Dorothy ButlerThe Barefoot Bushwalker

1911 - 2008

THIS TRIBUTE TO

DOROTHY BUTLER

HAS BEEN COLLECTED OVER

MANY YEARS AND CONTAINS

ALL STORIES SHE WROTE FOR

“THE BUSHWALKER”MAGAZINE/NEWSLETTER SINCE

1934.SHE DIED IN FRANKLIN

TASMANIA WHILE LIVING WITH

HER DAUGHTER RONA.

Dorothy Butler hasencouraged many

Australians, who, withouther leadership

encouragement and senseof adventure, would never

have ventured into thebush, to explore and climb.In 1988 Dot was awarded

the AustralianGeographic’s Award of

Excellence.The stories in this issue

appeared in The Sydney Bush Walker Annual and TheBushwalker Annual over a number of years. Her book "TheBarefoot Bushwalker" should be read by all bushwalkers.

CONTENTSDOROTHY BUTLER THE BAREFOOT BUSHWALKER 1911 - 2008 ............... 4

THE ROCKS ARE HER FRIENDS ............................................................... 7

THE FIRST ASCENT OF BELOURGERY

SPLIT ROCK** - WARRUMBUNGLES ...................................................... 11

FREE GASTRONOMICAL JOYS .................................................................. 19

A GLORIOUS FAILURE ........................................................................... 20

THE UNCONQUERED HEIGHTS OF ............................................................ 20

ARETHUSA FALLS .................................................................................. 20

TO THE HIGH HILLS. ............................................................................ 26

GOOD CLIMBING ................................................................................... 29

MOUNTAIN MEMORIES. ......................................................................... 33

DECEMBER IN THE GRAMPIANS ............................................................. 37

A WINTER HOLIDAY IN TASMANIA ....................................................... 44

DOROTHY BUTLER(1911-2008 )Bush walker, Mountaineer and Conservationist1911 Born in Sydney1916-1921 Primary education, mainly at Homebush School1922-1926 Attended Sydney Girls High School1927 Attended Stott and Hoare’s Business College; joined Bondi Icebergs andBondi Beach Acrobatic Team*1931 Joined the Sydney Bush Walkers Club1933-35 Completed physiotherapy course under auspices of Australian Mas-sageAssociation at Sydney University1936 First to climb **Belourgy Spire in the Warrumbungles1937 Climbed in New Zealand1939 Worked at Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children and its CollaroyRehabilitation Centre during the polio epidemic1939-1941 Worked and climbed in New Zealand. Became a mountain guide1943 Married bush walker and economist Ira Butler. They had 4 children1956 Established the Australian branch of the New Zealand Alpine Club1962 Member of Bushwalkers Search and Rescue1969 Organized the Australian Andean Expedition to Peru1969-1970 Climbed, cycled, walked in Peru, United Kingdom, Russia, Germany,Spain, Nepal, Cambodia1970 Started fund for victims of the Peruvian earthquake. It ran for 20 years1972 Climbed in Switzerland and Norway1973 Husband, Ira, died of a heart attack1977 Visited Galapagos Islands as field assistant to her son-in-law1988 Awarded Australian Geographic Society’s Gold Medallion for‘Adventurer of the Year’1991 Autobiography The barefoot bush walker published by ABC Books2004 Living in a nursing home in Franklin, Tasmania, where her daughter Ronaand family live*According to SBW records she joined on the4th November 1932** Now know as Crater Bluff.

Dorothy Butler was the fourth offive children of Isadora (Goff) andFrank Alfred English, a travelingsalesman in pharmaceutical productswho was seldom home and haddisappeared by the time Dorothy waseleven. He taught his young childrenthe Greek alphabet, and consideredDorothy to be the best of the brood. Theirmother developed their love of litera-ture and poetry. The children wereencouraged them to fend for them-selves and solve their own problems.

Shortly after her birth, when thefamily moved to Brisbane, Dorothyfirst showed her flair for the originaland unconventional when sufferingfrom measles (an infectious disease)she was smuggled aboard the shipdisguised as a brown paper parcel!

No gender distinctions were madein her family, which enabled Dorothy,an inveterate tomboy from an earlyage, to join her brothers in theirextensive explorations of each newsuburb during the family’s frequentmoves. These numerous excursionsdeveloped in Dorothy a keen sense ofadventure and a passionate love ofnature which moulded the rest of herlife. At school she was a clever studentand talented in all fields of sport.

With money earned in her first jobas a stenographer, Dorothy, whonever saw being a woman as anobstacle to any undertaking, cycledaround Tasmania on her own, bare-foot and wearing shorts. Immune tothe stares of the locals, she was very

surprised when it was suggested thatshe put on long pants (if she had noskirt), or a cop would pull her up!Throughout her life she alwayswalked, climbed and cycled barefootand wearing only shorts and shirtwhenever possible. She celebrated her21st birthday by cycling to MtKosciusko, camping out on the way.

In 1931 she was one of the firstwomen to join the Sydney BushWalkers, where she became a memberof the first high-powered bushwalkinggroup called ‘The Tigers’, a titleearned after an epic 3 day walk of 75miles, climbing 9000 feet in theunmapped and trackless Blue Moun-tains. The Tigers, with their frequentfar-ranging walks, were able toprovide Miles Dunphy (the ‘father’ ofbushwalking and conservation) withinvaluable information for the map ofthe Blue Mountains he was making.She was also a regular "Bondi Iceberg"

Through their association with theClub, Dorothy and Marie Byles (SeeFact File) became lifelong friends.Marie was an experienced mountain-eer, having climbed in New Zealand,Scotland, Canada and Norway andwith Dorothy, formed part of the firstgroup to climb the WarrumbunglesCrater Bluff in 1936.

*Dorothy also founded and editedthe Sydney Bush Walkers Magazine towhich she was a significant contribu-tor. She wrote with humour andwarmth, and often ended her contri-butions with a poem of her own.

A climbing trip to New Zealand in1937 began a love affair with itsmagnificent mountains which lastedfor rest of her life. Dorothy wasaccepted as a member of the prestig-ious New Zealand Alpine Club, andin 1956 was instrumental in gainingpermission for an Australian Section.Having worked as a mountain guidein the Mt Cook National Park,Dorothy trained members in moun-taineering, climbing, river crossingand safety, and, each Christmas forthe next 25 years took a group to NewZealand for an adventurous andrapturous (for Dorothy at least!) 6weeks in the mountains! By 1968 theclub had a pool of very competentclimbers so she organised an expedi-tion to the Andes in Peru, where thegroup spent 3 months climbing andwinning the trust and friendship ofthe villagers. After a severe earthquakein the region in 1970, Dorothy set upand administered a permanent relieffund which was still providing money20 years later.

Dorothy was undeterred by thearrivals of 4 children, who began theirbushwalking careers as babies andgrew up to be as self reliant andadventurous as their mother, sharingher passionate love of nature.

As an early conservationist in the1930’s she helped set up the RangersLeague to develop public awarenessand promote protection of nativeplants, birds and animals, and wasinvolved in setting up VolunteerBushfire Brigades. She worked for the

Sydney Bush Walkers’ many conser-vation projects which resulted in thecreation of various Reserves for PublicRecreation. She assisted her friendMarie Byles in having Bouddi offi-cially declared a National Park, andworked with the Colong Committee(the oldest National WildernessSociety in Australia) in the Save theRainforest Campaign and the creationof the Blue Mountains National Park.Over many years she has been in-volved with Lake Pedder in Tasmania,the Daintree, Kakadu and the MyallLakes National Park.

With her infectious enthusiasm forlife, Dorothy Butler has never failed tolive up to her motto: Energy begetsenergy and in doing so has shown thatwith self confidence and courage thereis nothing that a woman cannot do.

Sources

Sydney Bush Walkers Club Maga-zine, 1930-to date

Butler, D Two years with the SydneyBush Walkers 1955-56

Butler, D The barefoot bush walker(autobiography) Australian Broad-casting Commission 1991

Manuscripts in the Records of theSydney Bush Walkers Collection 1930-2000 Mitchell Library Sydney

Direct communication with RonaPettigrew, her daughter

© Jessie Street National Women’sLibrary (August 2004)

* No mention of Dot’s name either in the bodyof Magazine or in the editorial section ofmagazine can be found. Dot joined SBW in1932 a few years after the mag was born.

THE ROCKS ARE HER

FRIENDS

IT'S not often you meet somebodymuch older with whom you feel aninstant rapport. But that's how it waswhen I first met Dot Butler, who is 30years my senior, yet now, at the age of77, stronger and fitter than I am, andAG's 1988 Adventurer of the Year.

That meeting was five years ago ather home in the treelined suburb ofWahroonga, on Sydney's North Shore,where many of the gardens are grandand formal, befitting the residences.

But when I turned into her driveway Iwas confronted with a blaze of native

plants flannel flowers,eriostemon and grevilleaunder a canopy ofSydney blue gums. Not aclipped lawn in sight!

Dot appeared, nut-brown, barefoot, wearingshorts and wielding aspade. She was prepar-ing her vegetable gardensfor the spring sowing, asI found when I followedher to a huge mound ofcompost, which shespaded into a wheelbar-row and vigorouslybegan to dig into the soilwhile we talked. We werealready surrounded byher giant and luxuriantwinter vegetables, ex-ploding with vitality -just like Dot.

When I got to know this fountain ofwisdom, generosity and positiveenergy better I doubted if she had everin her lifetime rested as long as amonth! She has a confident spirit bornof a deep harmony with life, a radiantsmile and a beautiful face, livessimply - working for or sendingmoney to good causes, feeding herducks, walking with old mates fromthe Sydney Bush Walkers. She ridesher bike to the shops. And why not?

by Gillian Coote and published in TheAustralian Geographic

Dot has never taken much notice ofwhat society might expect of her.

"Eccentricity is just being ahead ofyour time;' she laughed during ourmost recent chat while sitting on herveranda, her bare legs tanned andmuscular. At 5 a.m. next day shewould be driving herself to Brisbaneto celebrate her 77th birthday with herdaughter Rona and grandchildren

and help build their mudbrick house.En route she would call on her sonWade* and drop off some secondhanddoors and windows. Accidentsclaimed the lives of her other son anddaughter (Wendy drowned whilecascading with university friends inthe Blue Mountains, and Normanfrom a taipan bite). Dot's husbanddied in 1972.

Born Dorothy English in Sydney,one of five children, Dot recalls that

"all our childhood entertainment wasclimbing - brick kilns, chimneys,telegraph poles - anything off thehorizontal, and always barefoot ofcourse".

So Dot the fearless child became thefearless adult who delighted inwalking and climbing. While doing aSydney University course to qualify asa physiotherapist, she would run to

her classes from Circular Quay, takingwell under an hour.

But her main passion wasbushwalking and as an early memberof the Sydney Bush Walkers shebecame a member of "The Tigers", oneof only two women among a selectgroup of gung-ho walkers who lovedmarathon weekend walks, oftencovering 150 kilometres. Dot walkedbarefoot, of course! Her physiotherapyexperience convinced her that shoescan ruin womens posture - and sheabandons them at every opportunity.

"I always felt at one with the rock , "she told me. "Rocks are my friends

Dot on Bondi Beach (she’s on top)

*Wade also was lost in the Tasmanian bushin 1997. After an extensive search byauthourites and a private search by DickSmith, no trace of him was found.

and I caressed them as I climbed. Theytold me what I could and couldn't do.People who climb in boots andoveralls are cutting themselves offfrom that contact."

In 1936 Dot and the late Dr EricDark, leading climber andbushwalkcr, made the first ascent ofthe difficult Crater Bluff inWarrumbungle National Park., Aswas her habit, Dot climbed in the lead,taking up the rope and findingsomething to tie it to: they had nopitons, or rock bolts. In re-creating thisfamous climb for a film, Dot wasplayed by her daughter Rona and DrDark by Wade, both experiencedclimbers. Dot climbed up with the filmcrew - nimble and sure. I was left farbelow, somewhat shaken.

From 1939 Dot spent almost threeyears in New Zealand, where herwork as a guide in the Mt CookNational Park was an importantinfluence on her later activities. (Sherecalls with wry amusement one keenyoung visitor who provoked the

condemnation of the head guide byclimbing in his sandshoes. "He'llcome to no good," the guide predictedof the young Edmund Hillary!) "Therewas also a guide there who used to

take tourist parties up the Franz JosefGlacier," Dot recalled. "He would givethem a regular spiel to the effect that ...'This glacier comes down from 9000feet to sea-level, it has 3672 crevassesand there's an Australian down everyone of them!'

