Chapter 4
Dane rented a couple of canoes for us to go sightseeing in the gorge this afternoon. The park only allows a certain number of canoes to be out on the water at one time, so Dane had to reserve them weeks ago. I am certainly glad he did because the view from the water looking up into the gorge is truly breathtaking. The first couple of gorges are beautiful, but it isn’t until the third and fourth gorges that the scenery becomes spectacular. The water is just as calm as it can be, and the cliffs are cut straight up to almost 200 feet. The rocks are a mixture of red and brown, with splashes of green vegetation sprinkled about. At the very top of this one particular rock wall, I see a lone tree that appears to be growing right out of the rock.
We stop paddling for a minute to soak up the serenity of the gorge. It is a
totally different perspective than from on top of the gorge looking down at the water. It’s hard to get a sense of how big and deep it can be in some places when viewed from above.
There are 13 gorges in all, but we can only get through about five of them before we have to turn back. We have to be back at the start point before 5:00 p.m. to return the canoes. I wish we would have gotten an earlier start with the canoes, but this was okay. We get back to the camp and are shocked to find our campsite a disaster. Nothing is missing, but things have been moved, knocked over, and food has been opened. The tents have been trampled, and our clothes are everywhere.
“What the hell?” Dane yells.
“Ditto that remark,” I reply loudly. “What could have possibly done this?”
I don’t think it was another camper in the campground. I look around at the other camp sites and see only one other family in the campground. All of the other campers must still be out sightseeing. Dane walks over to them and starts a conversation. I can hear him talking from here, barely.
“Hey, how are you guys doing? Sorry to bother you, but my name is Dane
and I am a local guide in this area. You didn’t by chance see what happened to my camp site today did you? We came back to total devastation.”
“No, we just got back here about 30 minutes ago and didn’t even glance in your direction; I’m sorry.”
“Oh, that’s no problem. Enjoy your stay,” Dane replies.
He walks back over to our campsite and stops about halfway, squats down
and reaches his hand out to touch the dirt. He glances around and then gets up and starts walking towards me with a puzzled look on his face.
“Dane, what do you see?” I yell at him.
“I see tracks of some sort. Looks like they might be that of a dog or maybe a...” his voice fades out as he stands up. He walks back over to where Derrick and I are.
“What did you say Dane, I couldn’t hear you?”
“The tracks look like the footprints of a dingo.”
“There are a bunch of footprints around the campsite too, Dane.”
“Yeah, they are the same as the set over there. Whatever it was is gone now, so let’s straighten out the campsite, because it will be getting dark soon.”
“Okay, no problem.” It is hard to tell from the footprints just how many dingoes were actually in the camp. The footprints are everywhere, around Dane’s tent, our tent, the SUV, and the fire. I start by picking up the clothes from outside the tent, and Derrick cleans up all the open food containers. Dane gathers up some firewood and secures the tents again. It takes us about an hour to get everything picked up. Dane has a fire going, so I decide to get a quick shower under the shower bag before dinner.
Dane pulls out a couple of pans to warm up some dinner. We are all just a little on edge after what has happened, and to be honest, I really don’t feel like eating. I am a little nervous, and my stomach feels upset. I don’t know if it is an adrenaline rush or just plain fear that has my stomach doing flips. I take a couple of deep breaths and try to calm myself down. I open a couple of cans of hearty beef and vegetable soup and hand them to Dane to put in the pan he has resting by the fire. It should take only a few minutes for the soup to get warm. I also have some French bread we can have with the soup. I am not very enthusiastic about the dinner at all.
I force myself to eat, and the food is good. I start to feel myself winding down. Dane decides now would be a good time to pull out the bottle of Scotch. We could all use a stiff drink right about now. He was really upset about the creatures but didn’t want to let on to me that he was concerned. He knew once I calmed down, I would be rational and we could discuss intelligently what we thought about the situation. I appreciate his putting on a front because if I had known he was concerned, I would have probably freaked out, but he kept his cool, which enabled me to do the same.
Before we go to our respective tents for the night, Dane hands Derrick one of his knives. I don’t mean a little pocket knife; I mean a knife about 12 inches long. A knife like that will only be useful in close combat conditions, but at this point it is better than nothing. Hopefully, the night will be peaceful and quiet. So Derrick and I go into the tent, zip up the outer and inner flap, and decide we will stay up for a while and talk about what happened today.
As we settle in for the night, I hear really strange yelping sounds coming from the forest.
Derrick is awake and whispers to me, “Are you hearing this?”
I slowly move to the sitting position and reach down between my feet to put my shoes on.
“Yeah, I hear it. What does that sound like to you?” I notice Derrick already has the knife in his hand.
“It sounds like dogs yelping and growling at each other, you know, when they are fighting over scraps,” he says.
So we sit and listen for a while, and the yelping seems to be getting louder. About this time, Dane shows up at our tent with his shotgun.
“What in the world are you doing with that thing?” I ask.
He responds in a very calm voice as he enters our tent, “I am protecting us from whatever is out there making that noise. I think it might be a dingo family, and if they wander into camp hunting for food, we might need to scare them off or kill one. They can be extremely vicious, especially when they are hungry or have young ones. Maybe they are looking for their young pups. Those might have been the pups you saw earlier. Hopefully, we won’t have to kill one, but I’d rather have it and not need it then need it and not have it.” I look at Derrick and then Dane and agree that it’s a great idea to have the shotgun.
The yelping and howling intensify. It gets so loud that we have to cover our ears because the high pitched squeals are piercing our eardrums. The yelping is all around us now, coming from every direction in waves. We can hear sticks breaking right outside our tent and there are shadows in the trees caused from the fire and whatever is in close proximity to the flame. It is total chaos outside. I have my hands over my ears and my knees are in my chest, and I am hoping this intense noise will stop and then suddenly, without warning, it stops. The three of us don’t move for a few minutes. We are just sitting there, motionless in disbelief.
After a few minutes of silence, we figure that it is safe to come out, so we
unzip the tent and slowly move towards the fire. It has died down quite a bit, so we grab some logs and set it ablaze. Hopefully, a large fire will ward off the creatures and anything else that is thinking about paying us a visit tonight. It is truly unbelievable what happened here tonight.
Dane has been coming to this campsite for years and has never had an encounter quite like he had tonight. He thinks it is a wild pack of dingoes, but he has never witnessed them quite this aggressive. I could tell from the shadow through the tent that the creature was walking on all fours like a dog, and had a head similar to that of a dog. But I do realize that the dim fire light can play tricks with shapes and shadows, so we really don’t have much to go on. All I know is there is something out there, and I don’t want to make its acquaintance in the middle of the night.
We all decide that it woul
d be best to keep someone awake and guarding the camp while the other two catch a little shut eye. Dane volunteers to take first watch, then Derrick will take over, followed by me. The remainder of the night proves to be uneventful and quiet, which is a good thing. I know once the sun comes up we will get the car packed and leave this place. Something strange is going on here--something bad, but I can’t put my finger on it. So, the farther away we can get from here, the better.
I took watch at 3:00 a.m. and Derrick went into the tent to get some sleep.
Daylight should be in a few hours, so I just need to keep this fire roaring and everything should be okay. I wish I had something to put my back against, because it makes me very uneasy to sit in front of the fire with my back to the wilderness. I feel very vulnerable, like something is going to come up from behind and attack me. I reposition myself so that my back is in front of the tent-- not immediately in front of it, but probably about five feet away. That makes me feel a little bit better.