Published in Australian Geographic

Before I left for my 700 kilometre mountain trek, a dubious friend asked if I was taking a Walkman. "There's music out there," I replied, hoping I would have the patience to hear it. I didn't even take a book. I wanted to see what would happen if I opened my senses to nature, alone for weeks with no excess baggage. What would I learn if I didn't read, didn't consume products, if I just walked and looked and listened?

Although I cried at the Jordan River, alone in my little tent as a thunderstorm poured on the blackberry-choked gully, and a yet-to-be-discovered leech sucked on the inner crease of my eyelid, I never doubted I would finish the walk. After all, 700 kilometres solo through the alpine wilderness was nothing more than one foot in front of the other. Wasn't it?

From my starting point at the old Gippsland gold town of Walhalla, the Australian Alps Walking Track passes over the highest peaks of Victoria, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, before arriving in the outskirts of Canberra. Sometimes the track is a well-marked fire trail, flat underfoot. Other times, track is an overstatement – the walker must navigate isolated valleys crossed with misleading brumby trails, or battle dense scrub, scanning for the odd track marker on a tree.

And down in that claustrophobic gully at the Jordan, one of the lowest points in the trek – in terms of both altitude and my attitude – I was realising that my mood strangely matched the geography. I craved the uplifting feeling of being atop a mountain where I could see all around. It was the second of three brutal river crossings over the Thomson, Jordan and Black Rivers, each at the bottom of trails so steep I had to walk backwards to rest my wobbling quadriceps. I was dreaming of Mount MacDonald, the first peak above the tree-line after ten days through the Baw Baw Plateau and thick forests.

The path up MacDonald disappeared often, and my ankles strained on steep hillsides as I backed out of impenetrable scrub, searching for another way. As I gained altitude on the five-hour climb, I felt my mood rise too. I emerged out of the snowgums, finally above the tree-line. And then I had the most extraordinary encounter.

Under the craggy summit with the deep valley on my left and the wildflowers in pink, blue, white, purple and yellow at my feet, I sensed a shadow. Surfing on the up-blast of wind that hit the crags was an enormous wedge-tailed eagle. Eagles have a powerful aura about them and this one was so close it looked straight into my eyes. The huge wings and curved talons directly above my head made me do a quick calculation, reassuring myself that it couldn't possibly seize me off the mountainside. Then it swooped in a circle and back to hovering above my head. Three times it circled while my heart thudded with the thrill of seeing the giant bird in its own kingdom. And then it soared out over the valley. Welcome to the mountains!

The ridge from Mount McDonald to the famous Crosscut Saw, Razor and Viking peaks is Victoria's most dramatic walking. Every few minutes a stunning new view made me grin. I climbed a peak called King Billy, past bizarrely twisted snowgums, half the boughs alive, half dead. There was a mobile phone signal from Mount Buller ski resort so I found the number of a friend we nickname King Billy in the electronic phone book and poised my thumb on the call button, giggling as I thought how he would love an unexpected call in his CBD office from a mountain called King Billy. Then I worried about the battery and all the days walking before Mount Hotham and turned the phone off instead. At that point I could not have imagined how badly I would regret not making that call.

I continued across the dry Barry Range, past Hotham over to the Bogong High Plains, then down below the tree-line again, detouring south of the planned route in the Beloka Range, where they were shooting feral goats and pigs. I lingered at Cowombat Flat, where the Murray begins as a tiny stream.

The Tin Mine Huts on the Ingeegoodbee River marked one month on the trail. That night a dingo howled and gradually four others joined in, mournful, yearning, eerie. The howls seemed to twist together and rise into the still, starry sky. Spooked by tales from campers at Cowombat Flat of wandering packs of pig dogs gone feral, I fastened the hut door firmly and got into my sleeping bag. I lay awake for hours listening to the howling, a rustling rat, and brumbies' teeth ripping and crunching sweet grass outside.

By myself up high

Being alone was both boring and wonderful. The few people I met seem more surprised that I was alone (and female) than by the 700-kilometre walk. Without the usual barrage of information and images pouring into my ears and eyes, I found my mind grew still. I longed for someone to talk and joke with, but my aloneness allowed a more acute perception of the world around me, and inside my mind, the surfacing of a rich emotional life. I found myself involved in long thought processes of lucid imagery. After a break to check the map or eat, I would continue the same train of thought, imagining events, past or future, in great detail, in vivid colour. It happened spontaneously, no effort needed to concentrate for hours on one thing.

When walking became a brutal effort, I disassociated by imagining good times with friends. The happiness I felt was strong and pure. Also strong was a sadness from the death of my father two years earlier. It surprised me. I wasn't  ignoring or suppressing the feeling in everyday life, it was just buried under the constant busyness that has become the normal state of almost everyone. The space of the mountains and the rhythm of walking seemed to offer entry into a different time zone, grounded in the reality of night, cool dawn and hot afternoon, but also somehow dreamy and free.

After two days rest at Thredbo, I began the last stage of my walk full of energy. In contrast to the weakness and exhaustion of the start, I felt strong and confident. I had no idea my journey would come to an unexpected end. My beloved Main Range, the perfect afternoon light, and the prospect of camping on Australia's highest mountain filled me with excitement, and a little nervousness. I arrived on Kosciuszko before sunset and the weather was still and clear and it seemed I could stay. A Thredbo local later told me nights like that were very rare.