"Unfortunately it was true thatAustralians would get into trouble,because they had no experience ofcrevasse country. But I felt ashamed,and dreamed of the day I'd go back toAustralia and start a mountaineeringschool to teach Australian climbersabout safety."

After the war, Dot began her schoolby founding the Australian section ofthe New Zealand Alpine Club. Crackclimbers from the New Zealand cluboffered their services, and crevasserescue was part of the course. For

nearly 30 years Dot took parties ofyoung climbers to New Zealand eachChristmas. "Today when I look at allthe young people who are climbingthe Andes and the Himalayas, andeven in Antarctica, I can often say,'Well, some of those are my boys'," Dotsaid. Mt Dot in New Zealand'sSouthland National Park is namedafter her.

Dot married Ira Butler, a fellowbushwalker, in Australia during thewar. He had been posted to Mel-bourne and proposed by letter. Unableto get a seat on an interstate train, Dotrode her bike to Melbourne to marryhim. On her return journey she rodefrom Melbourne to Albury on theNSW border before she could get aseat. She estimates she cycled 32,000km during the war.

In 1968 Dot took a crash course inSpanish and became organiser and amember of the nine-strong AustralianAndean Expedition, which in 1969made 27 different ascents (13 of themfirsts) of 19 mountains in Peru'sCordillera Vilcabamba.

Ira's work with the Reserve Banktook him overseas, and Dot accompa-nied him when she could, sheddinghats, gloves and sometimes shoes toclimb at every opportunity. She hasclimbed in the Himalayas and theAlps, canoed 640 km down the YukonRiver in Canada, and cycled throughIreland, Spain and Cambodia. Shesays she would like to cycle throughChina. Her least-documented (forobvious reasons) climbs have beenover the arch of the Sydney HarbourBridge - as a member of a high-spiritedgroup calling themselves the "NightClimbers of Sydney", who set them-

selves late-night challenges such asscaling city buildings or finding theirway through the underground sewers.

When Dot began bushwalkingnearly 60 years ago it was in itsinfancy as an organised pursuit -usually thought of as exercise foreccentrics.

"There were empty spaces on themap," Dot said, "and we would fillthem in. I'd write them up in theSydney Bushwalker and this encour-aged many others to take up theadventurous life. Now I think thefuture for Australians will be inregeneration. We have to try to repairthe damage we've done to the country.

By Dot Englishfrom The Bushwalker Annual 1936

Australia is a land of paradoxes.Our magpies are not magpies, nor ourpee-wees pee-wees, nor even ourwagtails wagtails; and during Parlia-mentary elections each aspiringmember of the Opposition hastens toassure us that the Honourable Mem-bers of the House are not honourable.

Having had our childhood faithshattered in so many directions, it willcome as no shock to be told that ourmountains are not mountains, that

they are merely plateaux fissured bydeep gullies—inverted peaks if youlike—quite an upside-down arrange-ment.

When you realise that these discon-certing facts are continually beingdinned into the brain by every would-be ornithological, political andgeological expert, it is small wonderthat one comes at last to believe them.So it is a pleasant surprise to discoverthat rising 2,500 feet from the plains ofthe flat western slopes, some 200 milesnorth west of Sydney, loom theWarrumbungle Ranges, whosesummits, although only 4,000 feethigh, can be definitely termed moun-tains in the true sense of the word,some of them being stark, rocky peaks,rising naked above the forest lands.

THE FIRST ASCENT OF BELOURGERY

SPLIT ROCK* - WARRUMBUNGLES

*This peak is now know as Crater Bluff, andnot to be confused with Split Rock overlookingwhat now is a picnic area or BelourgerySpire.

Crater Bluff - Warrumbungle NP - photo Colin Wood

They are very arid mountains, forthe streams seldom flow except whenin flood, and the so-called "springs"are generally merely seeps of waterwhich collect in rocky basins, utilisedby the eagles as bathrooms, andconsequently not particularly invitingto mountaineers.

Still, arid or not, they are moun-tains, and our party of six had madeits way towards them via Gilgandraand Tooraweanah (two of us beingkindly driven out from Gilgandra bythe father of our Club member, EvelynHiginbotham), and pitched camp on aclearing at the foot of the western faceof Split Rock, whose sheer, trachytewalls towered 1,500 feet or more aboveour tents, which, by the way, weresituated a ten minutes' walk from thenearest "spring."

This mountain, one of the fewremaining unclimbed peaks in thisland of ours, was to be the victim ofour serious attack, and it had on thewhole, quite formidable opponents.

There was Dr. Eric Dark, valiantPresident and sole survivor of theKatoomba Suicide Club, whosemembers considered it a recreation tocrawl up and down the decayed,sandstone faces of the Blue Mountaincliffs, in such precarious spots as no-one without suicidal tendencieswould ever dream of attempting.

Next comes Marie Byles, who canclaim to her credit numerous virginpeaks scaled in other lands, havingmountaineered in Scotland, Norway,Canada and New Zealand. All theseachievements were, however, merely abackground as far as I was concerned;to me she was a voice crying in the

cold, pale dawn, while the stars stillsnapped in the quiet heavens, "Timeto get up!"

Then there was Mr. Paszek (pro-nounced "Parshek"). We called himPan ("a" as in half). He was Polish,and had spent much of his youthclimbing in the Dolomites and theSwiss Alps, as amember of theTatra Mountain-eering Club. Panwas a beautifulthing, with lean,picturesque figuresurmounted by asilver halo of hairand with long, artisticfingers.

Suzaiine Reichardwas an added attractionto the landscape, withpowder-blue shorts, soft,clear skin and babydimples in her legs. Whatshe may have lacked inclimbing technique, shemade up in perseverance.When I explain that her fatheris an Alsatian, you can trace the originof this trait.

Concerning Frank Preeguard, heopenly and honestly made no claim tobeing a climber. His presence in theparty was justified by the fact that hewas a photographer, and also, inci-dentally, a walking Baedeker of thelocality. "What's that peak over there?"asks someone, pointing out a faint,blue smudge on the horizon, crowdedby numerous other faint smudges; andforthwith Frank gives its name andhistory, past, present and to come.

Since we are becoming personal, itwould perhaps be as well to bringmyself into the picture. As the Societypage of the "Warrunbungle Weekly"put it: "She work a ducky little pair ofshorts, cutely fashioned from the dust-cover of a taxi, picked up one night inHyde Park, dyed khaki, artisticallyslashed and gored, and patched onthe seat."

This depicts only my outwardappearance; inwardly I came armed inthe knowledge that I had been the bestof our gang as kids in climbing trees,telegraph poles, flagpoles, railwayembankments, excavation works,underground sewer-holes, brick-kilnchimneys and sea cliffs, and strong inthe faith that "Nothing is Impossible."

I could go on for hours telling youof the members of the party, but that'snot what I'm here for. I have to tell youhow we climbed the Split Rock, soenough!

The first two days we did a littletest climbing up the Bluff and theNeedle, so as to get used to the feelingof being roped together. Believe me, atfirst it didn't appeal to me in theslightest, this being inescapablytethered to one end of a rope, andthereby having my fate linked, willy-nilly, to that of whatever reckless orcareless brother climber might be onthe other end. I was as suspicious as acat whenever I noticed my partner onthe rope contemplating a risky climb;you bet I was thinking of my ownsafety as much as his. However, as aknowledge of the prowess of mypartners increased, I became more orless reconciled to being tied up tothem, but a comparatively restfulmind was only the result of eternal

vigilance.Before attempting the Split Rock,

we circumambulated it numeroustimes and surveyed it from all angles,bringing the spy glasses to bear onsuch spots as seemed to offer likelyfoot and hand holds to the summit.

Until you have rock-climbed, youhave no idea how deceptive heightscan be. What look like reasonablesteps when viewed from below, turnout to be huge blocks 15 or 20 feethigh, quite impossible to surmount.

We tackled the northern face first,and spent half a day in reaching aspot about a quarter way up, whichwe finally had to abandon as imprac-ticable. Failure? Perhaps—but youweren't there to see the place foryourself, so how can you judge us?

The next day Doc., Pan and I, afterlengthy deliberation and ponderouscalculation, cast a vote in favour of thewestern face.

Although this is by far the greatestheight, the slope of the rocks seemedto be in our favour, being compara-tively free from the overhangs whichspoilt our chances on the south andeast faces.

We waited till about 10 o'clock forthe sun to rise sufficiently to warm theatmosphere, for our experience on theshady side of the Needle, in the chillof the late afternoon, had taught usthat it is only adding an extra handi-cap to try to climb in a refrigeratedatmosphere on cold rocks, with an icywind trying to whip you off yourperch, and your fingers so stiff andblue with the cold that it takes fully aminute to straighten them out afterrelinquishing one grasp for another.

Setting out with 200 feet of rope, wefound the first five or six hundred feeteasy—a "walk-up" as we say inprofessional circles—and we hardlyhad to use the rope at all. But havingreached that height, it then becamenecessary to traverse sideways beforewe could continue our upward climb.We had agreed that when there werevertical up and down climbs to bedone, I was to lead the way, being themost ape-like, and when it was aquestion of sideways traverses theDoc. would go first on the rope, as hewas a specialist in this form of pro-gression. Accordingly we took up ourpositions, with the Doc. leading me inthe middle and Pan on the other end.Now, Pan had reached that age ofdiscretion when a man knows hislimitations, and after a good look atthe place we intended to cross, told usto go on alone, as he didn't think hewanted to go any further. So he waitedthere, on one end of the 100 foot rope,while we two of lesser caution set outto traverse a very dangerous 200 feetof cliff face.

If I took as long to tell you about itas it took to do it, you would bereading for hours. Inch by inch weedged along, clinging to scarcelyperceptible ledges of grey, lichen-covered rock, feeling our way in thoseplaces where we couldn't turn to seefor fear of upsetting our balance by afraction of an inch, pausing now andthen on some relatively safe ledge todraw a deep breath, for the suspensekept us so tense we hardly dared tobreathe, and then on again, highabove the giant Eucalyptus which, inthe valley below, appeared to ourwide-open eyes no bigger than match

sticks; and always the huge eagles,wheeling aloft, surveying us from

their untamed heights with fierce,contemptuous eyes. If they chose toattack us as we clung like limpets tothat stark rock face, we knew whowould come off best.

About two thirds of the distanceacrossbroughtus to anarrowslit in therock face,not morethan afoot wide,intowhich Iwedgedthe lowerpart of

my anatomy while I collected mybreath, the Doc. meanwhile drapinghimself over a jutting piece of looserock, which, in contrast to the dizzyledges just passed, was as safe as theBank of England.

Here we stuck, body half attachedand half free, like exploring leeches,while we took in the next stretch ofour journey and discussed our pros-pects. Could we go on, or ought wecall it a day? I don't

know what the Doe's thoughts onthe subject were, but mine were "I'mdamned if I'm going back the waywe've come!" I would have preferredto take a flying leap into space, in thehope of gliding gracefully down to thebase of the mountain, rather thanretrace my steps along those hair-raising ledges.

We must have perched there for aquarter of an hour. The sun wasshining on us, and it was so nice andwarm that I didn't care if we neverwent on. However, the Doc., who hasthe true spirit of a mountaineer, soontired of ignoble inaction and waseager to be off again. As I happened tobe somewhat in front, it was decidedthat I should now lead the way, for itwould have been risky to attemptchanging places on the rope, soaccordingly I set off along the verticlewall of rock, clinging to what faintmarkings I could, while the Doc. heldthe rope belayed around his wretchedloose boulder. I can't say I went anymore carefully because of the fact thatthe boulder was loose—havingalready reached the limit of utmostcaution —but I knew perfectly wellthat if I slipped, my sudden weight onthe rope would dislodge the rock andDoc., and that we should accompanyit, with a wild crash, into the valleybelow.

Even as I'm writing this, my heart isgoing thump, thump, thump, mybreath is trembling and I'm bitingfuriously at my finger nails. I wouldn'tmind betting there are a few morepints of adrenalin coursing throughthe system than normally.

With infinite caution, I proceededto a bulging shoulder of rock whichhad been blocking our further view.What lay on the other side woulddetermine whether we went on or not.I flattened on to it and peered roundthe corner, with bulging eyes, whilethe Doc. called, with suppressedexcitement, "What about it? Can yougo on?"

