Honor Auchinleck

by Elyne Mitchell

  Kunama looked, saw Cootapatamba where Thowra had rolled in the lovely snow crystals and saw the vast, high-domed mountains rolling on and on, grey-green now, with summer’s snowgrass, and seeming, even more than they did under snow, to be endless. A light wind from the north blew over them, lifting her forelock, a light wind saying: ‘This was the future, and the future is now here.’

  Desperate with dread, Kunama sat back on her haunches and refused to move.3

  For Kunama, as they did for Mum, the mountains represented some intangible spiritual freedom. The valley – the Upper Murray – whence Golden, Kunama’s mother, had come, meant terrifying captivity. Kunama felt that if she went there, she might never escape:

  Now, as they went around Kosciusko, she knew that they would soon be overlooking that enormous sea, and even with the weight of the boy in the saddle on her back, even with the hated bit in her mouth, and with the terror of what lay ahead of her, she walked eagerly forward to look over the edge at the vast sea beyond.

  Then she stopped in complete, bewildered fear, because the waters had rolled right away and gone leaving no trace. The mountains dropped down, down, down, below her, vanishing in steep forested sides, but further out, and far, far below there was a valley floor, and the shining loops of a river.4

  ‘Who owned Golden?’ I wanted to know as we stood on Mt Townsend looking over into Geehi and the Murray Valley. If she came from somewhere in the Murray Valley, why hadn’t we heard about her, or even seen her?

  Mum suddenly tensed. Presumably she was trying to work out a satisfactory answer without giving away anything that might spoil the story. Somewhere, I reasoned, there must be a man or even a family missing their magnificent silver mare, and her previous owners must go up to the mountains to look for her each summer, not knowing that she had consciously chosen the wild and was hidden away in the Secret Valley. Surely someone would have heard about it?

  Wise storyteller that she was, Mum never revealed how much was based on truth and how much was fiction. She encouraged me to believe that what was important and satisfying was an exciting story, and to dream up my own stories from those I already knew.

  Later, when I was older and able to walk further, Mum took Harry and me to Lake Albina. On another occasion she took Harry over to the Blue Lake where Kunama had stopped with the boy and his father. It was while they were boiling the billy by the lake that Kunama smelled smoke at close quarters for the first time.

  In January 1963 we stayed at the Chalet at Charlotte Pass. In Silver Brumby’s Daughter, it was at the Chalet that the man and his son were staying when they saw Thowra and Kunama and chased them on skis towards the Ramsheads and Dead Horse Gap. I knew the Chalet from Mum and Dad’s photographs and stories; they spoke of the Chalet as if it was the only one in existence. It was where they went every winter they spent in Australia from the time of their marriage in 1935 until Dad went to Malaya in 1941. Sometimes they also stayed at the Chalet during summer riding expeditions to the Main Range. Mum continued to go there during the winter of 1941 until it closed, and she was one of the first to return when it reopened before the war ended in 1945.

  We never went there in winter as children. Just like Lake Cootapatamba and Mt Townsend, the Chalet would have looked very different in the summer, and I found it hard to imagine the surrounding mountains covered in snow as Mum and Dad knew them. All the same, the Chalet had a special ambience and feeling of adventure. I remember the thrill of running in the sunshine across a deep carpet of white snow daisies interspersed with mauve eyebrights and some golden billy buttons on Mt Guthrie – for once I don’t think Mum and Dad minded that frivolity. For them our visit to the Chalet was a journey into the past. We stayed in dormitories sleeping eight and slept in metal-framed bunks (not unlike those in Seaman’s Hut) with thin mattresses.

  At that time I was too young to realise the extent to which the Chalet was part of Mum’s writing world. It was where she had been happy with Dad too. In the Chalet she wrote a good deal of Australia’s Alps in the winter of 1941, detailing the expeditions she and Dad had undertaken together with the ones she had done with others to the Main Range, the Cascades, White’s River, Grey Mare, Dicky Cooper Bogong and Jagungal after Dad left for Malaya. The Chalet and the mountains thus became Mum’s first solution to loneliness and anxiety. From that time the first verse of Psalm 121 – ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help’ – was a strong theme throughout her life. Even though she did not spend another winter there, she loved every moment she was there with us.

