Behind Mt. Baldy (33 page)
Traffic was racing past at high
speed and with irritating frequency.
Roger didn’t like that. He
wrinkled his nose at the engine fumes and said, “Let’s keep going and find somewhere
nicer for lunch.”
The others agreed and stood up.
As they adjusted their gear Peter asked, “Which way?”
Graham pointed.
“Down to that bridge to the right.
That is the Barron River.
Just across that is a road going off on the left. We take that,” he replied.
It was 500 metres to the bridge
but in the five minutes it took them to walk the distance at least ten vehicles
roared past, buffeting them with wind, fumes and dust. The Barron River at this
point was barely ten paces wide and the banks were all choked with bushes,
lantana and weeds.
The boys had to wait for a truck
to pass before crossing the short bridge, then again for two cars before
crossing the highway and starting along the bitumen road heading west.
“Thank God for that! It’s a
relief to get away from all that traffic,” Roger said. The side road curved
left, then right. To their left was open pasture, on the right open timber, the
trees all magnificent white gums with wonderfully straight trunks. The road
also became straight. The bitumen gave way to gravel. Roger eyed it with
disfavour and lowered his head to look at his feet as he plodded along. A truck
rattled past from the other direction, grey dust billowing in its wake. This
set the boys sneezing and cursing.
“Ah
yuk
!”
Stephen snorted. “Are we going to stop soon?” He took off his glasses and wiped
off a film of dust.
Graham looked at his watch.
“Quarter to twelve. OK. We stop at the first shady spot we come to.”
Roger had a drink to wash grit
off his teeth. “I need to refill my water bottles soon,” he said. He started to
feel very thirsty and was aware his headache was coming back. It became an
effort to keep going now that the idea of stopping was fixed in his mind. He
drained the water bottle. Sweat stung his eyes. His boots felt heavier, his
feet very sore.
They boys passed another stand of
white gums. There were a few houses scattered in the open bush, just visible
over the high blady grass lining the verge. With each step they got closer to
the mountains until, at a bend with a road junction they reached the gentle
change of slope at their base. Here the road swung to North West and skirted
through open bush along the base of the mountain, the ugly scar of a gravel pit
on their left.
Just after they had rounded the
bend a car
came
racing up behind them. It took the
corner at high speed. Roger heard it and glanced back, yelled a warning to the
others; and stood transfixed. The car raced past, its tyres thrumming on the
corrugations.
It was a grey Mercedes!
With four men in it!
They wore white shirts and ties.
‘The driver was- don’t waste time looking at the driver! Look in the back. Too
late!
A thin man with grey hair and a moustache?’
“A grey Mercedes!” he cried,
watching it vanish around the bend ahead of them.
“The White
Falcon!
We must tell Inspector Sharpe!”
“Did you get the number of the
car?” Stephen cried.
Roger felt a flush of shame. “No.
I didn’t think of it. I was too surprised,” he replied in a crestfallen voice.
“It is heading towards Atherton,”
Graham added.
Roger began to walk as fast as he
could. “Quick! Let’s find a house with a telephone,” he said. He was so keen to
do this that he was oblivious to his aches and panting breath.
“Slow down Roger. You’ll keel
over from the heat. You’re all red in the face,” Graham said as he strode up
beside him.
Roger realized his heart was
beating very fast and that black dots were dancing before his eyes. He slowed
his pace and suddenly felt dizzy. He felt Graham grab his arm to steady him.
“Stop Roger!
Stop!”
Graham ordered.
Roger did as he was told, weakly
protesting. “But the White Falcon will get away!”
Stephen snorted.
“White Falcon!
Probably just the local Real Estate Agent
showing some prospective buyers a farm,” he commented.
Roger bit his lip. He felt silly and
ashamed of his weakness. He unscrewed the top of another water bottle and
drained it.
Graham nodded with approval.
“Drink some more. You look very flushed,” he ordered.
“Out of water,” Roger croaked.
Peter passed him a water bottle.
Roger had a mouthful and passed it back. “I’m OK now. I was just excited. Come
on. Let’s find a phone before they get away.”
“Relax. They will already be in
Atherton mate. By the time we find a phone they will be miles away. We will
just go on, nice and steady,” Graham replied.
They resumed their walk and in
five minutes a house came into view, a modern brick bungalow of the ‘5 Acre
block’ type. The boys went in and knocked. A grey haired lady cautiously
answered the door. When Graham removed his hat and politely asked if he could
phone the police she assented. He dropped his pack and webbing.
“You blokes stay here. I will do
the phoning.”
Roger met the lady’s gaze. “May
we fill our water bottles please?” he asked. He really wanted to be the one to
phone but accepted that Graham was the senior; and the lady wouldn’t want them
all trampling through her home in their sweaty uniforms.
While the lady led Graham inside
the others went to a tap to fill all the water bottles. Roger filled Graham’s
as well. He drank until he felt bloated, then refilled his own.
In five minutes Graham was back.
“The Inspector wasn’t there but they promised to pass on the message,” he
explained.