"Oh, yes, it's easy," said I with a

laugh that was meant to be reassur-ing, but which sounded more like theuneasy laugh a man gives when he ispretending he isn't afraid; so after Ihad belayed our life line over anembossed knob an inch or so high, theDoc. traversed across and was soonby my side.

"Would you like me to go first?" heasked. You might be inclinedto pass this over lightly asbeing just an ordinaryexample of masculinechivalry, but believe me, itmeant more to me than I canever express. The trueheroism of a man's charactershows itself when life is atstake. Doubtless I would

have gone on if this outlet had notbeen offered me, but if so I swear Iwould not be here now to tell the tale.

It was necessary to change placeson the rope, otherwise it would nothave run through the belay, so wecrouched on a couple of ledges alongwhich even a lizard would havethought twice about passing, whilewe carefully untied the few knotswhich lay between us and the Hereaf-ter, and swapped places. Let it beknown, to my eternal discredit, that Ihad privately thought I was the betterclimber of the two, but when the Doc.,without a moment's hesitation,prepared to round that corner, I knewall the humiliation of pricked self-conceit.

Crouching there, with my backturned, the ledge being too narrow toreverse my position, swearing softlyunder my breath, and with my littlefinger clutching frantically the stem ofa struggling piece of mountain vegeta-

tion, hardly as thick as a lead pencil, Iscrewed my head over my shoulderand glued my eyes on the rope,sinuously sliding over the belay.

My companion had spread eagledhimself over the surface of a hugemass of overhanging rock, grey withloose, dry lichen, and was clawing hisway over with finger nails and toes,like a cat trying to take a corner at fullspeed on a polished floor.

He is out of sight now over the top.What lies on the other side? Godknows. There may be a sheer dropaway. If so, this is the end—that littleknob of rock won't stand the strain ofa sudden jerk. Be strong, little rock, bestrong!

Is there anything more discourag-ing than the deceit of a friend? Al-though it was such a frail support todepend upon, we were relying on thatlittle rock, and right at the criticalmoment, it let our rope slip off.

Novelists tell us that when peopleare facing utter destruction, they prayor begin a review of their lives—nodoubt a hurried collecting together oftheir good qualities so as to have themat their finger tips when St. Peter callsfor reasons why they should not beforever damned. I cannot claim anysuch experiences. It would appearthat we fear death till it is almost uponus, and then we become quite calm;after all, it would be a great adventureto die. The first shock over in a second,I pictured us dropping down throughthe hot, scented air, which blew coolin our faces in our swift descent. Thetree-covered slopes far below lookedso soft and cushiony that it wasridiculous to think we would hurt

ourselves if we fell on them. Still, evenif we were not borne up by unseenhands before hitting the bottom, wewould be soon after, so what did itmatter anyhow?

However, all this expenditure ofthought was unnecessary, for I soonheard a voice calling from the otherside that there was an excellent ledgethere, and all was well. It didn't takemany moments for me to reach hisside;—a rope around the waist, heldby a comrade with a cool head and asteady hand, plus the knowledge thatthere is a safe haven round the bend,gives one amazing confidence.

The remaining hundreds of feet tothe summit were so easy in compari-son that they can be dismissed withbrief mention. We were now on abroad highway several yards wide,overgrown with vegetation andbearing some quite tall eucalyptus, upone of which we climbed to the nextlevel. There were a few more craggyledges to crawl round, and the drycourse of a waterfall to climb up,polished to a black smoothness, butnot so slippery as it looked, beinghoneycombed with innumerable smallpit marks.

We were making for that wide splitin the mountain side which gives therock its name. This was soon reached,and gazing through it, what a sightmet our eager eyes! A huge, hollowcrater, luxuriously carpeted with thickgreen grass, knee deep in which onelone silver-barked tree stood like aguardian sentinel. Rising till they lostthemselves in the blue heaven, were adozen or so magnificent, rugged peakswhose heaped, stratified grandeurmade one think that so the Earth's

surface must have appeared to theeyes of our prehistoric forebears. Tothink that we were, without doubt, thefirst people to set foot in that placewhich had lain undisturbed for somany millions of years in agelesssilence under the hot summer sun, orreverberating to the hollow crash androar of thunder pealing through itsvaults! We felt we had obtained aglimpse of some far away, dimly-remembered period in the days whenthe world was young.

Flowing round the bases of thesejagged peaks swept a glacier-like riverof miniature tree ferns, which ex-tended in thick, glossy green forma-tion for some 800 feet right from thesummit as far down as the entrance tothe cleft. This solved our problem as tohow we were to reach the top. Al-though the glacier fell almost verti-cally in places, it was quite a simple

matter to climb up it,holding on to theferns.

While resting by a.tumbled avalanche ofthe sharp, igneousrock, I found, growingin a thimbleful ofearth, a cluster ofdelicately-markedtoadstools—suchdainty, pretty, fairythings; they seemedtoo little to be leftalone in that vast,forbidding, prehistoriccrater. I would tell Panabout them and hewould come up in themorning and lookafter them, and then

they wouldn't feel lonely or frightenedany more. Pan spoke their languageand understood them, as he under-stood what the birds said. It was hewho heard the music of the night, andsaw the little fairy folk among the treesin the moonlight, peeping curiouslyfrom the dusky shadows at the redglow of our camp fire. They mighthave come over to talk to us if we hadasked them, but they are very shy anddon't come unless they are asked.

Here conies the Doc., and off we goagain on our upward climb. Ourexcitement increased as we ap-proached the top, and at length weskipped out into the bright sunlightand knew we had achieved our goal.

We stood on a narrow, grass-grownrim, rough with piled rocks, amongwhich grew a few small bushes.Buzzing around these were a numberof golden wasps with glittering wings.

The Bread Knife - Warrumbungle NP 1975photo Colin Wood

"You're high up in the world, littleones."

Sitting on a heap of rocks, munch-ing chocolate and dates, we felt likeknights of old surveying our widedomain from the turrets and battle-ments of our castle. Extending to thefar horizon in all directions stretcheda wrinkled sea of green. Far away abluer line marked the beginning of thePilliga scrub of the far west. Closeabout us the varied peaks of theWarrumbungle Range displayed theirbizarre, distinctive shapes, andoverhead was a sky as brightly blue asthe shallows of the sea on a blue day.Floating on this, fairy islands of cloudlay over the plains in ever increasingcircles; but the eagles which, earlier inthe day, had watched our laboriousefforts to reach the heights to whichthey soared so effortlessly, werenowhere to be seen.

The Doc. had a box of matches inhis pocket, which gave us the inspira-tion to light a fire in the hope that thefolk in the township of Tooraweena,some ten miles away would see it andrejoice with us, and also to set theminds of the others of our party at rest,for none of them knew how we hadprogressed since we had left Pan,hours ago, with the 100 foot rope, tosee himself down to our base camp asbest he could.

So we set fire to a heaped pile of drygrass and sticks, and threw on greenbranches from the near-by bushes,which produced a dense white smoke,making the mountain seem like avolcano in eruption.

Leaving the fire to attend to itself,we descended a small dip and

climbed a point of rock a yard or sohigher than the one we were on. Herewe erected a cairn of stones, for alltrue mountaineers thus leave theirmark on virgin peaks conquered.Some five minutes later, when weturned our attention to the fire oncemore, we found it had assumed muchlarger proportions—in fact it hadspread to such an extent that we werenow cut off by the flames and had toperch, marooned, on top of our cairntill the blaze died down. Even then itwas necessary to wait some timelonger for the heat to leave the ashes,as I didn't know how invulnerable thehide on my bare feet (I always climbbare-footed) might be to red-hotembers. It would have looked funny tothe gods who watch over the doings ofman if the Doc. had had to piggybackme over the glowing embers andsmoke along that narrow rim ofmountain top; but luckily it wasn'tnecessary.

The sun was now westering, so wemade haste to descend, as we didn'tquite know how or where we weregoing to get down. I own I felt a bituneasy as I thought of those traverses,now in the cold shade, with nothingat all to recommend them and every-thing to condemn them. We slid downthe green glacier as down a slipperydip, and gained much amusementthereby. The Doc. slid on his seat and Iwent head first, as my pants, alreadyin the flnal stages of disintegration,would not have stood up to any harshtreatment.

On reaching the waterfall again, weturned our attention to the southinstead of the north, and hoped for thebest. It proved to be an excellent move,

by Dorothy EnglishFrom The Sydney Bush Walker - 1934

Come on, all you independentspirits, who would be beholden to no-one for your creature comforts. Getyou out into the lonely bush, andalong the desolate sea-shore, and seehow you fare when there is none toprovide shelter for your head or foodfor your stomach, away from

"That all-softening,overpowering knell,

The tocsin of the soul—the dinner bell,"

and see if you can live as thesparrows live—on just what oldNature provides.

And what does she provide?

It is said that all life emerged fromthe sea, so let us visit our ancientwatery home in search of sustenance.

I had it (unofficially) from theMarine Zoologist at the Museum, thateverything in the sea is edible; never-theless I would not recommend thatany aspiring devotee of NaturalLiving take to eating clam-shells, evenfor their lime content, nor sample thesucculent blue-bottle. However,practically all the little shell-fish ofour coast are edible. In the Islands it isoften found that, whereas the nativesof one island consider a certain shell-fish poisonous, the natives of anotherisland include it as a staple part oftheir dietary. The internal portion of

FREE GASTRONOMICAL

JOYS

and we soon found ourselves on aledge overlooking a drop of a mere 200feet to the hillside below, only 100 ofwhich was difficult climbing. Wealready had 100 feet of rope, and if wecould get the other 100 it would be asimple matter to descend. So wehollered for Pan and eventually got areply. He brought along the 100 footrope and climbed up as far as hecould with it, while I climbed down asfar as I could on our rope. Holding onto the end of this, I stuck my leg outwhile Pan did the cowboy stunt andeventually succeeded in lassoing myfoot. I then climbed back with thisrope, and by means of the two of them,we descended once more to terrafirma, after six hours on the mountain.

We left the ropes tied there, andnext day Pan and I brought Suzanneand Marie up that way. It seemed avery easy performance to me afterthose awful traverses, but Marieinforms me that according to NewZealand and Canadian mountaineer-ing standards, it would not be consid-ered an easy rock-climb by any means,even with the fixed ropes.

Well, there you are folks; thus endsmy tale!

As an incentive to prospectiveclimbers of this mountain, let me addthat after we had safely taken theparty up and down again on thefollowing day—only possible bymeans of the fixed ropes—we flickedthese from round the rocks that wereholding them, and as they fell at ourfeet we saluted the grim giant saying,gloatingly, "That's the last timeanyone will get up you .... unless it'sby aeroplane." Such is our conceit. It'san open challenge!

the sea-urchin is said to be quite adelicacy to the Italians, while theChinese revel in seaweed biscuits.These biscuits, though resembling, inmy opinion, nothing so much as asun-dried frog, are extremely appetis-ing, but all my efforts to manufacture asimilar product from the sea-kale ofEra were futile. Perhaps there is somesecret process used. However, sea-kaleeaten raw is quite good.

There is no necessity for me tomention fish, oysters, crabs, lobsters,prawns or crayfish. Everyone knowsthey are worth eating, but not every-one is familiar with eels as food. Trythem.

Suppose we leave the sea-shoreand follow up one of our rivers, rightinto the heart of the bushland. Onsuch a river as the Cox, watercress isvery plentiful; dandelion leaves, usedby the French as a salad vegetable, areto be found, the root of same beingvalued for medicinal purposes.

While on the subject of medicinalplants it might be as well to mentionthat the liquid obtained from boiledblackberry leaves is frequently used byherbalists as a blood purifier. Thesame applies to couch grass, while mygrandfather swears by milk thistles asa laxative. Says he, "They work youlike castor oil," which is well to knowif one has indulged too freely in thewild Jack-apples obtainable in theBlack Gin 'Creek thickets.

In the vegetable line, nettles can beused for soup; bracken tops have beenlikened to asparagus, but you needn't

put much faith in that being true. Theperson who gave birth to that .state-ment was probably delirious fromstarvation. The soft white part ofgrass-tree shoots is quite edible, andhas been known to save an explorerfrom starvation for some weeks.

One of the most delicate dishes Ican suggest, in all truth, is mush-rooms and periwinkles cooked in sea-water. The beauty of this mess is thatit can't be spoilt, either in taste orappearance, by the addition of any-thing else you may care for.

Before I leave this fascinatingsubject of food I must say a word ortwo about our native fruits.

