It rained all night. Wet clothes and tents in the morning. Packing up! "This sucks packing up“ moaned Jake. “Where‘d I put my pack" pondered Ricky as he scratched his head. “This is real fun" grinned Nathan.
Mark and Michael busied themselves throwing all of Jake‘s things out of their tent, and gear was slowly packed away. The last few things wont go away but we watch them for a while anyway, hoping they will.
Its 10am before we leave ....and reach Meadlow Gap in 20 minutes. Water, breakfast and the sun!!! A fire and more delays cleaning up. Some of the guys left with Ross, while the rest volunteered to put out the fire and clean up a bit.
Unfortunately we missed the turn off and hiked a long way in the wrong direction. Everyone has brilliant ideas about what to do. Michael took us cross country, hoping to traverse the mountains and find the right track on the other side - without a map, compass, or sense of direction. A mutiny soon killed that idea.
Another wrong turn, Mark leading this time UP a 4WD track, UP Wild Dog Mountain.“Who’s leading anyway? Not me”, we all say. Up for 30 minutes before we realize we are doing it again.
“This isn’t fun,” says Mark. He's struggling with a large bag of food apparently taking it in turns with his partner, only the rules keep changing. Mark occasionally spits it, dumps the load and walks off determinedly, but Michael is more obstinate, Mark crumbles and goes back for the food.
Eventually we are on the right track and catch the rest of the group an hour later at Mobb's Swamp. Scott has walked back to meets us and carries Nathan's pack “I was getting bored” Together again, we stop for a late lunch. Ricky has started scrounging, begging, and stealing for food. With wisdom beyond his years. He has also come out with some good bush lore, alter losing half the group for hours.
- keep together and, 2) if you come to a fork, sit and wait for the others.
He hasn‘t yet seen the wisdom of conserving your food on a long trip
The joy of our reunion doesn’t last long. Kym and Jake are soon pushing each other around about something. “You throw the lirst punch", “No. you". They eventually forget what it was all about and later are laughing about something else. Kym goes around the group, helping people to adjust their packs.
Coxs River is only 5km away, across the Yellow Dog Ridge and down the spur horn Boot Hill. Along the way Jake momentarily looses sight of the track, panics and races off, leaving his pack behind, begging someone to help him. After we find his pack, he walks much quieter for the rest of the day.
Boot Hill in the failing light and the river is somewhere below us. ‘20 minutes max,“ reckons Kym and Michael is all for going straight down, cutting all the corners (in the dark). It was much further than we thought. The scent of wild dogs on the breeze, the steep rough track, and weak torches slowed us up. Only Kym is willing to lead but noone will loan him a torch.
Wearing only runners, and without a torch, Aaron stumbled heaps, twisting his ankle. “Shut up Aaron”, was the helpful reply from his partner. A few of us helped at first, but he wont help himself, so we abandon him to the dark and walked ahead. He slid down the rest of the way on his bum, crying to the wilderness.
We didn’t make it to the river that night, but did find a flat area. The tents went up and we crawled into our bags and passed out.
