At the back of my knee there is something black and shiny, fat and greedy. It’s like a pulsating boil, the length and size of half a finger.
I can’t sit down again. I can’t bend my knee. The mere thought of the surrounding skin coming into contact with it is enough to make my hands quiver.
‘It must have jumped down from the trees this morning before you pulled on your trousers,’ says Jyrki. ‘And you wouldn’t have noticed it. Where’s the food?’
Food? What, are we going to stop for a snack? But Jyrki is already undoing my rucksack and rummaging around for the bag of food. He finds the resealable bag with the small sachets of salt and pepper that we’d pinched from the flight. He rips open a sachet of salt.
‘Stretch out your leg.’
I straighten the leech leg out behind me, and I feel an almost stupid sense of relief, as though I’m pushing the disgusting creature further away, even though it’s still attached to me. Jyrki sprinkles salt on the bend in my knee.
‘What are you doing?’ I’m ashamed of the shrillness in my voice.
‘This might just be an old wives’ tale, but leeches apparently don’t like salt. Should make it easier to pull it off.’
As Jyrki pulls the leech off my leg, I can’t feel anything. Not a nip, not even the repulsive sensation of it pulling away. Jyrki disposes of the thing in his hand.
‘Why didn’t it hurt?’
‘These little guys release an anaesthetic into their victims and an agent that stops the blood clotting. Speaking of which, that’s bleeding quite a bit. There are thick veins behind your knee really close to the surface of the skin.’
‘It’ll have to be bandaged with gauze and skin tape.’ My voice gradually returns to normal, because even I can do this. ‘The first-aid stuff is in the left-hand side pocket.’
A ruby-red stream of blood is trickling down my calf as if, diverted by the tampon, my period had tried to find an alternative way out of my body.
Jyrki
Two blokes walk towards us with surfboards under their arms.
Bloody hell, how much fuel has had to be burnt to transport all that out here?
They approach us on the path as if this is something they do every day. Little bags on their backs and their man-sized fibreglass toys supported against their hips.
As if everything I’ve been trying to escape has overtaken me, jumped out from behind a corner and slapped me in the face.
They acknowledge us casually and disappear around the bend in the path. I have to consult the map: sure enough, a little way back there’s an almost invisible trail leading away from the main path. It winds its way down to a virginal cove that these guys must have heard people bragging about. They absolutely had to see it for themselves, had to surf the waves that other people hadn’t yet polluted with their presence.
Still, you’ve got to admire them for carrying stuff all that way. It’s a thirty-kilometre round trip from here to Melaleuca. Thirty kilometres with a surfboard beneath your arm, just so you can tell your mates you’ve surfed at Hidden Bay.
Heidi
After crossing the gentle shoulder of a series of hills I can see the Melaleuca lagoon in the distance, a primitive, sandy airstrip and the buildings standing next to it, and the sense of relief almost makes me burst into tears.
Buildings themselves don’t mean anything — they’re not shops, they’re not refreshment stands — but a building is still a building. It doesn’t let the rain in, you don’t have to lie there with your legs bent uncomfortably across your rucksack, the wind doesn’t rattle the walls, and if a eucalyptus tree falls on the roof the person inside won’t necessarily be crushed to death.
Buildings also generally feature real toilets, ones with walls and something to sit on. At this point in time that’s more than enough. I don’t care how much it smells, as long as my arse is high enough above the slurry of excrement heaving with innumerable life forms.
And where there are buildings there are generally other people, too. Real people. Members of the same species, not just occasional passers-by or people that happen to be sharing our campsite but representatives of a certain level of civilization. Real people, people who stay in the same place for more than a moment, people you can ask all kinds of things you could never ask fellow competitors in the never-ending how-far-out-into-the-bush-have-you-been contest. The most you ever ask these other competitors is how swollen or dry a particular river is, because everybody’s basic assumption is that they already know everything.
Perhaps once again, although it’s just for a moment, we can feel like part of a group, a community, feel that somebody else might shoulder some of the shared responsibility for one another. If Jyrki were suddenly to collapse with a brain haemorrhage I wouldn’t have to panic all by myself, to flap around and try to do something. I’d be able to find other people to take control of the situation. People who know better, people who know what they’re doing.
What’s more, this place has that blessed little sandy airstrip. With the help of that airstrip, it’s only an hour from here to the heart of a more civilized civilization than we could ever dream of demanding. So if Jyrki did have that brain haemorrhage — just a minor one, of course, but he’d be unconscious for a while and need immediate treatment — or if I tripped on the duckboards and sprained my ankle just badly enough, then we wouldn’t be in too much trouble. If there’s a runway there must be working links to the rest of the world, and if you have money and credit cards and a communication link to civilization it’s almost as if you’re already there. The rest is just a matter of sorting things out. But if your foot slips out in the middle of some God-forsaken place like Ironbound, or if a tidal wave smashes you against the rocks at Granite Beach, or if you’re out in the bush — of which there is plenty in Southy — and step on a venomous snake (and there are plenty of them, too), then you’re basically dead. Although in theory — and I really mean in theory — you’d still have hours to live.