Perhaps the best known are black-berries; but we also have wild straw-berries, which thrive luxuriantly inNational Park; wild raspberries—notso plentiful, but possessing moreflavour, lillipillis, geebungs, five-corners, ground-berries, and pigeon-berries, which are parasitic growths ofthe ti-tree.

Dreams of childhood gastronomi-cal happiness invariably turn topigeon-berries and plum-puddin'grass, which we consumed in vastquantities, spending half an afternoongathering a paperbag full that wemight have half-an-hour's gorgeousgorge in bed that night.

Ah well, a man is only as old as hisstomach, and if he can still enjoy suchpuerilities he is still young. Here'shoping you all stay young.

by Dorothy Englishfrom the Bushwalker Annual - 1938

OUR first attempt to storm theArethusa heights took place in Octo-ber when eight of us set out, encum-bered with fifty ft of rope, hope in our

hearts, a map, and various superflu-ous necessities in the shape of eatingand sleeping equipment.

On a red-hot Sunday morning weleft our camp close to the junction ofBlue Gum track with the Rodriguez-Pass-Grand Canyon round tour andheaded up the valley towards the Fal

An indefinite track following the creeksoon petered out in a tangle denseriver growth, so we bore up the hill onour right till we reached higherground where the tree-line virtuallyceased as it met the rock canyon wall.

For half a mile a wallabytrack followed around asomewhat crumbly ledgehardly more than a foot ortwo wide in parts, thencame to sudden dead stopon the wall of the precipice,and we found ourselvesunder the spray of a sixtyfoot tumble of water—Arethusa Falls. Above ourheads, with the branches ofthe lower one swaying justwithin reach, grew twosmall stunted bushes,distorted in their growth bythe impact of many floodsand the fact that they reliedfor sustenance on merehandful or so of soil strewnin several small niches andcrevice in the cliff face. Wetested these very gingerly,

for if they had pull away in our handsit would have been good-bye. But theyheld our weight, so one by one thepacks and the party were pulled andpushed till we all stood on theslippery rock level from which thewaterfall to its leap into the valleybelow.

A GLORIOUS FAILURE

THE UNCONQUERED HEIGHTS OF

ARETHUSA FALLS

Breasting The CurrentWe were now in a high rocky gorge

through which the water roared inthat we had to yell to make ourselvesheard. A little reconnoitring soondisclosed the fact that it would beeasier to proceed up the watercourserather than to attempt the side wall,although the former proceedinginvolved some exciting swimming. Bymeans of some smart manipulation ofthe rope we managed to slide thepacks down from a higher ledge ofrock to the lower level where our swimwould bring us out. Then the wholeparty took to the water and surged upcurrent like a herd of cattle

There was another waterfall at theend of this section, some six or sevenfeet in height, but a hasty examinationof this showed us that an easiermeans of getting up must be sought."It's a pity we're not salmon," gurgledthe half-drowned leader of the van-guard, bobbing up and down in thefoam, semi-dazed by the impact ofwater.

Some four feet up the dark rockwall was a neat circular depressionlike a plughole with the plug removed,and attention was directed to thi asbeing the only other possible way out.To step into a depression four fee up avertical wall is difficult enough onterra firma, but when the take-of is anunstable fluid and all the mob aroundare treading water am hurling brightremarks about to the tune of "Stick toit! After all, yoi can only break yourleg," well, the task is more than doublydifficult. I speaks very well for thewhole party that they all did get up atlast Then we shouldered packs andcontinued our way, but gingerly

sliding over the slippery rock andmaking a handrail with the ropewhen necessary all of us more or lesswet and somewhat chilly, with theroar of the water continually dinningin our cars.

A Gloomy CanyonThe walls of the canyon now closed

in till they were hardly more thanfifteen yards apart and almost touch-ing overhead, thus closing out thelight of day so that we went in an eeriegloom, climbing over huge boulders,sliding1 foot by foot up slitherywaterways, squeezing and creepingunder rock ledges, snaking along in afine powdering of rock sand that hadlain undisturbed for centuries. Insome places it was necessary to swim,floating our packs before us wrappedin ground-sheets to keep the waterout.

We might have gone ten miles orwe might have gone less than half amile—all sense of time and distancewas forgotten in the din of manywaters and the feeling of being theonly people left in the world, andabove all the conviction that we mustgo on—go on, finding a way tosurmount all obstacles that might barour progress.

It came as a rather demoralizingshock, then, when one of the partysuddenly announced the time to bethree o'clock. We now realized that wewere chilled to the marrow, andhungry too, having eaten nothingsince breakfast at 7 a.m., being tooengrossed in the hazards of the trip tothink of dinner. When we foundourselves up against a forty foot sheerwall of rock so smoothly polished thateven a lizard would not find a foot-

hold there, and over which a water-fall, passing through a cleft in therock, hurled itself into a deep poolbelow, we decided to call it a gloriousfailure and retrace our steps, vowingto return again in the near future as nomere waterfall was going to give usbest.

A Second AttemptThat was some months ago.Early spring ripened into mid-

summer and the hot sun warmed theicy mountain creeks—a decidedadvantage when most of the day is tobe spent swimming in a dark, sunlessgorge. In the interim, also, severalmembers of the original party hadbeen mountaineering in New Zealandand, rightly or wrongly, were thoughtto have improved in climbing tech-nique.

So another assault on the unassail-able was planned. We were to be asmaller, and therefore less unwieldyparty, and planned to travel light, tothe extent of carrying no superfluousclothes or cooking utensils anddiscarding tents and sleeping bags infavour of the Sydney Morning Herald.

Jack Debert and Gordon Smith lefton the Friday night for Katoomba withthe intention of exploring downstreamfrom Minnehaha Falls as far aspossible on the Saturday, and theywere to return and meet Bert Whillierand me at the Arethusa Falls camp onSaturday night. The next morning wewould retrace our previous route witha minimum of lost time, and the addedadvantage of knowing what to expectbetween the farthest point we hadreached in the Gorge, and MinnehahaFalls.

We had already been informed that

the Rover Ramblers had put this tripdown on their programme for thesame week-end, but were ratherunprepared for the zeal with whichtheir members patronized officialwalks —there were no less thanthirteen camped at the Arethusa Fallscampsite, all ready and eager for themorrow's doings. As there was nosign of Gordon and Jack, Bert and Iamalgamated with the little boyscouts' party, and soon after 7 a.m.next morning we broke camp andproceeded up the valley.

If it had been a long businessgetting eight of us up the first water-fall, you can imagine what it was likegetting fifteen up, but we had greatfun. The whole fifteen surmounted thefirst water hazard in goodly style,despite the fact that one or two of theyoung lads could not swim. Theywere given scoutly assistance by theircomrades till we all stood re-united onthe other side.

Realizing that it would take moretime than we had at our disposal toshepherd such an enormous partyfurther up the gorge we decided to tryour luck up the left hand wall of thecanyon. A display of spider-monkeytactics, plus a very satisfactory ma-nipulation of the rope and all the mobsprawled among their packs on adamp ferny slope some hundred feetup the canyon wall. A sally furtherupstream proved fruitless, so we wereobliged to turn back on our tracks, asit were, but on a higher level, andfollow along the rocky cliff face. Herewe found a pleasant little tree, someforty feet high, which swayed out fromthe side of the cliff on its eight inchdiameter trunk. With the aid of thistree we scrambled and hauled our

packs up the cliff face. This operationtook much time, and one of the ladshad the misfortune here to lose holdon his pack, which dropped rightback into the water in the canyonbelow. It was retrieved by dint ofmuch effort, and we continued up-wards. It was now ten o'clock. Some-one suggested he had heard shoutsdown below—possibly Gordon and

Jack, but being uncertain on thesubject we forgot the matter forthwith.

Still More HazardsRounding a ledge we found our-

selves in another canyon, equal inhazards to the one below. To cut along story short, we followed the samecrawling, swimming, clambering,sprawling, snake-like tactics here, andabout three o'clock gained the flatheights of the tableland. It was raininga fine mountain drizzle; we were wetthrough and hungry, so when weheard renewed shouts in the gorge,proving beyond doubt the presence ofJack and Gordon, we merely mar-velled that the voices still seemed tocome from the same place as they hadat ten o'clock, then shouted a hearty"good-bye" and departed, catching a

train home about five o'clock. The nextday we heard from Gordon and Jackthat they had got down the canyonfrom Minnehaha Falls for quite a longdistance. Then rather than retracetheir footsteps, they camped andcontinued down on the Sundaymorning, hoping to meet us comingup. They were stopped, however, bythe canyon floor dropping away into a

waterfall chutesome sixty feethigh, so here theystopped andyelled. Then theywent away, toreturn later andyell again, butfinding that Bertieand theEnglishberg andthe drove of littleboy scouts did notmaterialize theycalled it a day and

went home.Thus ended the second attempt on

Arethusa Falls to Minnehaha Fall viathe waterways. You will see that it hasnot yet been done. The little boy scoutshave done something just as good (orperhaps better), in their achievement,and the Bushwalkers have done thegorge upstream to a certain spotwhich we shall call X, and down-stream to a certain spot which may ormay not be X, but the original coursehas eluded us a second time. DavidStead has seen fit to include it on theofficial S.B.W. Walks Programme fornext year. All those innocents whothink to attend this walk, expecting itto be just an ordinary creek-bed trip,be warned!

Arethusa Falls

The Rock-Climbing Section Of The Sydney Bushwalkers

By Dot English (Sydney Bush Walkers).

, This Section just seemed to appearout of the blue, as It were. Somebodysaid, "Do you know anything about aRock-Climbing section in this Club?'and a number of us gathered together

answered, "Everything . . . We're IT,"and Marie Byles pricked up her earsin excitement and donated a practi-cally brand new mountaineering ropewith red-white-and-blue stripeswoven through it as a hallmark of itsexcellence, and asked us to write upsome of our major climbs for THEANNUAL, and we were besieged onall sides by questions as to our doingsso that our consciences began to get alittle uneasy and we thought "Cripes,what have we done to deserve this?The only thing for it is to go out andclimb some rocks, or we stand a goodchance of being branded impostors."

Accordingly an Inaugural Meetingwas guiltily called and invitationswere quietly scattered around amongthose likely to be interested, to such-good purpose that no fewer than ???turned up for our first trip. The picture

below shows the party, together withpacks and ropes stacked aboard the"Flying Frigidaire" (or "CriminalCoach'~-use whichever term youthink most fitting), leaving fromoutside the main entrance of the Hotel

Sydney, bound for Katoomba.The gentleman in the goldbraid doesn't know whetherhe ought to call the police orjust take it lying down.

Another respectable carcame with us, to lighten theload on the faithfulFrigidaire, and after a mosteventful journey throughKatoomba and down theDark Road, and a night spenton the one hand in a stable

with a racehorse, and on the other in aditch where a puncture caused aforced landing, the two cars eventu-ally converged at a point about half amile above Carlon's where the roadterminates. Here we had breakfast andthen set out on the Big Adventure.

But I am not going into any detaileddescription of our climbing -it's one ofthose things you don't talk about, likeLove or a pain in the stomach, whichmust be experienced to be understood.If you are a real lover of the gentle artof mountaineering the accompanying'picture will suffice to thrill you withjoy and exultation, and if you are not amountaineer all the descriptiveverbiage in the world will fail to bringany answering response from yourcold hearts.

This from the Rock-ClimbingSection.You can come with us if youlike.

by Dot. English.(The Sydney Bush Walkers and the N.Z.Alpine club.)

There are recrea-tions and recrea-

tions. For myself, Iwould ratherwalk. I went

horse-riding lastweek-end. Next

time I shall walk-you can't beatwalking as an exercise. For nights Ihave tossed and turned in bed andgroaned in spirit. Instead of druggingmy insomnia by counting sheep, Irecount the name of every individualmuscle in my body and ascertainwhether it is stiff and sore. It is! Nothanks; keep your horse. I'd ratherwalk !

Now bushwalking, the summerbonum of all sports in Australia,becomes mountaineering in NewZealand for the simple reason that, tomake any headway in the dense,waterlogged forests, you would need aroad gang armed with axes, spades,and mattocks, and backed up by abulldozer and a steam-roller or two,and that, to anyone other than analderman, is clearly impracticable. Buton the mountains you have cleargoing, even though it be nearer thevertical than the horizontal, and thedespised vegetable dies before it isborn rather than contend with theunsympathetic, icy vastness of asuperior world.

