The Hand That Bashed the Bauera
by Richie A. Scoparia
keywords: donga, Huey, Horrie, mud, rain
This is an account of the SUBW's first serious attempt to explore a hitherto unknown region of South West Tasmania. The aim was to walk (or crawl) from the Ironbound Range to Federation Peak via the scrub-infested Forested Hills. It is common knowledge that we failed to meet our objective, but this is irrelevant. What I would like to describe is the anatomy of a real Tassie scrub trip (as opposed to a 'Dave-type' scrub trip).
The participants (masochists) were: Nipper, Roger, The Brigadier, Gus and myself. Let me preface this story by saying a few words about Roger. In the past, Roger has been described (amongst other things) as one of the hardmen of NSW bushwalking. His victories over Tassie scrub include that impressive but ridiculous trip from Mt. Riveaux to Vanishing Falls. With just one hardman in the party, we felt we had some chance of completing the trip. However, just before our departure, I was informed by that other hardman of NSW bushwalking that 'Old George Roper' was in fact nothing but a broken-down, burnt-out wreck; a distended shadow of his former self. Furthermore, I was warned that the trip would be a hopeless joke and sure enough, that's how it turned out...
The first day of the trip involved heaving 25 kilogram packs out from Cockle Creek and along the South Coast track. Despite the heavy loads, the first few hours of walking were quite pleasant. Much of it was along wild, windswept beaches which made things a little easier on our knees. The mood changed dramatically when we encountered the mud. For seven hours, all we could do was slip and slide in our Volleys. It was nearly impossible to walk normally: every few hundred metres, one of us would take a spectacular slide into the mud. The hapless walker would swear and curse and, with great effort, get to their feet. The process was repeated twenty minutes later. In near darkness, we managed to stagger in to Granite Beach to camp. All of us were covered from head-to-toe in mud, our knees and backs in agony from shouldering those immense burdens. Our spirits sank even further when Nipper said that this was the easiest part of the trip. Roger arrived half an hour later and he had a belligerent look on his face. We decided to avoid him as much as possible that night because he was in 'Tyrannosaurus' mode.
The next day came all too soon. We set off for Deadmans Bay under dark and threatening skies. The only relief from the mud was crossing New River Lagoon in row boats and walking along Prion Beach. To the north, the monolithic form of Precipitous Bluff seemed to tower over us we wearily trudged on. After a few hours of mud and cutting grass, we made camp at the aptly-named Deadmans Bay. Reluctantly, we ate a meal of rice, dehydrated veg., and salami prepared by Nipper and Brad. Sharing a tent with these two electrical engineers proved to be a bit of a trial -- the conversation mainly consisted of the joys of C++ programming and finding everyone's age in binary, octal and hexadecimal.
On the third day, we made the gut-wrenching 800 metre ascent of the Ironbound Range in hurricane-like conditions. About three-quarters of the way up, we stopped for a miserable, wet lunch consisting of raw Vitawheats. We bagged the true summit in incredibly windy conditions -- the wind gusts must have been of the order of 100 km/hr. They were so powerful that we simply could not walk in a straight line -- one would try to tack into the wind to stay upright; but a miscalculation usually resulted in a spectacular crash. The only redeeming feature of the day's effort was the magnificent view from the Ironbound summit which was dominated by the expanse of the Southern Ocean, the flatness punctuated by a few tiny islands. We pushed along to a small saddle in which to pitch our Paddy tents. We had quite a wild night in our tents as Huey tried his darndest to blast us of the ridge.