After a hot meal I crouched by the stone summit cairn in the dark and found I had mobile reception from Thredbo. I called a friend to confirm my next food drop at Kiandra but he sounded distressed. "Kath, I have very bad news." The way he said it swamped me with dread. He told me one of our best mates was dead. It was King Billy. He was 33 years old.

In my tent, I sobbed. I wrote in my notebook and the Kosciuszko summit was so quiet the scratching noise of the pen was loud. There's a rare silence you only get high on a peak when there is no wind, no rustling trees, no stirring animals. I was so high I didn't have to lift my head to see the stars and the half moon. I yearned for friends to share my grief, but through the night as I slept the mountain seemed to hold me, to cradle me with its beauty and stillness so I did not feel alone.

This unexpected death made finishing the walk seem trivial. I wrestled with the thought that King Billy, whose participation in life was absolute, might have wanted me to go on, but his family was distraught and my friends were in Melbourne. In the morning I walked out to Thredbo and went home for the funeral. My walk was over.

There were delays before the funeral and my chances of getting back to the mountains before winter slipped away. I returned to the indoor world where machines hum and whirr. My body grew weaker, whiter, and I moved 20 kilometres without thinking in the car. Every now and then I remembered the walk and it seemed another world, sadly irrelevant. I forgot about the eagle, the twisted snowgums.

Return to the peaks

It's December before I manage to return for the final stage from Kosciuszko to Canberra. I decide to forgo a food drop in Kiandra and carry everything for this stage. My pack weighs 14 kilograms plus 12 kilograms of food. With water on board it's almost half my bodyweight. The "minimum" I need to survive seems a ridiculous burden. I know I will be slow and plan only 10 kilometres a day for a few days until I eat some food and burn fuel, then I'll cover double that.

I walk past the holiday crowds on the Main Range, over the Rolling Grounds and down to the stunning Valentine Falls. I climb the magnificent Mount Jagungal in diagonal rain, and walk in summer heat through a series of large plains – open frost hollows surrounded by forested hills – where I see brumbies and dingoes and snakes.

Cooleman Plain looks like the other plains but under the ground it is different. The rock is limestone, and the creeks running off the mountainsides soon disappear underground. Below the plain the subterranean flows emerge suddenly, filling the bed of Cave Creek with freezing water at the Blue Waterholes.

Downstream from the car campers' picnic area is a small grassy flat under black sallees, just upstream of a narrow canyon. Clarke Gorge was named after a geologist, but after several encounters with reptiles, I soon name it the Gorge of Lizards. This is my resting place and for two days I swim and sleep and wander. I am bewitched. The magic is spun by the black sallees' steel grey-green-coral-silver bark, the limestone walls of the gorge, water slooshing past a thousand stones, the flitting beasts warming their cold blood on warm rocks, then vanishing into crevices and caves. The water is so clear I find myself staring at it, trying to comprehend the colour of nothing. Plunging into the deep pools, I gasp.

I rise at five to climb to the cliff-top for sunrise. The flow of my thoughts has stopped and the world fills my senses. The dawn chorus is like thousands of church bells chiming at every different pitch. Sun warms the chill air and I see a great black bird flying way up the valley, intently following the zigzag river. Then it flies into the gorge right under me, not two metres away. I have a birds eye view of a bird. I can't identify it but it looks like a big duck with a strong and rhythmic wing beat and shining black feathers. For a second my perception is so clear I see the beautiful form and symmetry of its body with the utmost clarity. Its passing seems an immeasurable gift. And then it's gone and I'm alone on the cliff.

Eagle blessing

Leaving Blue Waterholes, I crank out 30 kilometres in a day. My pack now feels light, legs strong. My mind struggles with what I have named "destination fever." I can now examine the map contours and determine pretty accurately the walk-time to any spot. I calculate, realising I can finish a day earlier than planned. It annoys me, this continual focus on "getting there," but the part of me that wants to linger in the mountains is in battle with the part that wants the solitude, bland dried food and hot work to end.

As I descend through the beautiful forests of Cotter Gap to the Orroral Valley, I expect to charge quickly through this flat, easy section onto my final destination. Instead, I am entranced by the valley's surprises. Resting in the shade of the scattered trees are dozens of eastern grey kangaroos. Some bound off when I approach, but others watch me, curious. All through the valley there are hidden eyes. I still feel cumbersome, bound to my pack of gear while the wild animals carry nothing, but my perception has sharpened a little so I often see them where before I would have walked past unaware.

Then I see an eagle near the sun. "Where have you been!" I think, "I've missed you." I shade my eyes and realise there are four eagles, one at each point of the compass. The huge birds circle the sun, soaring on a thermal, round and round, higher and higher. I stop to lean on a shady boulder to watch, but a roo a few metres away distracts me. He is not scared of me and we regard each other for some time. When I look for the eagles again they are gone. I stare so hard into the blue sky I can see the flecks on my eyeballs. Did they go so high I can't see them? It seems impossible they could have swooped to the side of the valley without me noticing. I remember the eagle greeting me into the high mountains, and now, on my 45th and last day, I feel blessed by them again. Their sudden disappearance makes them seem like a dream and I wish so hard I could see them again, but I must leave with the memory. And somehow not forget.

A version of this story was published in Australian Geographic Issue Number 76 Dec 2004.

Back to Article Archive