Speaking of mountains brings meto my subject-Malte Brun, the object ofour aspirations last Easter. The name"Malte Brun," while it conveys practi-

TO THE HIGH HILLS.cally nothing to a stranger, save,perhaps, a nebulous groping into hiselementary French grammar days, tothe New Zealand climber conjures upa vision of over 10,000 feet of clean,red, reliable rock, the best of all God'sstones. The fact that Malte is situatedin the Mount Cook district and thusconsorts with the proud, snowyaristocracy of Sefton, Tasman,Dampier, The Minarets, and evenCook itself, decided us to spend ourholiday in real climbers' country.

Leaving Dunedin by car on theThursday evening, our party of threetraveled Mount Cook-wards allthrough the night. There was a briefrespite of four hours when we crawledinto our eiderdown bags and re-freshed the body with sleep on a pileof boulders by the roadside-actuallythe best camp-site offering, as thewhole plain for miles around was afair representation of the GibberDesert.

First light saw us on our wayagain. Mount Cook Hermitage wel-comed us for breakfast,

after which, loaded down to Plimsollmark, we set out on the twenty-mileplug up the heaped moraine rocksand hummocky ice of Tasman Glacierto De la Beche Hut, which was to beour headquarters for the next couple

of days.The hutreached,dinnerdisposedof, and thealarm-clockset inanticipationof a big dayon themorrow, werolled intoour bunks by9 p.m., andvacated themat 3 o'clock

next morning after a terrible mentalstruggle. Soon we were sleep-walkingover the half-mile or so of wrinkledepidermis of the Tasman Glacier,which flowed like a river of ice be-tween De ]a Beche Hut and the foot ofour "Hearts' Desire."

Uncertain weather conditionscaused us to dilly-dally for some timeat the foot of Malte Brun, but eventu-ally we decided that we would bedoing something profitable if we did aspot of reconnoitring, even if unable toclimb that day. So we plodded up-wards aver tumbled rocks to the MalteBrun Glacier, from which vantagepoint we gazed long and lovingly atour peak, till, fired by the undeniabletruth of the saying, "Familiarity breedsAttempt," we decided to make for thesummit As if just waiting for this voteof confidence, Heaven now smiled onus ; the clouds cleared away, and aperfect day shone forth.

We skirted a yawning gap in theglacier ice and bent our minds andour muscles in an attempt on the

steep-walled N.E. face of the westernarrete, which my experienced eyejudged to be as good as perpendicular.An inexperienced clinometer mighthave made a more moderate estimate.But, my dear readers of conventionalfiction, do not imagine that the inevi-table choice of a climber always rests

between an unscaleable precipiceand a bottomless crevasse ; some~times there is a middle way, and onthis occasion we were lucky enough tofind one which led us to the skylineridge. Of course, it was not as easy asthat-it took about eight hours in all,which, like the laying of an egg (on the40-hour a week estimate), is a wholeday's work for a hen.

For another two hours we clam-bered over the mountain's knobblyback-bone, part of its length includingthe famous Cheval Ridge, so steep oneither side that if you had to fall youwouldn't bother to make a choiceeither way.

It has been said by second-rateclimbers that there are only two joys inmountaineering-one when you reachthe top, and one when you reach thebottom. Well, we certainly enjoyedourselves-but we did not reach the top; 3.30 p.m. found us still 400 feet fromour goal. The heights were envelopedby a heavy mist, which thinnedoccasionally, revealing the summitrocks well plastered with snow, thusmaking quite dangerous climbing. Wedecided, in view of the lateness of thehour, to retreat while daylight wasstill with us. After all, the idea inclimbing is not necessarily to get to thetop of a mountain, but to enjoy life(and I say "life" advisedly), as far asyou go.

The DescentWe retraced our steps along the

switchback ridge till it appeared toend in an impossible drop, thentransferred our attention to a steep,dark couliour which, in our happyignorance, seemed the less of twoevils. It could have been called either afrozen watercourse hung on the faceof the mountain, or an avalanchechute, being both. Darkness overtookus before we had fairly started thedescent, and for five solid hours webelayed ourselves every foot of theway down the sort of dark, loose,slippery corridor that you wouldn'tlook at twice in daylight, except to say"impossible!" As the hours vanishedinto the dark void of night, thisconcentrated progression became somechanical that we did it uncon-sciously.

Just to relieve the monotony, themountain found occasion, at irregularintervals, to launch portions of thehillside o-1 to our heads. But what

though the going wasdark and difficult !Somehow we at lastfound ourselves atthe top of a steepsnowfield into whichour crampons wouldgrip. The full splen-dour of an Eastermoon lit up theexpanse of whitewith a radiance notof this world, and thestrain relaxed.

After a littlescouting about, wepicked up our tracksof the day before.

Then it was just a downhill trot all theway, and at 4 a.m. we lumbered intoMalte Brun Hut as the foot of themountain. Here we refueled with twotins of iced apricots, as we hadn'teaten since the previous afternoon,and then it had only been half a buneach and a piece of chocolate. Theapricots more than fortified us ; theykept continually reminding us of theirpresence as we crossed the TasmanGlacier to our own little hut at De laBeche.

Dawn saw three small figuresmoving slowly up the high morainerocks till they gained the hut. The sunrose above the eastern bar andshouted, "Hullo! Hullo!" to a wakingworld, but we tumbled into oursleeping-bags and let him shout. Andall day long he called and called, butwe lay fast asleep; aye, all the day,because our need was deep. After ourown fashion, though, we had enjoyedourselves.

Dot English(Sydney Bush Walker and the NZ AlpineClub)The Bushwalker Annual

Today I received a most pleasantsurprise – a red-borded cablegramfrom an Air-Force boy on the otherside of the world. It said, "goodclimbing" and was signed "BirtleEsquilant." Anyone thinking to derivefrom those few words some hint of aproposed Mountaineering trip are duefor a disappointment. "Good Climb-ing" is just a form of greeting amongthe Alpine club members similar to thebush walkers’ "Good Walking or"Good Camping" or the more common"Good Day!"

"Not much point in cabling thatmeaningless message from warstricken Europe," you might say, butfor me it has provided a whole day ofhappy reminiscences. To-day is theanniversary of one of the greatestclimbs we did in the Southern Alps ofNew Zealand. West Peak of Earnslawis not so high as the minarets or MalteBrun (each 10,000 feet), or MountCook (12,000 feet), all of which we hadclimbed together the previous Christ-mas. West Peak is lower by 1,000 ft.,but it has this incalculable charmabout it, that it has seldom beenclimbed before. A dark cloud ofmystery broods over it – secrets, stony,

GOOD CLIMBINGsilent, inhabits its gloomy fastness – arealm where even conjecture may notenter.

Brilliant summer has passed; theair was sharpened with the faint stingof coming autumn – a time of turbu-lent wind and sudden rain – of fallingleaves and ripening snow berries.

Below the Birley Glacier just aboutsundown we established a high bivvyamong the gleaming snow grass.Close by was a dark rocky waterfallchasm which seem possessed bystrange shrill voices – cold with andicy breath that made a red fire race inour veins and queued up all themillions of fine pulses in our bodies tothe highest pitch of vibrant, singinglife.

We heated up a ready mixed stewon a high-altitude primus and ate,snuggled up in our sleeping bags,while we watched and listened to thehigh cold wind which rushed cease-lessly out of the translucent bluedarkness, bowing down the longsilvery tussock grass till one thoughtof a dryad’s hair streaming down overthe lovely curving slope in endlessbillowing ripples.

Tea over, we stowed away ourthings for the night, then lay on ourbacks, partly sheltered by the sturdytussock clumps, enjoying the gusty

tumult of wind as it poured down theslope, bearing a smell of icecaps andillimitable snow-fields. We looked upinto the incredible height of blue,deeper that any ocean, where wisps ofclouds swirled and streamed poured

themselves in fine cascades from oneblue interstellar space to another.Stars lay scattered – myriad goldenpoints of light- and the moon was full.Birtle slept, breathing gently into thetussock grass. In the half state inbetween waking and sleeping Ithought I was above that vast infinityof space looking down on it, and thenit seemed as though "down, down

forever I was falling through the solidframework of created things and mustforever sink into the vast abyss"… andI, too, slept!

There is a quiver that runs throughall nature a little while before dawn,when sleep vanishes. We awoke to seethe whole hillside a-ripple under thefluid wind, and we listened to itsthousand voices while we cooked ourbreakfast on a flaring grass fire.

And now we were away – up overthe windy tussocks in the soft greylight before the dawn, more alive thanall the living light, light as the winditself, powerful as a storm, tireless as aturbulent glacier stream! Oh, the joy ofliving! – to feel the ice-axe cling onrock and ice! - to see the timelessmiracle of dawn breaking on themountain tops!

It took time proceeding up theBirley Glacier, which was consider-ably broken, but from the top we couldlook down into the Rees valley – agreat space inhabited by moving airand billows of swirling mist. We werenow in Wright Col, where the snowslopes makes a graceful curve andswell to the summit of East Peak. Thatwas the first mountain I ever climbedin New Zealand, and though I havebeen up it several times since it willalways remain a sight that catches theheart; that thrill and wonder of thatfirst snow climb will never be forgot-ten.

Passing through Wright Col,suddenly we got our first glimpse ofthe great fluted wedge of rock, whichis East Peak. There is rose, vast gloomat its base and vaster gloom surround-ing its summit. How wonderful theloneliness was up there.

The desolate scree terraces on thewest side of Earnslaw were crossed,then a long stretch of misty slipped bywhile we proceeded up a steep, icecrack of rotten rock which let to thehigh Col between East and WestPeaks.

A short pitch up the hard,unsympathic ice slopes of the steepS.E. face, moving one at a time, andthen we went together along thesummit ridge, wind-weathered intotwo terraces, in a world all grey andwhite – the rocks grey, grey and moregrey, till they were rather black thatgrey; and the snow grey, and less greyand not grey at all, but a gentle tone ofwhite, robbed of its hardness. This isthe place where time and eternity,earth and heaven meet. We adsorbedit in a vivid silent interval. On amountaintop there is no need forspeech the need of words – betweenthe climbers there is a silent, compre-hensive friendship beyond the need ofwords. They are conscious together ofthe subduing spell of silence, thesudden joy of new discoveries inmountain loveliness, the wonder andthe beauty of it all – and that isenough.

And now all form and definitionwere quietly blotted out; a soft mistcrept about us as we climbed downsouthwest of the summit to the colbetween West Peak and the first of theSeven Sisters. There they sat seventimeless ladies in a timeless row, andlooming out of the sea mist was thegrim black bulk of Pluto standingguard over them, his face stony andterrible, his fierce forbidding browsdrawn together in a frown that bodedill for any paltry mortal who mightthink to show them disrespect. "Some-what grisly." Murmured Birtle; "it willbe pleasing to get back to our camp."And so was I thinking of lower levels– of the friendly where lots of littlethings – little ferns and berries andflowers – tiny gauze specks that flewand flitted above the banks of thesinging stream – sunstarts on gleam-ing leave sand grass, and a gaysomlittle valley breeze marrying over theswaying clover.

On our mountain height the mistlifted somewhat, and gazing down,we saw a great, unfamiliar valley,deep dark and desolate, and wet froma fine driving rain.

"Oh Birtle, where are we?"

Concluding that this must be Plutocol and not Wright col as we hadexpected – the two places lay a wholevalley’s width apart – we made allhaste through it, relieved at being ableto turn our backs on the rather fright-

ening giant, Pluto. Skirting round thehigh rock terraces and snowfields atthe valley’s head we reached the nextcol, which must be Wright Col, unlessthe mountain was bewitched, asindeed it seemed. We searched for ourfootmarks made in the morningascent, and found traces so feint anddim that they seemed to vanish as welooked at them, and we could not besure that they were not rather tracksmade by a wandering deer steppinglightly on the hard surface of thesnow.

We zigzagged up a snow slope,following the feint trail till it vanishedon the hard ice, and there was nothingvisible through the mist to tell uswhether this was the col we sought ornot. But it was so and gladly westrode down the Birley Glacier, and soto our bivvy site by the waterfall;thence down the springing tussocksand across the long shoulders of thehills to our little hut perched like aneagle’s eyrie on the tree-line, where thegolden autumn forest and the snowgrass met.

Night had stolen all detail from thehills when we finished our evening.The valley slept below and the snowypeaks above had silently withdrawninto the upper darkness. We stretchedour selves comfortably in our Hessianbunks – a few desultory scraps ofconservation – hazy fleeting visions ofsnow and rock and ice slopes – of adark giant and seven princesses who

sat together like god and goddesses inthe kingly realm above – clothes in ablanket of mist –

all asleep …… asleep…… sleep……….

then all consciousness melts away,and a great silence enwrapped us.