Nipper arose at 5.30 a.m. the next day and declared that the 'fun' was about to begin: we were to fight scrub -- real Tassie scrub. Roger said that we might even meet an old mate of his -- Horrie. Brad and I were the least keen to throw ourselves to the mercy of the scrub since we were the slowest to pack. We'd guessed that the others had gone slightly mad. Anyway, the first into the scrub was Gus: attractively dressed in overalls, he fought and struggled with the scrub for three or four metres and then fell over when the going got tough. After his fifteen minute lead, he lay where he'd fallen and the rest of the party walked over the top of him. For his effort, Gus was rewarded with a Volley print on the side of his head. Next was ex-hardman Roger: he used his abdominally-mounted scrub-separating implement to burst forth into the scrub front-on, Acko style. He was followed by that budding Tiger-walker Brad, whose technique could only be described as a joke. He's such a soft bloke -- all he could do was swear and curse at the impenetrable mass. When this failed, he tried throttling it. This isn't a good technique and you young-uns should avoid it. Then it was my turn. I looked left and right but there were bloody trees everywhere. I struggled through a dense patch of myrtle, climbed over an absolutely sodden log, crawled under a few boughs, slipped through the fork of a tree, and finally fell in a hole. I heard this squealing sound behind me, and I turned and saw Roger desperately struggling to free himself from a tree bough. He looked at me, his face twisted with rage. He said, 'Why did ya go under that bloody tree ya short-arsed #@$%^#.' Oh well. We continued this folly for a solid eight hours, attempting a few variations on the scrub-bashing theme including Roger's 'recumbent' method of scrub combat, i.e., falling on it. But it was all in vain. We'd discovered that we'd covered the enormous distance of two kilometres that day -- sod that for a laugh. It was time to camp -- but where? As far as the eye could see there was nothing but thickets of scoparia and myrtle. There was no alternative but to smash out a campsite amidst the scoparia, and I must admit that it was a highly satisfying experience to wipe out several scoparia bushes (sorry Wally). The problem was that there was room for only one tent -- we'd all have to spend the night together!
That night was one of the least comfortable nights I've ever spent anywhere. Five smelly, bearded blokes crammed into the one Paddy tent. We were so tired that no one bothered with dinner -- just the usual, boring Vitawheats, cheese and vegemite. Barely a word was exchanged between the five of us that evening as Huey decided to give us yet another drenching. We all managed to get a fitful night's sleep even though we had to contort ourselves into a semi-comfortable position. The only break in the monotony came when Roger's sleeping bag became soaked. His colourful use of the English language kept us amused for hours. In fact, he continued to grumble about his wet bag until the second last day of the trip.
Foolishly, we pressed on in a vaguely north direction. The rain had set in and the mist was so thick that 'you couldn't see your hand ten feet in front of your face.' We trashed and chundered in the donga for another few hours before taking lunch on Hill 513. Then Nipper wanted to know why Precipitous Bluff was on a NW bearing instead of a SE bearing. For some unknown reason, Roger took great umbrage to this question and threatened to rearrange Nipper's face. Gus, cool as always, calmed the two stink-merchants down. After recovering from our navigational blunder, we unanimously decided to pike. With great relief we followed the most direct course down to the New River. The plan from that point on was to take it easy: after crossing the New River we were to head along the eastern side of the Lagoon to Damper Creek, climb P.B. and head back to civilisation by way of the Southern Ranges and Moonlight Ridge. No worries!
As it turned out, we had chosen about the most difficult pike route possible; moreover, the scrub on the eastern side of the Lagoon was far, far worse than anything we'd seen on the ridges. The colour had literally drained from our faces when we'd realised what we were in for. Looking like a stunned mullet, The Brigadier mumbled, 'I can't do this anymore -- I wanna die!' It took four solid days to bash through what is arguably the most hideous scrub of all: an enclosed mesh of bauera/ti-tree/cutting-grass with a bit of old Horrie thrown in for good measure. Full scrub armour was required for this: long pants, gardening gauntlets and army shirts. There were no 'Dave' leads in this section -- it was four horrendous days of hand-to-bough combat. My recollection of those days is now a blur, but it consisted of lash marks (from the cutting grass), mud, falling over an awful lot, an outbreak of 'Nipper's knees' which affected the entire party, and Roger's amazing outbursts when he was given a compass bearing to follow. We were completely knackered when we'd emerged from the scrub. We were five bearded, smelly, emaciated bushwalkers with our clothes torn to shreds. To add insult to injury, the distance covered over those four days was an almighty seven kilometres!
The final few days of the trip were trivial compared to what we'd done. The highlights were: bagging P.B. and Pindars Peak in clear weather -- stunning views; the heatwave we experienced on the section between Leaning Ti-Tree Saddle and Mt La Perouse; swimming in Pigsty Ponds (it certainly was a pigsty after we'd finished); and Huey's attempt to blast us out of Reservoir Lakes with another hurricane.
On returning to Brad's place, we held a post-mortem examination which was aided by a case of Cascade. Initially, we blamed each other for the failure, but in the end we agreed to call the trip a 'Noble' effort.