As the buildings grow larger and larger I become more and more excited. Here there are even two huts. No need for all that obsessive palaver of the tent; here we can spread out and relax on a bunk. You can cook food sitting on a real bench; you can eat at a real table. Someone might have left an old magazine or a frayed paperback in the hut. The very thought of having something to read brings water to the virtual mouth in my brain.
We’ve hiked like the wind. After leaving the coast there was a slight incline, but the path has been so good and dry and easy that it’s only midday, and it would appear that the rest of the path up to Melaleuca runs along duckboards. A lazy afternoon — I mean a real lazy afternoon with something civilized to do — opens out in front of me like the Holy Grail.
I can’t help smiling as we reach the edge of the runway. There’s a water tank by the side of the airstrip building. That feels like civilization, too; this is a place where you don’t have to drink from brown murky ditches. Here you can drink from something built by human hands.
Jyrki
I start filling the Platypus with water from the tank, careful not to let any go to waste. Well, after last night’s generous downpour the tank should be full again.
Although we’re over ten kilometres away from the actual coast, the lagoon at Melaleuca, even though it’s far inland, is connected via a narrow sound to Bathurst Harbour, a vast inland body of water that joins the sea to the west. This waterway has enabled people to ship in machines and equipment by boat, to maintain the old tin mines and this cluster of buildings in Melaleuca. I’m surprised there aren’t any old tractors rusting away in the bushes.
She's eyeing the narrow dirt track that leads towards a bird-watching shack partially hidden in the bushes and from there on to the huts. They look like they’re made of corrugated iron. Yuck.
It’s still very early, and the weather’s good. Old Port Davey Track runs across the airstrip and winds off to the west. I remember that according to the map it crosses a river then continues north-wes
t through an easy-looking flat section of terrain. It then reaches Joan Point where you have to cross to Bathurst Narrows by boat. You can’t spend the night there; there’s no drinking water. Across the sound at Farrell Point there’s a brook and a designated campsite.
I take another look at my watch. Another four, five hours and we’ll have reached the crossing.
I ask her why she isn’t filling her water bottles.
She looks at me as though I’ve just crawled out from beneath a stone.
I tell her we’ve got plenty of time to reach Farrell.
She pauses for a long moment. Then she asks what we’re going to do with the extra day. Weren’t we supposed to arrive at Scott’s Peak on Thursday?
I remind her that there’s a suitable bus connection leaving Scott’s Peak on Tuesday, too.
She asks why we’re suddenly cutting two whole days out of our agreed timetable. I can hear from her voice that she’s retreating further and further into her dug-out, assuming defensive positions.
I show her the day-leg suggestions on the other side of the map. Although the leg from Farrell Point to Watershed Camp is split across two days, it’s only twenty-four kilometres. For us that’s barely a day’s walk.
Her jaw hits the floor. She’s about to say something, but I continue now that I’m in my stride.
From Louisa River to Cox Bight was eighteen kilometres, I remind her. We covered that in six hours, and this terrain looks pretty similar. Mathematically that means twenty-four kilometres should take us eight hours. That’s an average day’s stretch. So if we just behave ourselves and carry on now we’ll cover the two-day stretch tomorrow, and what do you know — we’ll be in Scott’s Peak on Tuesday.
Heidi
I look at the buildings in Melaleuca, only a tantalizing stone’s throw away. At the same time I realize that if we follow Jyrki’s new plan we can be out of here two days ahead of schedule.
I think about Ironbound. I think about it for a long time. Then the previous horrendous sticky night, the flooding Rivulet, the steep incline at Granite Beach. I think about the leeches, the pit toilet at Deadman’s Bay, and it all makes me shudder. I think of Ironbound once again, and the shuddering continues. I think about the endless — can it really have taken us only six hours? — trudging across the tussocks and bogs on the plains after leaving Louisa River and the lung-wrenching climb across Red Hill, which Jyrki seemed to think was a piece of cake. Cox Bight, which was like a tiny little paradise before the snake of the thunderstorm appeared and ruined everything.
I think of my back and my shoulders.
I think of my period.
I think of walls and roofs.
I think of Tuesday and Thursday.
I think of Forneaux Lodge and Punga Cove back at Queen Charlotte Track. This is like leaving Forneaux Lodge without the promise of Punga Cove.
And while we’re on the subject of New Zealand and Sabine Circuit and Granite Beach, how many times has Jyrki said, as if in passing, that this was nothing, nothing at all, we might as well do another ten-kilometre stretch now that we’ve warmed up properly?
I’ve had enough. I won’t hear a single ‘If you managed that, you’ll manage this, too,’ comment ever again.
I look at Jyrki.
He looks weird with a week’s worth of stubble, and his hair, instead of being carefully shaven, is now a short crop the colour of the dirt track.
‘Can’t we even go and have lunch in one of the huts?’
Jyrki sighs and glances at his watch for the umpteenth time. For someone so thrilled about living rough his attachment to his watch is unhealthy, to say the least. He slings his rucksack over his shoulder, and we stride off along the crunching gravel road.