So it will always be. The memoriesof those early trips when we wenthungry or thirsty, when the morningfrost found the openings in ourblankets and robbed us of muchneeded sleep, or when the rain camethrough, or under, the badly pitchedtent, will always be with us as wecome back for more.

And so it is, today, that when newmembers arrive, it is not the membersfriend that I look for, but rather thelone walker that comes in under hisown steam, resolved that he will learnmore of the game that so far has onlygiven him hunger, thirst and fatigue.

By Dot English(The Sydney Bush Walkers and N.Z. AlpineChlb).The Bushwalker Annual

Uncomfortably dressed up witheverything just so, including tight newshoes, listening apathetically to theconversation as it passed from theimpossibility of running the housewithout domestic help to the difficultyof purchasing bottled beer and ciga-rettes, I felt a sudden piercing jab likea needle through the ball of my big toeand jumped violently to life. As somesort of explanation seemed to beexpected, I said "Frostbite," and lapsedinto silence again, but, recalling thecapital-letter climb on which I sus-tained a slightly frostbitten big toewhich still occasionally deals me asharp nerve jab, I felt a deep nostalgiabegin to creep over me for the wild,carefree mountaineering life —sweating up the glacier under a 50-lb.pack; toiling up densely forestedmountain slopes with mud on ourpants and water squelching throughour boots, faces scorched by sun andwind; rained on, hailed on, snowedon. whipped by blizzards on theheights; glissading down thousandsof feet of snow slope to some roughalpine hut nestling snugly on themountainside, or perched precari-ously on a rocky outcrop in a world ofwhite snow-fields, or dropped down

MOUNTAIN MEMORIES.among huge tumbled boulders on amoraine. shaken by a continualthunder of avalanches hurtling fromthe surrounding peaks. How far backin the misty past it all seemed now! . . .

We had already had a fortnight ofmagnificent weather in the highestpart of the New Zealand Alps, andnow, with only three days' holidayremaining, we conceived the brightidea of climbing Mt. Cook (12,000 oddft.), via the southern peak, which ismainly a rock face and hence veryenticing to one fed from infancy onAustralian rock. The only questionwas, would the weather gods smile onus for a further couple of days?Ominous signs were already creepingup the Hooker Valley the day we leftfor the Gardiner Hut, situated at aheight of 5,000 ft. on the lower westernslope of Cook, in a most excitinglocation on a huge mound of rockcalled "Pudding Rock." To get to it youclimb almost vertically with the aid ofa wire rope, while the wind tearsround your trouser legs and a water-fall splashes on your head from above.Merely to get as far as Gardiner Hut,let alone Cook, calls for a spot of primemountaineering technique.

We ensconced ourselves in the hut,what time the weather worsened — aroaring blizzard that shook the hut toits foundations and threatened to lift it

skywards, hail that dashed on theiron roof and walls like a spatter ofbullets, and snow that swept horizon-tally down the Hooker Valley inmighty swirls. "This kills our chanceon Cook to-morrow," said we as weconcocted the large and customarybully-beef stew and settled into ourbunks for an afternoon's riotousreading of the hut literature, chieflyWild West and mystery yarns. Wewent to sleep early with a watch on

the table and a torch close by so wecould refer to it at intervals through-out the night, having no alarm watch,and hoped that the storm would abatebefore midnight which, sure enough,it did. At 2.30 we arose on a beautiful,calm, starry night, heated up our riceand apricots, had breakfast while wepushed our feet into our boots, andbefore 4 a.m. we were away.

The previous week Birtle hadclimbed Cook from the Tasman side.On the descent his companion hadhad the misfortune to drop his ice axe,which caused them to spend the night

out on the summit rocks and made thesubsequent descent very nerve-racking. With this salutary lesson inmind I put a double thong on my iceaxe before setting out. "No chance ofmy repeating old Bob's bad luck,"thought I, but just to be doubly sure Iincluded in my pack as a second lineof defence a large pig-stabber knife.Several hours up steep, deeplycrevassed snowfields brought us tothe rock face of which the South Peak

of Cook is mainly composed,and from then on there werehours and hours and stillmore hours of upward pro-gression, clearing the plas-tered snow and chipping iceoff every single foothold andhandhold as we went.

About three-quarters of theway up, while endeavouringto get a better grip on the rope,

I relinquished my hold on the ice axe,relying on the double thong round mywrist to hold it dangling till I shouldneed it, but the treacherous thingcontrived to fall head first, and—neatly slipping its moorings—sailedaway into bottomless space. After afew minutes' lurid language, "Well, letthe damn thing go!" said I, "I do betterwithout it dangling in my way," andfrom then on I relied on the pig-stabber knife which, although it bentlike putty and cut through the snowlike a warm knife through butter,proved effective enough and had this

Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park

added advantage that it could be heldbetween my teeth when I needed bothhands for climbing.

Continual step-cutting had jarredour only watch into silence, so weguessed the time by the sun. Sometime after it had passed from the mid-sky we reached the summit ice-cap.The first couple of curves of ice werenegotiated all right in crampons. Thefinal slope of a few hundred feet to theactual summit didn't seem worth therisk with only one ice axe, but as itwas equivalent, say, to climbing Mt.Cloudmaker, but omitting to surmountthe cairn on top, we considered wehad done what we set out to do andwere content to leave it at that.

The view from that height wasmagnificent, embracing all the westcoast bush country to the sea stretch-ing very blue and soft to the farhorizon, while to north and south andeast lay range after range of snowypeaks and glaciers and misty valleys.We took some photos but didn't lingertoo long as the atmosphere at 12,000ft. is somewhat chilly.

We set off on the descent, quiteconfident of being off the rock face bydark, and so down the snow slopesand glacier by moonlight, arriving atthe hut certainly no later than 10 p.m.So much for our hopes! We were stilltoiling slowly down the rock when thesun broke in on our concentrationwith, "Well, good-night, folks."

"Eh, wait on!" cried we in somealarm, clinging on the rock face by oneclinker and a couple of fingernails.

"Sorry," says the Sun, "whistle'sgone; we don't get paid for overtime,"and with that he winked his eye anddropped down behind the mountaintop.

"So ho," thought I, "another nightout like the one we spent on MalteBrun at Easter." and, hastily taking afew bearings in the last remaininggleams of twilight, we continued ourdownward climb. Hours slipped by asswiftly and noiselessly as a stream onthe glacier ice, and now the moon waswith us, suffusing the rocks with itsfull white light.

At length we reached a ledge a fewdegrees nearer the horizontal than thevertical, and here we huddled closeunder a projecting rock in a vainendeavour to escape the wind whilewe held on and ate a handful ofsultana and some cheese.

"How-are-y'r-feelin', son?" I asked,articulating with difficulty as my faceand lips were frozen stiff as a board.

"Pretty grisly," says Birtle, still not

•without his infectious grin. "Andyou?"

"Cold as blazes," I replied. "Let's getgoing before we freeze to death" —which we thereupon did with asmuch speed as our stiffening frameswould allow.

There •was a bit of delay while we

deliberated which of two rathersimilar glaciers was our one. and —thanks to our guardian angels exert-ing a little more than their customarysolicitude on our behalf — we man-aged to choose the right one. An houror so of cramponing down remarkablysteep snow slopes, my hand onBirtle's shoulder in lieu of my lost iceaxe, brought us to the badly crevassedarea, and right in the thick of a mazeof deep cracks the moon,

with even less warning than thesun had given us, whispered, "Time'sup," and softly withdrew.

"O well," we thought, "we got on allright without the sun, now we'll geton all right without the moon" — andthat was just how it was.

Dream-walking down the finalslopes of the glacier, yawning like atornado every twenty paces ... a sleepyvoice enquires, "Do you see what Isee?"

"It's the dawn?" Yes, .it's the dawnright enough.

"I don't think that's funny," said anaggrieved voice addressing the sun,still bearing a grudge against him forthe practical joke played on us yestereve. This sunlight-moonlight-no light-sunlight sequence played strangetricks with one's sanity. "Life is achequer-board of nights and days ...Of nights and days ... of nights anddays . . ."

"Are those rocks our rocks?" askedBirtle, in that strange possessiveattitude one tends to adopt in themountains towards any familiar bit ofscenery. With difficulty I forced myheavy eyes open another fraction of aninch and surveyed the dim, ruggedoutline of rock outcrop.

"They'll do," I murmured, "one heapof rocks is as good as another I sup-pose."

"It's not the rocks we want," Birtlereminded me gently. "It's the hut wotstands thereon."

"Eh?" I said . . . but I was asleepagain; meanwhile my legs carried onmechanically towards the rock as steelis attracted to a magnet, or — a bettersimile as regards speed — as a slug isattracted to a lettuce.

Dot EnglishFrom The Bushwalker Annual

The Great Dividing Range runssouth in an unbroken chain fromNorth Queensland, through NSW,then turns westward and finallypeters out in the flat Wimmera countryof Victoria, The Grampians, coveringan area of about 50 miles by 20 miles,dangle on the end of this 3,000 milechain—a beautiful little embossedornament on the bosom of the Westernplains. They are rather difficult ofaccess to the Sydney walker, but fromMelbourne one does the trip in lessthan a day.

Although the northern end of thearea is most boosted to the tourist, wefound the south most appealing to theBushwalker who likes his areasprimitive and "unimproved." We wentas far south as the service car goes, toa large guest house— Hotel Belfield—lying in the valley below Belfield Peak,then walked a further couple of milessouth and camped by a pleasant littletrout stream.

Geologically speaking the Gram-plans are of block fault formation.They run at right angles across theend of the Great Divide in threeroughly parallel ranges stretchingnorth and south, the rocky westernslopes running up in a gentle inclineto drop sharply and precipitouslydown the eastern face. Mt. William,just under 4,000 ft., is the highest peakon the Grampians and was to be thegoal of our next day's walking. The

DECEMBER IN THE

GRAMPIANSonly map available was a somewhatinaccurate tourist road map. It showsa nice thick dotted line of a trackleading from the roadway to thesummit of Mt. William—a mere 5miles— and as this was our first day'sexperience with the map nothingwarned us to be distrustful. So about11 o'clock we broke camp and pot-tered along to the weir on Fvan'sCreek. Here we had an early lunchand hid our packs, then set off with 8or more hours of daylight in which todo what we estimated to be a 4 hours'walk. But we searched in vain for thetrack—nothing but thick scrub, andvery prickly too. So we plungedthrough the undergrowth hoping tosoon cut the track before long. But wedidn't cut the track, and the under-growth didn't improve either inquantity or quality. Per-s i s t e n tstruggling eventually brought us outto the high country we were aimingfor, but many hours had been lost.Away to the east towards Araratstretched the level plain. Behind uswas the spectacular Red Bluff, and infront rose Mt. William looking hardlymore than an hour's walk away. Buthour after hour slipped away and itwas 5 o'clock when the base of thesummit rocks was reached. Should wespend another hour gaining thesummit, with the certainty of spend-ing the night out with only a box ofmatches to keep us warm, or shouldwe try to get back to our packs by

dark? The latter suggestion won,Knowing that any creek in that

vicinity was a tributary of Fyan'sCreek we got into the nearest andfollowed it down. The descent becamesteeper and steeper but at least 'thecreek bed was free from undergrowth.When we got into Fyan's Creek

daylight was rapidly fading. Bothbanks were steep and densely over-grown offering not even a campsite fora rabbit let alone a space to light a fire.The water got deeper as we proceeded,block-ups of fallen timber increased,and by the time it was almost too darkto see where to put our feet and wehad both slipped in and got wet to thewaist, providence gave us a break inthe form of a wide log bridge over thecreek which naturally suggested aroad leading to and from. We found itwith difficulty in the dark and spedalong in an effort to warm up.

Gaining the road, however, was notthe end of the story; we still had tofind our packs. Imagine a pitch blacknight; imagine yourself on an un-known road not certain whether tofollow it north or south, and numer-ous small tracks, any one of whichmight or might not lead to the weir,

leading off it. We had just aboutresigned ourselves to spending therest of the evening vainly probingdown such tracks "by matchlightwhen we did find the one which leadto the weir. Thankfully we retrievedour packs and put on dry clothes andwithin a quarter of an hour were back

at ourpreviousnight'scampsiteand ourtroubleswere over.

