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Caprine Chronicle 2:

 

Sunday 26th June recorded our second junket as an entire group.

Meeting in the Tantau’s kitchen, the scene resembled a large group of gregarious children on Christmas morning as Joy handed out backpacks and document wallets to each team member. The excitement was magnified by the fact that these items were FREE!! Joy was elected to the club’s hall of fame.

Straight away the day was marked by two mysterious events. The first was the suspicious insistence by John that he and Joy travel alone to the start of the walk. The second was that we didn’t get lost on the way.

The latter enigma was explained by the fact that John lead the convoy rather than the squad relying on Richard’s perverse pilotage.

The former was never brought to account. In our car, we proposed the theory that John was suffering a chronic dose of posterior flatulence and desperately needed some privacy in order to rattle his piles. Certainly Joy seemed to be sporting an expression of round-eyed surprise when she alighted their car at the start of the hike.

Not getting lost on the way caught a few of us off guard. We had not had time to settle the pre-tramp jitters and there was much complaint of aches and stiffness as we trudged off along the trail. Perhaps we should reinstate Richard to the position of chief navigator.

The Werribee Gorge circuit was described as 10km long taking 5 hours to traverse. We figured we’d bash it off in two.

We hadn’t figured on the steep climbs and rocky paths.

Nick had gamely brought his GPS with him again. Very handy tool that. This time, however, Nick had switched the device on prior to departure and it seemed to be reporting their whereabouts with some degree of accuracy. Within the first 500m of the walk we had ascended 80m… and we were shagged!! This does not bode well for the assault on Mt Kinabalu.

We stopped to remove some clothing and have a breather. Oh… and have some lollies.

Luckily, there were many, very scenic, lookouts along the path which we gleefully used as an excuse to stop and have a breather. Oh… and have some lollies. Ultimately, decorum prevented us removing any more clothing.

Much to Chuck’s delight, we stopped at one particularly precipitous edge which overlooked a 30m drop to the river below. There was a multitude of large boulders to hand so the boys decided to have a competition to see who could be the first to land a boulder in the river.

Boys do that.

A flurry of boulder chucking and heckling then, finally, a SPLASH. (Although it sounded more like a SPLAT to me.) John was declared the victor and we marched on.

The path doubled back and went into steep decline. Ultimately we found ourselves traversing the Gorge that gives the trail its name. Beautiful scenery with the winter sun casting into stark relief the caves and outcrops that textured the canyon’s steep sides. “What would have made those caves?” Mark absently inquired. “Monks” said Nick.

John stopped to describe the geological structures and how they were formed. All the material he’d learned from his years at Sovereign Hill. Really interesting stuff but nothing that I can remember off hand. A short silence after he’d finished then the group drifted off to resume the trek.

The suggestion that we stop for lunch was received with exuberant acclaim.

With the picnic underway and to the sounds of muted munching, Richard declared the meeting of the DO-IT-WHILE-YOU-CAN club open. There were many agenda items to cover so he spurred us to get on with the job.

First agenda item was the team name. Richard passed over to Nick. “Well, we’ve got the idea of GOATs (Geriatric Overseas Adventure Travelers) and nobody’s come up with anything else so…”. A show of hands. Motion carried.

There were lots of other things on the agenda and Richard gamely tried to stir up a bit of debate but, what with the availability of food and everything, there was little interest among the delegates. I do recall that I was lumbered with the job of Scribe for the whole of this particular holiday. Other than that I don’t think there was much to record. Oh… except Neil told us that you can actually DIE from altitude sickness!!! Something to ponder on that! Also, Mark told us that he didn’t need inoculating against Typhoid since he’d actually had the disease! That prompted the suggestion that his handle ought to be MARY but that doesn’t comply with item (1) of the naming rules.

Somebody declared the meeting over, we packed our rubbish and resumed the walk. We were 5km and 3 hours into the journey. Blimey!

Someone (a fair bet it was Richard) misread the directions and had half the team execute a hazardous crossing of the river only to find they should have remained on this side. Chuck found herself separated from the group and took the opportunity to slip behind a bush to fertilize the nettles. While returning across the river, Pike noticed a herd of leeches clinging to a rock. She loudly pointed them out. With a shriek, Chuck abandoned her ablutions. It’s one thing to have a leech up your trouser leg… We think Chuck might be developing a phobia even more powerful than her fear of heights.

After an exciting traversal of a rock face by hanging on to a steel rope, we found ourselves on the bank of the river with a 30m cliff towering over us. The moving trail on Nick’s GPS showed us to have almost completed a loop and, although the trail veered right, our vehicles were just a short distance left, high up and over the hill.

With a start, Marilyn called the group’s attention to an, evidently, recently deceased animal. Judging by the hindquarters and tail sticking out from under the blood splattered boulder that was sitting on it’s head, it appeared to be a small rock wallaby. Several other boulders were resting on the undergrowth nearby. Obviously a recent fall. Could even have been within the last couple of hours. Poor thing. We moved on.

 Richard began to adopt the gait of an Afghan landmine victim. The older members of our group were prompted to recall a TV western called “Gunsmoke” in which the hero (Matt Dillan, the local sheriff) had a crippled side-kick called “Chester”. Could CHESTER be Richard’s handle?

A grueling half kilometer long hill marked the start of the final stretch back to the car park. The ascent took its toll on Chester, at the end he was barely able to walk and some of us were openly discussing the possibility that Mark would have to carry him out. Actually, I think we were all discussing that possibility. All, that is, except Mark and Chester.

Over the final crest and, at last, the cars came into view. The reading on the trusty GPS was a round trip distance of 8km. Journey time 5hrs 30mins. Amazing. Normally these treks take half the time so it was clearly as arduous as our muscles said it had been.

Off to Baccus Marsh to buy some collapsible walking sticks from Aldi. A communal coffee then back to Ballarat and a couple of medicinals at the Tantaus for those in need. What joy.