For me, it was the 25th of April, 2023. The weather was fine, and I had no intention to descend to Sutton's Creek. I was knackered, running low on water and I hoped I was going the right way. I was still on an unknown ridge to me and unable to see where it was leading me. The open buttongrass had turned to tea tree thickets, and I was making excruciatingly slow progress.

Eventually, I reached a rocky high point. I had been climbing for seven hours. It was here that the view fully unfolded around me. And I finally sighted that the little finger of plateau I was on connected to the Cradle massif. I wouldn't have to descend to Sutton's Creek. Relief washed over me. I had climbed out of Fury Gorge!

I took one last look down, and said goodbye to my old friend.

It will be some time before I visit the Fury River again.

The Fury Valley, from Little Plateau. April 2023, Hasselblad 500 CM, Portra 800.

Fury Gorge, The Call of the Abyss, Part VIII: The Fury River

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.

Fury Gorge-The Call of the Abyss: Part VII: The Snowstorm

“It now became a serious question whether we should extricate ourselves at all and we determined to start very early tomorrow and have a long day before us.” -Henry Hellyer, 20th November, 1828.

Due to the blizzard, I had made the decision to leg it out of Pencil Pine Bluff on the 21st of November 2022; to abandon the idea of descending into Fury Gorge and to exit along the most efficient route possible. Better to abandon the objective of my trip and to make it out than stick with the objective and not make it out at all.

Barn Bluff during one of the short breaks in the weather. Pentax MX, Ektar 100, Nov 2022.

From Pencil Pine bluff, I headed South; summited Mt Inglis without trouble, but started descending on the wrong spur, back towards Granite Tor. I caught my mistake in time and backtracked to the summit. After Inglis, following the Fury-Divide proved tedious with some bands of snow laden scrub that soaked me to the skin.

After a solid five hour march, I had made it to the base of the cliffs high up on Barn Bluff. I was wading through knee deep snowdrifts on the scree slope, the wind howling past me in a roar, knocking me off my feet in places. I had to move as fast as I could to stay warm, despite wearing my full blizzard kit. It was tricky keeping balanced on the snow covered boulders, but I couldn't slow down. I had to keep moving as fast as I could. I felt the mountain challenge my right of passage that day. It was a test I passed, but only barely.

I eventually picked up the SE ridge and started descending. I left the promise of a snowy death behind me with the cliffs of Barn Bluff as they disappeared in the mist. I got to Waterfall Valley in a bit of a state, entered the public hut, found it empty and positively warm. I checked the temperature gauge and saw it read seven degrees Celsius. It was strange to transition from a state of great peril to perfect safety in such a short time.

It snowed steadily all through that night. A number of saturated walkers arrived around 6pm, who had walked in from Ronnie Creek. I thought I would have a reasonably easy day to walk out.

Benson’s Peak from the OT. Pentax MX, Ektar 100, Nov 2022.

The next day brought the most tempestuous conditions I have ever seen on the Cradle Plateau. Even on the well formed Overland Track, I was struggling to cover ground among waist deep snow drifts, a howling westerly and a saturating drizzle that soaked me to the skin within half an hour. I met three hikers at Kitchen Hut who had spent the night there and were likely to spend another night before walking out because they were too scared to leave. Later that day there was a helivac from near Windermere further down the OT, where two wilderness guides saved the life of a public walker who had succumbed to hypothermia.

I shuddered to think what would have happened to me had I descended to the Fury River the previous day. Attempting to climb out of the gorge, only to end up having to traverse the exposed Little Plateau in the deep, wet snow would have been nothing short of suicidal. I was content with my decision to abandon the objective of my trip, for the primary objective always trumps all others, and that is to return alive.

On the tenth day of my trip, on the 22nd of November, I reached Cradle Valley around lunch time. I drove back to Hobart via Burnie, as the wind had brought down a telegraph pole across the road at Wilmot. I had made it out in the nick of time. But the call of the abyss had not been subdued.

I knew I would have to do another trip, to visit the Fury River.

Honeymoon Island. Pentax MX, Ektar 100, Nov 2022.

To be continued…