  On the way home from the Chalet and Mt Kosciusko that summer of 1963 there was a fire in the Land Rover. According to Mum’s diary, ‘The bushfire wireless shorted and the wires burst into flames. Harry and Indi [were] magnificent.’ I felt a bit outnumbered by the older experts, who had done all that was necessary to put out the fire.

  The alpine world into which Mum and Dad were initiating us was one they loved and knew so well from their expeditions long before we were born. I had heard Mum talking about Australia’s Alps, but I was still too young to read it; that came later when she eventually gave me a copy of the 1962 edition. It was another few years before I read it properly.

  One evening Dad and Mum were reminiscing about the Ski Club of Australia rope races and how the prizes were varying amounts of time in the drying room with your race partner – the winners of course were awarded most time. Being only ten at the time, I wasn’t sure that I really understood the reason for Mum and Dad’s amusement. Only later did I realise that my suspicions about it having to do with adults needing some privacy together for a kiss and cuddle were correct.

  The days spent skiing on the drift at Etheridge and, when we were a bit older, on the South America drift (so named because it was shaped like that continent) on Mt Northcote, just across the headwaters of the Snowy River from Seaman’s Hut, are among my happiest and most thrilling memories of skiing with Mum and Dad. Their smiles couldn’t have been broader, creasing the crows’ feet on their tanned faces. Mum had white-rimmed Polaroid sunglasses, their circular shape making her look like an owl wearing pirate’s patches. Those were hard days, too, but not as hard as skiing in the winter blizzards.

  During those summers in the early 1960s, the only ski-able snow lay well above and beyond the ski lifts at the resorts and we had to climb for our skiing. Any memories of pain or physical exhaustion were soon forgotten in the sunshine, the sense of well-being and the sheer thrill of those beautiful late spring and summer days among the wildflowers. After a west wind carrying mallee dust had left a pink tinge on the snow, there was the joy of cutting a pure white track or creating a pattern on the drift. There was a wonderful lighthearted atmosphere about out-of-season skiing. The competitors at race meetings laughed and joked, and even Dad and Mum became much less serious-minded about technique and effort in the summer! Occasionally, though perhaps tongue-in-cheek, Dad reminded us that summer skiing was good training for ski racing in winter. Just as we didn’t throw snowballs or make snowmen in winter, Mum and Dad didn’t particularly like frivolous fun, nor did they encourage it.

  On 28 December 1964 the summer races were held on Merritts Spur at Thredbo. Charlie Anton, one of the prime movers behind the establishment of the alpine village at Thredbo, was the leading light of the summer race meetings. That day Charlie orchestrated events with the aid of a loudhailer while dressed only in a racing number (no shirt on account of the heat) and lederhosen plus-fours with red socks. The fact that he looked like a happy, smiling mountain frog added hugely to his appeal. Mum and Indi took part in the races. It was the only occasion I ever saw Mum competing and it was one of her very happy days. I can’t recall whether I competed or if at eleven years of age I was considered too young – the only other thing I remember was a cry of ‘Man in the creek!’ When a skier emerged with blood in his hair and on his face, Mum reassured us by saying that heads and faces tended to bleed a lot and he’d be okay. I didn’t really believe her.
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  An article Mum published in Riverlander in 1964 reflected the deep interest and pleasure that those summer days spent in the mountains gave her:

  In summer these mountains, with their long snow-drifts still to tempt the skier, are grown over with wild flowers, and are fragrant, at evening, with the scent of heaths. The snow daisies may be in great fields of white flowers and silver leaves, so that they do indeed look like snow in rocky couloirs beneath the twisted snowgums. There are big patches of mauve from the eyebrights, and yellow where the yellow kunzea bushes grow. Candleheath sends its tall red spike, bearing cream flowers, up out of the sphagnum bogs. Mountain marsh marigolds are exquisite below the snowdrifts’ rim of ice. Pimelias flower, and white purslane; prostanthera is espaliered against the rocks. Here is thrilling, subtle loveliness for those who seek it, and the subtle enchantment of the mountains themselves.5

  At the time I thought each summer would bring similar days in the mountains. But due to the risk of bushfires and other family commitments, we didn’t have as many days as we wished and had to live on early happy memories. Other areas of the mountains also captured our interest, and we were lucky to have had those days as close as you can get to the highest point in Australia. They were special times in special places. There was also the reassuring thought that, as Dad hinted, some practice in the summer might make skiing the following winter slightly easier! Or would Dad and Mum’s expectations be just that bit higher for that very reason, plus the fact that we would be a little bit older and arguably stronger and fitter?