Weawokelate nextmorning.Ira foundthat 60%

of his toenails had been wrecked andit took us a good hour to remove thethorns .and splinters from ouranatomy. We called this a day of rest,merely prospecting the beginnings ofa track up the opposite range. It was apromising beginning so next morningwe departed with two; small packetsof lunch for a day trip up Mi. Lubra.The track vanished on the first ridgein a welter of post-bushfire wattles,bracken and similar rubbish, throughwhich we twigged a path right to thesummit which we found invaluablefor the return journey. Lubra is reallydelightful. The view out over Victoria)Valley is wide and wild and allaround the long precipices of rockyranges surge like breakers in a highsea. The scrub, too, is bluish green,and from above looks like the rippledsurface of an ocean swell. The effect isquite unlike any other mountains I

have seen. It was a perfect day. Wetraversed three minor peaks andreturned to camp about dark.

Next day we left the South andfollowed the road north, the whole

bush colourful with wildflowers, thetree weighed down with brightparrots, and in between slender wattlestems flitted innumerable .small birds.We met quite a few huge stumpy-tailed blue-tongue lizards, and acouple of echidnas; wallabiesbounded through the bush .and theweird drumming of emus indicatedtheir presence in large numbersalthough I missed seeing any.

We climbed Mt. Victory throughfields of wildflowers. After severalhours on its long summit we passedon, and when the smell of eveningdeepened on the air we found a littletimber-getter's hut and camped thereas a cold wind was blowing on theexposed heights.

Next day we walked to WartookReservoir down a long hard road,detouring to look at MacKenzie Fallsand Broken Falls which lie in a verydeep gorge and are quite spectacular.The caretaker at War-took was sodelighted to see visitors that he

supplied us with a stretcher andkapok mattress which was just too tooluxurious but very much appreciated,likewise a diminutive yabbie which Icooked for tea—we were runningshort of provisions. Hunger made me

rash and I tried to get the last morselof flesh from the little beastie bychewing up his shell too, but somenasty little piece of it worked its waydown my throat and I spent the rest ofthe evening choking till our kindlycaretaker came to my rescue "with awhole loaf of bread which I wasinstructed to eat dry. Ira swore Ichoked myself on purpose to get thebread. It was good anyhow.

Next day we were given instruc-tions for finding a track which was tolead us on to the range and save ushours of road walk, but after locatingsame and following it for several milesN.W. when our objective was practi-cally S.E., we decided it must beanother one of .those zig-zag timbertracks and returned to the road. Itprobably did lead to the top of therange all

The hospitable little timber-getter'shut again opened its doorway to us—it had no doorway to open— andbright and early next morning we

departed like Alice for Wonderland.This is the tourist showground whereevery nook and cranny and gap andprecipice and lump of rock has itsappropriate name. The guide canpoint out innumerable subtitles inrock such as The Rt. Hon. S. M. Bruce,whales and porpoises and manyanother queer fish, but your percep-tion has to be as subtle

as your subject to recognise them.The Grand Canyon, which leads to allthese marvels is short and spectacularand very easy walking, one section—the Boulevard—so resembling a

suburban footpath, that I'm sure itwas manufactured several millionyears ago -with the present-day touristin mind. There is a wired-in lookoutfrom which you may gaze into thevalley, which we forthwith did andspotted out a good campsite for ourlast evening's camp. A gentle rambledown a well-worn track led us out tothe Halls Gap camping ground—awell-

Catered-for tourist area where lorryloads of lads loitered and lassies

lingered till the last gleam of daylightsent them speeding home.

And now, after 8 days of brilliantheat in a country of magnificentdistances, the warm air permeated bya wild honey smell, the sky at nightreeked with millions of stars, theRoyal Revolver of this globe of oursbrought Monday round all too soonand returned us to the murk of theCity. Do I repeat myself when I say Idon't like it?

by Dot Englishfrom The Bushwalker Magazine 1947

Being seized with one of ourperiodical urges to exercise whichafflict us but seldom in this city ofscrambled seasons, we decided, as itwas midsummer, to spend a fortnightsomewhere in that region of Victoriaknown as the Western Coastal Dis-trict, a name somewhat misleading tonovices as it faces directly south-east.

The southern extremity of this coastis stormy Cape Otway, the continent'ssecond most southerly tip, standingsentinel over treacherous Bass Straitin which lies King Island, the scene ofmany wrecks in the early days of thecolony. Ome such wreck, causing thegreatest loss of life. was that of anemigrant ship from England whosefour hundred odd passengers (men,women and children) were drowned.Many bodies were washed ashore, butas the local inhabitants had only onespade on the island, it was inadequatefor the job of grave digging, so anappeal appeared in the Melbournepapers of the day for volunteers to goto the island and take spades to helpbury the victims. At the same time aprotest was lodged against the au-thorities who, although this wreck

was by no means the first on thatshore, still failed to put a beacon lighton the island.

We already knew Torquay andAnglesea, having had a biking-camping trip there Christmas, 1942.Lorne, the next place mentioned onthe map, is too much of a touristresort, so we decided to skip it andcontinue on to Apollo Bay. One goesby train from 14elbourne 45 miles toGeelong, then 70 miles by service carround a high road cut into the clifffaces and consisting chiefly of con-tinuous c-shaped curves. On thelandward side lies a long range ofsteep hills called mountains, offwhich the rains run freely and fre-quently so that, in a distance of 30miles, twenty-flve rivers and creekscourse down to the sea.

It was drizzling when we got out ofthe car somewhat sick and sorry forour respective selves, and facing therather desolate prospect of grey sea,cold, wet sand and no place particularto go.

We had been told that we couldbuy provisions at the local shops, butour informant failed to mention thatcountry shops here go in for a mid-week half holiday, and of course to-

28 DEGREES

day was it. A foraging tour of theshopping centre revealed some sort ofa fish restaurant open, where we hada meal and fed 'the infant her littleselection of private victuals. Then,somewhat consoled, we once morefaced the open road.

We passed a couple of inhabitedmotor camps with the usual sprin-kling of uninviting concrete buildings.Curious eyes gazed at the unfamiliarsight of two hikers plodding throughthe rain with dripping groundsheetscovering their packs and flappingaround their knees, and atwelvemonth-old baby in a sling infront, quite enjoying the novel situa-tion

The rain easedoff, but the roadwent on and on.To the left lay thewild sea shore,breathing outloneliness anddesolation andto the right werefenced sheeppaddocks. As thesituationshowed no signof improving, we decided to pitchcamp a couple of miles out from thetownship and do a bit of scoutingaround next day when the weathermight be kinder.

The late sun shivered out spas-modically from behind scuddingcloud as we abdulled the tent low tothe ground in a small saucer-likedepression among the sparse, coarsegrass and low, storm-weathered scrubof the sand dunes. Seagulls screechedup and down the deserted beach and

out on the leaden sea a flock of blackswans rocked on the waves, caringlittle whether or not we imperfectlywarm-blooded humans liked thegeneral effect of grey skies, cold windand .showers.

The baby was fed and beddeddown In her hammock slung under anearby bush, and we were not long infollowing suite. There were morescattered showers and all night longthe wind moaned over our hollow thetent flapped the temperature saggedthrough the shivering thirties and wewondered whether perhaps it howledless Insistently around our third-floorflat back in Melbourne.

Here we spent ten days, shone onby a pale and fickle sun and rained onby Irregular showers. Explorationtrips round the Ironbound coast,while the small one slept In herhammock and kept the seagullscompany, revealed vast sunlessstretches of waste waters that beat onthe black-fanged shore where longtrailing streamers of yellow-brownseaweed waved hopelessly with thetides; precipitous hills rising straightup from the sea and covered head

Apollo Bay today

high with Incredibly prickly bushes; ablack mans of rock separated from themainland by a narrow channel, calledSeal Rooks, which belied Its name byhaving no sign of life, either vegetableor animal Shelly Beach, some distancefurther round, was at least true tolabel, being covered with cartloads ofshells.

It was pleasant one fine eveningwhen we act off for a prowl about Inthe hilly sheep paddocks, leaving thelittle elf Infant asleep under the greenbush, her white hammock shining Inthe soft twilight soft an a summermoth. The setting sun was crowningthe hills with a greenfold aura as wecrossed by a footbridge over the riverwhere, the wild black swans rockedabove their reflections by the reedymargin. A soft sea mist clung to thehollows, but we turned our backs tothe sea and, set our eyes on thehighest point of the nearby range ofhills. They were well grassed andsteep, and reminded me of the greenand happy hills of New Zealandwhere I climbed so long and long ago.From the top we saw the coast inminiature stretching away In beautifulcurves, lines of foam making a lacyfringe to a vivid lapis lazuli sea whichmisted towards the, horizon, to mergewith a sky of slightly deeper hue. 'Wedescended in the gentle twilight andthanked our stars for this one glimpseof the Better land, vouchsafed to usbecause the weather gods chose to co-operate.

Warning of an approaching LOWon the daily weather map decided usto vacate before we were flooded out ofour hollow.

"And to think," I said sadly as we

huddled in the service car watchingthe. scowling rain, "that only five orsix hundred miles north you can lieon the beach and bask cat's hours inthe sun any old day of the week."

"That may be so," replied Ira, whoalways likes to see the whole of thepicture, "but If you go a similardistance south you strike the northernlimit of drift ice from the Antarctic~"

That was an aspect of the situationwhich had -not occurred to me. Ipondered it the rest of the way home.

By Dot Butlerfrom The Bushwalker magazine1961

Inspired by theHimalayan party that hadjust successfully climbedEverest, we decided that ournearest equivalent would bea mountaineering trip inTasmania. Keith organizedthe trip, and in theClubroom, those whoweren’t able to go were, asis their custom, giving theiropinion on what the out-come might be: You’llfreeze! Why don’t you gonorth to the Barrier Reef?Don’t forget your water-proof pants! Do you knowhow it rains down there?Take you water wings! They’re goingto camp in "Snow’s" tent!!! (Maniacallaughter off stage.)

Well, let me tell you all about it, lestyou begin to think in terms of whole-sale discomfort and shivering misery.It rain all right – and it snowed, and itsleeted, and it blizbarded, and it blew– a holiday so wet we might have beenexcused for growing a coating of mosson the south side, but that onlyhappens to stones that have stoppedrolling, and we hardly stopped once.

Arriving at Cradle MountainReserve about sundown, all preparedto camp in "Snow’s" tent (too bad hehad forgotten to bring his tent pegs),

A WINTER HOLIDAY IN

TASMANIA

we were cordially greeted by Mac theRanger, who said Waldheim Chaletwas vacant, and we could stay therefor 8/6 a night. We accepted thisinvitation with alacrity; thus, what-ever the days might bring forth, wewere assured of warm, dry nights.This was a great thing, but evengreater was the deep sense of com-radeship that permeated all our daysat Waldheim- the sort of comradeshipthat fills you with warmth thatphysical old can’t touch.

Built of rough-hewn native timber,Waldheim fits as naturally into itssurroundings as grey lichen on a rock.Each year its ageing frame leans alittle closer towards the earth that is

its home. Some day, perhaps soon, itwill fall to pieces, but when it hasbecome one with the dark mould ofthe beech forest floor, we will think ofit as of a dear, dear friend. All snuglyensconced within, we slept with ourmattresses on the floor in front of a bigfire and dreamed of what tomorrowmight bring forth.

Up at 6.30, "Snow" lit the kitchenrange. We had breakfast, cut lunches,and were away by 8.30, bound forCradle Mountain. We tramped alongmuddy tracks in shifting mist and lowcloud, and over huge snowdrifts thirtyfeet deep, from which we could see agleam of lakes in the distance. Wepracticed with ice axes, cutting stepsup snow slopes at steep angles, andkicking up and down snow faces andover a cornice. Keith knew all thetricks, and Garth was pretty to watch,but "Snow" new to all this, was like agawky young puppy.

As we approached Kitchen Hut, allwe saw of it was the chimney pokingthrough the drift. "Snow" gamboled

ahead, and with great exuberance,dropped himself down the chimney.The next thing we hear is a wail fromdown under the snow, "I can’t getout!" We dragged him out, and as itwas only eleven o’clock, decided to goand climb Little Horn, a sharp splinterof rock separated by a gap from thenortheast end of Cradle Mountain.

For a coupleof hours wewallowedwaist-deepthrough snow,which laylightly on thelow scrub at thebase of Cradle.Imagine ahowling gale, asnowstorm,and us, allaiming for theone target. Itwas a tie; we allreached the gap

at the same time. An icy blast hit us.We put our heads down and madehaste for the sheltered lee of Cradle.Here we ate our lunch standing up,stamping our wet feet in the snow,and trying to warm them.