The corrugated iron hut is, well, made of corrugated iron, and the air inside is hot and stuffy, but still it feels like walking into a hotel. The first thing I see is the kitchen work surface with a shelf above it. On the shelf people had left a few boxes of matches, several half-burnt candles and . ..
Half a dozen different-sized gas cylinders.
It makes sense. People have ended up with leftover gas that they don’t want to take on to the aeroplane. Or for some reason they might have simply wanted to lighten their load. Either that or they haven’t seen the sense in carrying a half-empty gas cylinder all the way home when someone else could use it.
My eyes dart around the hut like a guppy. A couple of sleeping-bags and rucksacks have been laid out on the bunks, but there’s plenty of room. People starting out along Southy tomorrow; people waiting for the plane home; birdwatchers. You could count them on one hand. Yee-haa!
On the table there’s an old small-format magazine, Natural History Digest. Small print but something to read all the same. And great paper. There’s only one crumpled scrap of the religious pamphlets left in the side pocket of my rucksack.
I take another look at the gas cylinders. Their combined contents, even if there’s nothing more than a fart in each of them, represents eight whole minutes of free cooking time at the very least. Cooking time in a place where the wind and the rain cannot, cannot reach the cooker’s flame.
And that’s not all, I realize. We could even afford to heat up a pot of water and have a decent wash, pour something almost body temperature over our necks and heads and backs.
I lower my rucksack to the floor and make a mental note of which bunk I’m going to have. The one up there on the left looks good enough.
‘So I suppose we should take the boat across to Bathurst Narrows today then?’
My voice is steady and business-like, my PR skills coming to the fore. Jyrki nods. He seems not to know whether to be happy about my knowledge of the route or worried about my tone of voice.
‘I mean, we should make sure we set aside enough time. You never know what could happen. It’s a much longer crossing than the one at Prion Beach, and the channel is probably much deeper. What if the wind whips up or there’s a storm? What if there’s a problem with the boat or we arrive there and find there’s no boat at all? We need to leave ourselves some leeway. If there’s no drinking water at Joan Point, what are we going to do if we’re still stuck there by sunset? Think of how quickly the weather turned yesterday.’
I look at Jyrki with large calculating eyes.
‘We could make ourselves a proper meal. Look!’ I gasp and gesture towards the row of gas cylinders as if I’d only just seen them. ‘We could boil up some of that pasta.’
I know I’m really close to winning him over. He’s the one who bought the orzo in his great wisdom.
‘And we could visit the bird-watching hut and see if we can spot the famous rare orange-arsed parrots the guidebooks were raving about. It’s not every day you get to see super-endangered orange-arsed parrots.’ I almost squeal, because now’s the time to put the icing on the cake, now’s the time to play it up, to bring home the victory.
Jyrki sniffs.
‘It’s the orange-bellied parrot. Neophema chrysogaster!
How does anyone know stuff like that?
Jyrki shrugs his shoulders. ‘I suppose we do need to let the tent dry out.’
Jyrki
For once people and buildings don’t necessarily mean that someone’s trying to make a quick profit.
When the weather’s bad and planes are delayed, people waiting for a return flight can sometimes find themselves with absolutely nothing to eat. Even though they’ve got walls to protect them and a roof above their heads. Even though there are dozens of people in the same place, that doesn’t automatically translate into shops and kiosks.
Everybody out here has a carefully calculated amount of food with them. If somebody who’d missed their flight because of yesterday’s storm came in here and asked for a rice cake, I wouldn’t be able to give him one. If he offered me a hundred dollars, I couldn’t sell.
Out here I might as well use banknotes to wipe my arse instead of those pamphlets.
There would be something poetic about that
.
The cooker is hissing on full blast. The gas cylinder is twice as big as ours, and it must have about a quarter of its contents left. Let it cook away.
This is going to be a banquet. First a handful of shredded salami to grease the bottom of the pot. Then plenty of garlic and some chopped onion. Saute it for a moment, stirring occasionally. Then fill the pot with water and add a meat stock cube. Once it’s dissolved, add a cup of orzo and a good squirt of tomato puree. Then sprinkle with mixed spices from the film tube.
The smell is quite dizzying.
While we’re waiting for everything to cook, she brings in the hut’s registration log. The log is large and hardbacked, different from the lame squared-paper jotters we’d found in the past. She leafs through the book, laughing at some of the comments and looking for any mentions of Finland. When she can’t find any she convinces me to write down our names and our projected timetable for the trip to Scott’s Peak, so that we will go down in history as perhaps the first Finns to travel along this trail.
The first pot of food disappears from our plates as we’re waiting for the next one to cook. We only slow down once we’re on the second plateful.
We lick our plates.
We afford ourselves the luxury of warming some water for the dishes. We take care of the washing-up a good distance into the bushes behind the hut, making sure not to leave any grain of pasta or sliver of onion on the ground. The water, smelling slightly of salt, tomato and fat, soaks into the earth.
The magazine on the table has disappeared. I see a corner of it jutting out from beneath a sleeping-bag laid out on the upper bunk.
There’s still a shitload of daylight left.
Heidi
According to the log in the bird-watching shack, the last person to visit this place sat on his arse for six hours without catching sight of a single orange one.