Art

[Extract from Trekking With the T-Team: Central Australian Safari 1981]

Fishies in the Billabong

After relishing the sweet crunch of cornflakes for breakfast, the T-Team drove back to Ormiston Gorge. We hiked through the gorge admiring the red cliffs, ghost gums and mirror reflections in the waterholes, and took less than an hour to reach the end with the view of Mt. Giles, lumpy and sapphire blue.

*[Photo 1: Hike through Ormiston Gorge © C.D. Trudinger 1977]

Settling near a waterhole framed by reeds, Dad built up a fire on the coarse sand while our family friend, TR rolled up his trousers and dipped his toes in the pool. ‘Hey!’ He pointed and did a little dance. ‘A fish! I see a fish!’

*[Photo 2: The Other Side of Ormiston © C.D. Trudinger 1992]

Our cousins, C1 and C2 raced over to TR. ‘Where?’ They peered into the pond. I trailed after them, hunting for fish through the plumes of muddied water near TR’s white calves.

‘There!’ TR waved his finger at the middle of the waterhole.

C1 squinted. ‘Oh, yeah.’

C2 waded into the water and peered. ‘I don’t see anything.’

*[Photo 3: Waterhole closer © C.D. Trudinger 1992]

Richard hunted and fossicked through the cooking equipment Dad had scattered around the campfire. ‘You got a sieve? A net? Anything?’

‘What for?’ Dad asked.

‘The fish.’

‘Ah, you know, those fish can lay dormant in the dry creek bed for years and when the rain comes, they spawn.’ Dad just had to tell us.

‘Well, this little fishy is going to be our lunch.’ Richard snapped his fat fingers together like crab claws. ‘I’ll catch it with my hands if I have to.’ He strode into the pool with such force the waters parted like the Red Sea. ‘Now where’s that fish?’ he said as he sank up to his waist.

‘There it is!’ TR gestured. ‘To your right.’

*[Photo 4: Mt Giles over pound © C.D. Trudinger 1986]

Richard glanced, his smile faded. ‘Oh, is that all? It’s just a piddley little thing. Not enough for lunch.’ He was neck deep in the water and prepared to swim. He shot up. ‘Ouch! Something bit me!’

‘Better watch out, might be Jaws,’ I said.

‘You didn’t tell me there were yabbies.’ Richard bobbed up and down, then reached down to catch his feet. ‘Ouch! It bit me again!’

‘Why not yabbies?’ C1 said.

‘Now that’s an idea,’ Richard replied.

‘Ah! Shrimp!’ C2 waded towards his cousin. ‘I love the taste of shrimp.’

‘Hmm, yabbies,’ Richard said. ‘We used to catch yabbies all the time when we were young.’ With an explosive splash, he submerged in search of the yabby that had bitten him.

Dad, TR and I waited for the damper scones to cook and watched Richard and C1 turn bottoms up like ducks in the water in their quest for yabbies. C2 waded in the shallows of the pond, a roughly sharpened stick in hand ready to skewer any hapless water-creature.

*[Photo 5: Eating lunch © C.D. Trudinger 1992]

Soon we breathed in the sweet aroma of baked scones. Dad flipped the foil wrapped balls out of the coals. ‘Lunch is ready!’ He clustered the silver spheres together using a small branch as if they were balls on a snooker table. Empty-handed the lads dragged their soaked bodies from the waterhole and schlepped to the fire place to collect their consolation prize of damper scone.

Richard held his stubby index finger and thumb in the form of the letter “C”. ‘I was this close to getting a yabby.’

© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2016; Updated 2018; 2021

*Feature Painting: The Other Side of Ormiston © Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2016

***

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Quest to Conquer Mt. Giles

[Extract from Trekking With the T-Team: Central Australian Safari 1981]

Dad sucked on his lemon (a proven refreshment and guard against dehydration). ‘About a-quarter-to-twelve.’ He continued to sit and suck on his lemon as if in no hurry.

‘A-quarter-to-twelve?’ I stood. ‘We’ll never get there. We can’t even see the trig.’

‘Well, um-er, we better get a move on.’ Dad rose and slung his pack over his shoulder. The T-men shuffled up a worn kangaroo track. I took a quick swig of water and bounded after them.

*[Painting 1: Mt. Giles—our goal (Acrylic) © L.M. Kling 2010]*

We stopped at a three-pronged fork in the trail. Three mountain points stood before us. ‘Now, which way shall we go?’ You’d think Dad would’ve worked the route out before we embarked on this project, using his compass and detailed maps. But apparently, he hadn’t.

C1 (Older Cousin) raised an eyebrow. MB (My Brother) scratched his chin. C2 (Younger Cousin) shook his head, and I shrugged.

Dad hummed and hawed.

‘We could hike up and down the gully to see,’ MB said.

C2 sighed. ‘That would take too much time.’

‘What about the saddle?’ I asked.

The men looked at me, their eyes narrowed. ‘To which point?’ Dad spoke for them all. For the next few precious minutes, the men bantered about what option to take, cutting me out of the decision making.