Roger felt a sharp disappointment
which he knew was unreasonable. But he felt better knowing the message had been
passed and after a drink and rest. He was perspiring freely again and realized
he must have been getting heat exhaustion. Heat exhaustion! In mid-winter on
the Tablelands! He looked up. Still not a cloud to be seen except for the few
blobs of cotton wool on the mountain tops to the west.
The boys thanked the lady and
walked back out onto the road.
“What about lunch?” Stephen
asked.
It was 12:40 Roger noted. Only a
hundred metres further on two dirt roads turned off on the left amongst a stand
of trees; one up the slope and the other through a gate to a house. At the
junction was a grassy area well shaded by the
eucalypts.
“This will do us,” Graham said.
“It’s not as private as I’d like though.”
“It’ll do. I’m starving,” Stephen
replied. He dropped his pack and the others did likewise. Roger sat on his pack
and rummaged in his webbing for food but he did not feel hungry. He decided on
a tin of peaches, some biscuits with apricot jam, and a cup of coffee.
“Boots off.
Air your feet,” Graham ordered.
Peter groaned. “But I will have
to move then,” he complained in an aggrieved tone.
“Why?”
“Because of the
stench from your gungy feet!”
“Bite your bum!”
They all laughed. Roger took off
his boots and socks and stretched his toes. It felt better at once. He examined
his feet and renewed one piece of sticking plaster but was pleased to note
there were no new blisters. Using a spoon he ate the peaches from the tin.
Already he felt much happier.
While sipping his coffee Roger
pulled out his maps and began to calculate how far they had walked.
Graham swallowed some food and
called, “How far do you make it Roger?”
“Eighteen kilometres,” Roger
replied. He felt proud of the achievement.
“That’s about what I reckon,”
Graham agreed.
“Nearly time to find a camp site then,”
Roger said.
“Another seven.
Let’s make it twenty five.”
Roger grimaced. “Till I can’t go
any more,” he temporized.
Peter sat up. “How far is it to
that tunnel?”
“Only six in a straight line,”
Graham replied.
Stephen leaned over to look at the
map. “Which way are we going? Up the railway or along the road?” he asked.
“The road is further,” Peter
said.
“By a lot.
Be all that awful traffic too,”
Roger replied.
“I vote we go up the railway,”
Graham said.
“Let’s wait and see what it is
like,” Stephen cautioned.
At 1:30pm they resumed their
march. Only a hundred metres further on the road crossed a small creek which
was flowing. It was only ankle deep but was crystal clear on a sandy bottom.
“Oh! I wish we’d known this creek
was here,” Peter said.
“Let’s stop and have a wash,”
Roger suggested.
Graham shook his head. “No. We’ve
only just started again and we’ve still got seven kilometres to go. Besides,
there are bound to be more creeks running off these mountains,” he vetoed.
The others grumbled but continued
walking. A large truck roared past powdering them with dust, followed soon
after by a car from the other direction. They passed more new houses of the
suburban type, crossed another creek and went up over a steep little spur which
reduced Roger to heavy panting.
Just over the crest they came to
the railway. They stopped and consulted their maps and studied the line. The
rails were rusty and the sleepers were grey from age and weather but there were
not many weeds. Another vehicle raced by along the road, throwing up more dust.
“The railway,” Graham said
emphatically. He started along it.
Luckily there was a footpath
beside the ballast which made walking easier. The line curved right in a gentle
climb along the side of the mountain.
Dry forest; a mixture
of dense stands of She-Oaks and more open areas of Eucalypts, closed in their
view.
The boys could only see along the line with occasional glimpses of
the mountains ahead.
As soon as they were away from
the road Roger felt a peculiar sense of isolation. The hairs on the back of his
neck stood on end and he had vivid flashbacks to that memorable hike down the
Kuranda Railway two years before.
Stephen spoke up. “Remember when
we walked down the railway from Kuranda?”
“Shut up Steve. I’m trying to
forget that,” Roger replied. He shivered and looked up the mountainside on his
left. It was just ordinary dry bush.
Nothing unusual.
Nothing to worry about.
But he still had the urge to keep
looking behind him and wished he wasn’t last.
MAP 2: HEBERTON
RANGE & MT. BALDY
For Roger the walk up the railway
became a test of willpower. He seemed to quickly tire and was soon walking in a
sort of zombie-like daze. Frequent trivial obstacles forced him to keep alert: fallen
rocks and clumps of tall grass or small washouts. From time to time the
footpath became so narrow they had to walk between the rails but this was
annoying as the sleepers were unevenly spaced which made it hard to settle into
a rhythm. The sleepers also varied. Some were flat and others rounded. Many
were half-rotted with crumbling interiors or had split and jagged surfaces.
The cadets crossed half a dozen
culverts and small bridges a few metres long but all the streams were dry. Bare
sand and bare rock began to predominate on the surrounding slopes, with
grass-tree and straggly, open bush. The railway curved into a small valley
where there was no breeze at all and the afternoon sun radiated from the
enfolding slopes as from a reflector fireplace.
At the head of this large
re-entrant was a larger bridge, ten metres long. The map showed the stream to
be Carrington Creek. Carrington Falls was the steep rock face on their left but
barely a trickle of unattractive slime was the only water flowing down it. The
disappointed boys stood on the bridge and looked gloomily at it.