Although it didn’t look far to thesummit of Little Horn, we decided wewere too wet and cold and uncomfort-able for any more, so wallowed backto Kitchen. "Ha!" said the weather, "Iwas only fooling you." The windpromptly dropped, it stopped snow-ing, and out came the sun. Well,wasn’t this mighty! The homingpigeons about faced and headed froCradle again. Only Keith was a bitdubious about all this, and when we

started the familiar sinking-to-the-waist progression all over again, hedecided he had had enough, soreturned to Kitchen Hut.

When we others got on to the steepslope of the mountain, the surface washarder, and instead of sinking, wenow had to kick steps up the snowcouloir. The summit ridge was wellplastered, and on the sheltered side ofthe mountain were deep snow faces.We swung along with rising excite-ment, and at last reached the summitcairn. "Well," said Garth, quotingHillary, "We knocked the bastard off."Said I, continuing the quotation, "Theoccasions seems to call for more thana formal handshake," so we put ourarms round each others’ shouldersand jumped up and down on thesummit of our own little Everest-threesmall figures under the sky and all theworld was ours.

There were photographs to be takenwhile the sum lit up the snowy peaksand shining lakes, then the mist camesweeping over and we began thedescent. It was great fun glissadingdown the steep snow slopes, and soback to Kitchen Hut. Inside the hut,Keith had worn a deep circular trackin the snow that had drifted inside, ashe stamped round for several hours,waiting for us to return. We pulledhim out through the chimney, andthen followed our trodden tracks overthe snowfields towards home.

In the deepening twilight our eyesfollowed down Marion’s Track, overthe button grass flat with it meander-ing stream to the dark fringe of beechforest, where Waldheim nestled in itsnest of trees, a white column of smokedrifting upwards-good old Mac had

lit the fire for us, and that meant hotwater for baths. While still flounder-ing through the button grass swamp,we drew straws to see who wouldhave first bath, and Keith was thelucky winner.

Home at last. While Keith filled thebathroom up with steam, we others setabout getting the tea ready. Keith haddone a mighty job catering for thisparty; we had everything. Did weneed rice and cabbage for "Snow’s"Foo Chow-it was there. Did we needcelery, apple, onion, for our stuffedgrouse-again, these were all available.That night we fed well, then sat infront of a big fire, our wet clothesdraped all around to dry out, andlistened while Garth read what was tobe our nightly serial, "The Day of theTriffids."

Outside, the possums scuffledabout in the brown, damp leaves, themoon stole over the snowy stillness,and when at length it peeped throughthe skylight, it saw us all soundasleep in front of the fire.

Next day, we were hit by a low,despite a favourable weather forecast.We looked out the kitchen window tosee Mac’s wallabies patiently bearingthe continuous rain and wind, but westayed inside and set our hands tosome fancy cooking. Keith made asuper chocolate icing cake; I made acouple of baked puddings; and"Snow’s" piece de resistance was amarvelous piece of conglomeratecalled Foo Chow. But after a latebreakfast, could we do it justice? Itseemed a pity to have no appetite forall this luxury food, but it also seemeda pity to go out for some exercise andget our only outdoor clothes drenched

again after spending all night dryingthem out. The problem was solved forme by putting on my boots andSpeedo swim costume, and hurtlingout into the gale for a run. Down theroad to the four-mile signpost andback through snow and sleet didsomething for the appetite, andspeaking for myself, I can say lunchwas a good meal. Garth and "Snow"went out later to work off the effectswith a walk to Dove Lake, and Keithtook his exercise vicariously byreading South Col.

Looking out the window hopefullynext morning, what do we see? Morerain, wind and falling snow. But didthat deter us after yesterday’s day ofsloth? No, and we set out toreconnoiter the cirque which holdsCradle Mountain and Barn Blufftogether. Down and over the littlestream, where a poor washed-outwombat peered about with mistynocturnal eyes vainly trying to findshelter under the footbridge, then upMarion’s Track to the snowfields. Andhere we stepped into a strange worldof cotton wool fog. In the windlesssilence we followed our faintlyshowing tracks of the preceding days,being grateful to Garth for havingsunk in so deep and so often, thusverifying the route. Occasionalglimpses of snow poles also helped.

At Kitchen Hut we again got intoan area of wind that dispersed themist somewhat, and encouraged us tocontinue on towards the cirque andBarn Bluff. We battled along kneedeep in drifts at the base of Cradle,which looked huge and like the WestPeak of Mt Earnslaw (NZ) through thedriving snow. A gale force wind,

shouting at our backs, pushed usalong and filled the air with icy drift."It’s going to be hell when we turnaround," was at the back of mythoughts all the while. At last wecame to a small thicket of trees wherewe hoped to have lunch, but there wasno shelter from the wind, so we didn’teven try to get out our food, butdecided to return to Kitchen to eat.And so we turned our faces into thesweeping fury of the blizzard. Theblinding drift froze up our nostrils sowe couldn’t breath. By pulling ourgoggles low, closing up our parkahoods, and breathing warm air fromthe mouth into the hood, our nostrilsthawed out and we fought out wayback, half blinded, our parkas andground sheets whipping madly roundus with whiplash cracks that echoedlike bullet shots past our ears.

Back in comparative calm ofKitchen Hut, somewhat chastened byour experience in the storm, we hardlyfelt like eating. Waldheim was call-ing… Hot baths! Warm fires! Dryclothes! Ah… The late sun shiveredthrough a break in the scuddingclouds as we slopped our way back,water trickling down between singletand skin, sodden pants clinging toour knees making walking difficult.We wriggled our toes in the icy mushin our boots. Being dry was hardly amemory now. We sidetracked to havea look at Crater Lake. We were havinga little argument with "Snow" as towhether we could get wetter than wet,and Garth was getting all technicalabout detergents. "Snow" didn’t thinkit was possible. As he gestulated todrive home his point, he slipped intothe lake. He emerged the colour of

pumice.Whether he was wetter than wet, he

didn’t say, and it would have beenunkind of us to ask, but he wascertainly clod. He shot of like a rocketfor home and a hot bath. We followed,and before long we were savouringthe luxury of being warm and dry. Wetook it in turns reading out a chapter

each of our serial till tea time (that wasthe night we had stuffed grouse andbaked vegetables), then found thesuspense was getting so great we hadto read on after tea till 10.30. In spite ofour day’s exertions we felt reluctant togo to bed, so we sat talking till 1am.

We woke at 9am. Snowing andhigh wind. We left late at about 11, butthat didn’t worry us; we felt by nowwe had got the measure of the weather– bad in the mornings, tending to clear

by midday. Mac had given us the keyand rowlocks of the boat at Dove Lake.We clambered round the walls of theflooded boathouse and inside, to findthe boat half submerged. We putthings shipshape and pushed out,getting our feet good and wet in theprocess. Who cares; what are dry feetanyway?

Snow was falling, partly veilingthe rugged walls all around. Greatgusts of wind would swoop downat unexpected moments and dealthe boat a mighty blow. Rain andsnow beat in our faces and eyesand got down our mouths everytime we opened them to say, "Geeisn’t this great!" With all thesehazards to contend with, thepattern of our progress was atortuous zigzag, and the wonderwas we got anywhere withoutbeing sunk. Peering through thefalling snow we at last saw thewhite trail of the landing stage atthe distant end of the lake, andmanaged to get there and tie up theboat.

What a country of contrasts thisis. Leaving the cold and gustylakeshore, we entered a densebeech forest- a world of utter

silence, where the only sound was themuffled plop of snow falling fromburdened branches. We emerged fromthe deep timber, and there were therocks of Little Horn, and there againwere the rain, the sleet and the snow.We had a realy exciting climb up acrisp couloir lying steeply betweenblack fangs of rock. There weremagnificent views from the summit,but there were also frustrated photog-raphers, as it was too dull for colour.

And now we were coming downagain and on the homeward run. Wetook a slightly different route, follow-ing a little stream strong with winter,which tumbled along its rocky courseunder a beech tree canopy, and soback to the windy lake. Our morning’spractice at the oars had done nothingto improve our style, and we zig-zagged back to the boatshed and from

there ran back to Waldheim to warmup. Then followed the daily procedureof wringing out our sopping clothesand draping them round the fires todry. A hot bath, dry clothes, and lunchby a big fire at 4pm, a session ofTriffids, and life was a grand affair.

We had given up expecting fineweather, so we were pleasantlysurprised when we woke late onSaturday morning to a reasonablycalm day. We got out to Kiychen about12 o’clock (by now you have guessedKitchen Hut is the hub of most of ourmountain climbs), and decided on atraverse of Cradle.

A lovely day. Ours the joy ofclimbing to a mountain top; to gazeover a world of wonder and delight; to

dream unutterable things and try toput them in words; to feel the fresh,keen air on our faces and the bloodtingling warmly in our veins… Wereturned to Waldheim walking on air.

And there we met Gawd.He had just come up for the week-

end. Gawd was a depressing type, towhom the world was weary, flat, stale

and uninspiring.The corners of hismouth drooped ina cureless pessi-mism. His everyword was ablasphemy. Hesaid he wouldn’tbelong to a cluband be orderedabout. He saidthere was nothinggood aboutWaldheim – itsfoundations, theoriginal tree

stumps, were perishing of wet rot; thekitchen annex should have never beenbuilt; the hot water system wasuseless. He said dear old Laz Pura,who had perished from exposure nearKitchen Hut some years previously,intending to commit suicide, else whyhad he signed the visitor’s book "L.Pura late SBW." We edged away fromhim as from a disease, and had our teawhen he left the kitchen.

And now its Sunday – our last day.We plan to climb Barn Bluff, and beback to catch a taxi out to Sheffield at6pm. Gawd said, "Don’t be too utterlyridiculous; it can’t be done!" We wokeand got up at dawn and were awayabout 1-½ hours later. With hardsnow to walk on, we reached Kitchen

in an hour – less than half the timepreviously taken – and then round thebase of Cradle to the cirque. Soon adense mist enveloped everyone as wegroped our way along between snowpoles. After a time there were no moresnow poles to guide us, and the windhowling in the right ear all the timewas the only indication that at leastwe were keeping our direction.

"Snow" knew by the grace ofHeaven where we were going, if noone else did. He headed offeventuently up a slight incline whichcouldn’t be seen to rise in the fog, onlyfelt. I was now aware of the windhowling in my left ear, and couldn’tget rid of the idea that we were on theway back. "Snow" drew maps in thesnow with his ice axe to show howthw cirque performs a big loop, but mybrain couldn’t take it in. but of course"Snow" was right, and when, withmiraculous swiftness the mist sud-denly lifted, there we were, standingright at the base of Barn Bluff, whichtowered above us like a mighty castle.

Mac had told us we were the firstever to climb Cradle in the winter, andhe thought Barn Bluff also waswaiting for a first winter ascent.Would we be the first? Would we not!We had a little bit of everything onthat climb, even ice faces up withGarth led and cut steps for us. So tothe summit. It was a perfectly fine day– the map of the reserve lay spreadbefore us in all its topographical detail– the snow-dappled peaks of Cradle,Rowland, Oakleigh, Pelion East, Ossa,Pelion West, Frenchman’s Cap, Lyell,and a faint ethereal blue which wasthe ocean beyond Queenstown. Garthstrode enthusiastically in all direc-

tions, taking the perfect photo, with"Snow’s" voice following him up,"Take one for me." ("Snow" had losthis camera at the start of the trip.)

At last we left the top and climbedand slid and glissaded down again. Itwas now late afternoon. It was nowlate afternoon. Behind Barn Bluff,mighty streamers of light from thewestern sun radiated out into theendless blue, where a few clouds –wind flowers – had scattered theirpetals of gold light. We could not keepfrom looking back every few paces…

‘I have had my invitation to thisworld’s festival and so my life hasbeen blessed;

My eyes have seen and my earshave heard…"

"well, it’s been a wonderful party,"said I. "Who should we thank for Allthis?"

"I know" said "Snow," and over theglowing hills his eager young voicerang out, "Thank you Hughie, for aglorious day.

Back to Waldheim in time to have ahot bath, some tea, and be packed upready for the taxi, which arrived at six.We carried our gear down and stowedit in the boot, and ourselves and iceaxes inside. We turned round for onelast look at Waldheim. "Ought to havea match put to it," said Gawd, but inour memories it will stay eternallyembalmed – a mansion and a home.One last wave to Mac, standing therein his rugged gentlehood, genuinebeaming from his face. We will comeback again some day… Goodbye…Goodbye…