‘Ah, well, time’s running out. I guess we can’t expect to reach the top,’ Dad announced with the damning tone of resignation.

I stomped off towards the saddle.

*[Photo 1: Mt Giles from the Pound © C.D. Trudinger 1986]*

‘Oy! Oy! What do you think you’re doing?’ Dad yelled.

I bolted on southwards and upwards to the spur. Even menacing prickle bushes didn’t stand a chance as I charged through them. Behind me I could hear the Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! as Dad hacked his way in pursuit of me. ‘Come back! You can’t go off on your own!’

Scratched and sore from the fight with the bushes, I stopped. A tight-rope path lay ahead. Not even enough width for my feet on this razor back. I turned and watched the shrubs shake.

Dad emerged brushing seeds and thorns from his arms. He shaded his eyes as he looked up. ‘You’ve taken the correct action.’

‘What?’ I scratched my eye-brows. Dad’s big words confused my exhausted mind.

Wheezing, Dad caught up to me. ‘See?’

He pointed at the nearest mound. ‘See, the trig?’

I squinted towards where the hill met the cobalt blue of the sky. At the highest point, a thin wire shimmered in the heat. ‘Oh, yeah!’

While Dad and I gulped down some water, MB, C2 and C1 galloped past us. ‘Watch your step on the spur!’ Dad warned.

We picked our way along the razor back ridge. I held my breath and resisted the urge to look down past the tight-rope path where I placed each step. Holding my arms out straight either side, I teetered and tottered to the end of my ordeal. When I reached the slope at the other end, an incline with generous girth and no cliff in sight, I collapsed to my knees, then bent over and kissed the sand stone.

*[Photo 2: Razor-back Ridges of Giles © C.D. Trudinger 1981]*

However, my rejoicing was short-lived and I rose to my sore feet to push on. After plodding up and down more ridges, more rocky slopes, and more frequent rests to nurse my aching calves, our allotted time to reach the summit by 12:30pm lapsed.

We gathered around Dad.

‘What’s the verdict?’ I asked. A breeze cooled the back of my neck.

Flies gathered on C1’s back. MB slapped between C1’s shoulder blades and clapped the flattened insects from his palms. ‘Twenty.’ He flicked the last of the sticky flies from his palm.

‘Well,’ Dad took a deep breath, ‘We’ve come this far, we might as well go all the way.’

‘We have a full moon, that’ll help,’ C2 said.

C1 waved a pesky fly from his face. ‘Okay!’

‘Let’s go!’ MB slapped his hands together near C1’s nose and killed that fly too.

‘Alright!’ I said.

Determined to reach the peak, we plunged forward, despite being famished, wrung of perspiration, weary and late. We were so close. Every so often, the trig teased us appearing as we reached a high point, and then vanishing as we dipped into a valley. MB and C1 raced each other.

I climbed over a wall of rock and saw the trig wobbling above the slope in the oily heat. I scrambled upwards. A saddle stretched and rose before me. Damn! Another false top! I struggled over the saddle to face another false top. After staggering over the fifth false top, I saw the trig and blinked. Was it real? Or was it a mirage? I limped up the jagged path, pain shooting down my calf muscles with each step. The trig disappeared behind an outcrop of rocks. We’ll never get there!

*[Photo 3: One Ridge After Another © C.D. Trudinger 1992]*

I skirted the rocks and saw the trig fifty meters away, bold, rusty, and high. Under the shade of an orange sheet that fluttered like a flag in the wind, MB, C1 and C2 lounged by the stone cairn, packs off their backs, stirring Salvital into their cups of water and then sipping with delight the reward of their labour. The time was one o’clock.

Ten minutes later, Dad dragged himself over the last ridge and limped to the summit. There, he sat on a rock and rubbed his knee. ‘O-o-oh!’ He inspected the damage, red and swollen. ‘I tripped and fell on my knee. I hope I can get down alright.’

‘You better,’ C1 laughed. ‘You can’t exactly camp up here.’

‘You’ll have to get down,’ MB said.

‘Yeah!’ I gazed at the view entranced by the once-ancient ocean bed surrounded by islands of mountain ranges that snaked like the backbone of a prehistoric creature into the haze on the horizon.

*[Photo 4: View from the summit—Foreground, the Pound, Ormiston Gorge behind, and in far distance, Mt. Sonder (left) and Mt. Ziel (right) © L.M. Kling (nee Trudinger) 1981]*

‘Hey, look at these!’ C1 excavated some calling cards from a tin can wedged in the monument to the summit. Our predecessors had conquered the mountain one year earlier to the day. The scribe wrote: “The climb was well worth the effort”. They described ascending to the peak by the southern ridge starting from Giles Spring. This tip gave us the idea to descend by the south ridge and traverse west through the pound to the camp.

We celebrated with lunch of scroggin and copious amounts of Milo and strawberry flavoured Quick mixed with powdered milk and water. We took photos of the stunning scenery and each other as evidence of our triumph over adversity.