Daan and I had chosen the Gregory Explorer trip because of its exploratory character. Simply put, the guide did not really know either where we were going to end up: the terrain was really being explored. That meant that the trip could be unexpectantly difficult, but we figured that would be a challenge. Well, we got a challenge. In retrospect, I think it was the best trip of my entire holiday and I will certainly do it again sometime, but during the trip itself I had moments at which I wondered what on earth I was doing there.
A pre-trip meeting had been planned at the night before departure. At the designated location, Daan and I met one other traveller: Simone from Germany. After waiting another half an hour, someone arrived and identified himself as Russel Willis himself. He has come to get us, because the location had changed, except that the three of us had never gotten the message. At the right spot, we met the others: Alan , Roger, Rachel, Kim, and Christian: all experienced bushwalkers. Russel told us that he had gotten permission to trek through the Stokes Ranges: an area that was owned by the Aboriginals. He had planned a route of about 60 km, roughly from north to south. Due to the extensive rainfall in the past months, he had decided to trek the full 2 weeks, without re-entering civilisation in between.
The following morning, we left with 9 people and 2 4-wheel drive trucks. Over 500 km from Darwin, via Katherine, to the Gregory-Stokes Ranges. It was getting dusk when we arrived, and we put up our tents near the road, while Russel and Alan were off parking one of the trucks at the other end of the route. The morning after that, the trek began. The road and the truck would be the last bits of civilisation that we would see for the coming 13 days.
The camping equipment, 13 days of food, and about 3 liters of water, made my backpack way about 25 kg. In the mornings, we walked about 3 hours with 2 or 3 breaks of about 15 minutes. The terrain was uneven, the temperature just above 30 degrees, and I was a bit shocked by the effort it took me to move forward. Pushing through the shrubs and spinifex was ok, although far from pleasant because you could not see where you should put your feet.
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But I really got into trouble when the group started walking through the creek bed, in order to avoid the shrubs. The creek bed was littered with rocks varying in size from a tennis ball to an entire living room. The only stones I have stood on till then were neatly laid down in a paved street. I was not at all used to stepping (sometimes jumping) from one rock to another, let alone with 25 kg on my back. It was almost inevitable that I would stumble this first day, and I nearly broke my finger, after which I had to recover in the shade. I was very lucky not to have broken my finger, but the incident was a clear signal to me that I would have to be very careful. In my whole life, I had never been more concious of each step I took than in the 2 weeks that would follow. But after about a week and a half, I felt sure-footed and comfortable on the rocks, and I could enjoy the roughness of the area.
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Navigation was done by GPS, map, and compass during the trek. In spite of these modern aids, it was a daunting task to find out exactly where we are, let alone to find the route to move on. Only Alan had been in this area before, in the rainy season even. Otherwise, the area was unknown to people, and it happened a couple of times that we needed to turn back to find another route.
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Rough was the keyword for the landscape of the Gregory-Stokes Ranges. It was a slightly hilly terrain through which ran a couple of creeks. The creeks often ran in gorges of about 40 to 100 meters deep. Inside the creeks were rocks the size of living rooms next to smaller stones. The walls of the gorges were overgrown with spinifex and the occasional tree. On the hilly terrain, there were rocks the size of tennis balls everywhere (which leds to very cumbersome walking), there were spinifex grass plants about half a meter apart, and there were trees far enough apart to prevent calling it a forest. Because of regular burning of the area, a management practice to prevent really big fires, it frequently happened that we are walking between black sooted stems. This gave a very desolated impression.
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The temperature in the area varied from about 25 to 35 degrees. Together with the roughness, this made the going though. The animal life did not really show itself, which was not surprising because we were travelling with 9 people and were not exactly quiet. A young death adder of about 15 centimeters, a stick insect of about 25(!) cm, and a few 5 feet tall Euros (a type of kangaroo) were all we saw from the non-flying animals. The bird life was displayed much more prominently, and I will never forget the moment at which we were actually looking down on a wedge-tailed eagle that was slowly soaring past us while we were standing on a gorge wall.
For the night, we looked for a reasonably flat piece of ground on which all 9 of us fit, and which was close to water. Most days, we could wash and refresh ourselves (soap was not allowed in the national park). At home, you would not even drink from your own bath tub, but here we drank the fresh water like cold beer, and we did not even have to purify it. The taste was a lot better than in the cities, in which the water was chlorified. Thanks to the abundant rainfall this year, we could also swim during lunch almost every day.
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The gorge in which we were camping |
Looking down into the gorge |
Tents of me and Daan encircled |
One night, we camped next to a big pool, which contained (as appeared later) 2 fresh water crocodiles. We only learned that after Kim and I had been splashing about across the pool a couple of times. We did not notice the crocodiles in any way, but the fish were not so shy. The bigger (up to 30 cm), were very much attracted to our toes and fingers, and they kept trying if they were eatable. That would not have been so bad, if those fish had not bitten so hard to try. On some of us, they even drew blood. We took a most horrible revenge by catching two specimens, killing them, roasting them on the fire, and then eating them.
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My tent, to the right Rachel brushing her teeth |
Dinner at the campfire |
Each night, we unpacked everything, put up our tent, brought our cook (Russell) our foodbags, and waited until he had prepared the dinner. In the morning, we waited for the first light, which was always anounced by a loud chorus of birds. Then we had to take our trowels and toilet paper and find ourselves a lonely spot away from the water, after which we would eat breakfast besides the campfire. Finally, we packed and took off. There were 2 days on which we did not trek, but simply explored the area by just carrying daypacks. Considering the effort made on the other days, those pack-free days were very welcome.