  28

  Adventures on the Alpine Way

  Although I didn’t always want to go skiing, the trips to Thredbo were a great adventure. In the early 1960s, the Alpine Way between Khancoban and Geehi was still under construction, and there were teething problems on the stretch of road between Khancoban and the Bailey Bridge on the Swampy Plains River. Despite Mum’s initial disapproval of roads being driven through her beloved untouched mountains, it was not long before she realised that the Alpine Way was her key to skiing. Mum drove it ‘in blizzards or solid freeze, or in summer’s heat and sometimes in the dark of the night’.1 If the trip was free of incident it took her just under two hours to drive from Towong Hill to Thredbo.

  Some of the steep-sided cuttings were plagued with rockfalls. The road was often either partially or entirely blocked and we had to wait while it was cleared. It was both thrilling and frightening when we actually saw the rocks avalanching and thundering down the cuttings and smashing onto the road; we were lucky falling rocks never landed on us. If the road was only partially blocked, Mum was frequently tempted to push on through, anxiety spurring her to put her foot on the accelerator. Sometimes it was pretty bumpy and exciting. More than once Mum remarked that it was ‘rather strenuous getting there’. It could be horribly scary too.

  The earthmoving vehicles used for road, dam and aqueduct building for the Snowy Hydro Scheme that travelled on the Alpine Way were fascinating too. Some of the equipment was gigantic and we called those vehicles ‘eat-you-up-o’s’, since they looked as if they could not just swallow and chew up a person but a whole Land Rover. There were also prefabricated houses, partial or whole, strapped to trailers behind trucks following cars with signs saying ‘Danger – wide load’. We speculated as to where these houses were going and who the occupants would be – whether they would be married with families, what country they came from and if they liked skiing. It helped pass the time and Mum often had fabulously imaginative suggestions.

  During the heavy snowfalls of 1960 and 1964, we were often the last to drive home down the Alpine Way before the Snowy Mountains Authority decided to close it due to the quantity of snow. There were moments when Mum wished the Authority would close the road before we left Thredbo so we could stay and ski on the marvellous fresh falls. Once the road was re-opened we were usually the first on the Alpine Way returning to Thredbo to make the best of the new snow. Mum wrote to Granny on 24 July 1964 explaining that at Thredbo, ‘Everything was rationed as far as I could make out, except grog!’ Even though she didn’t drink much, Mum enjoyed a party and would have sparkled if we’d been snowed in: singing, playing the accordion, chatting about a marvellous day’s skiing or simply playing Scrabble in front of a blazing open fire at the Ski Club of Australia.

  Mum had great admiration for the men who drove the huge vehicles, and those who risked their lives on precipitous hillsides in the construction of the hydro-electric scheme. When she talked about some of those men who worked for the Snowy Mountains Authority coming from countries that then lay behind the Iron Curtain, I imagined a giant fence made of the rusty-looking pipes I’d seen on the trailers of those big eat-you-up-o trucks taking material up into the mountains to build the pipelines. These men were often cut off from their families; in some cases they might not even know if their families were alive or where they were. The Snowy Review (the house magazine of the Snowy Mountains Authority) published lists of people missing in Europe since the war and subsequent political upheaval, in case some of them had turned up to work on the Snowy Mountain Authority. Seeing the lists was a sobering reminder of histories and stories of devastating loss and suffering beyond Khancoban, Corryong, Thredbo, Jindabyne and Cooma.

  The chains Dad and Mum had for the Land Rover were heavy and difficult to put on the wheels, and you got pretty cold and filthy doing so. They were used only as a last resort. One August morning in snowy conditions not far from Dead Horse Gap, Mum and I didn’t know that we should have put on chains until it was too late and we were almost upside down in a creek, having skidded on a corner. As we slid down into the water, there was a horrible noise like smashing glass. The vehicle came to rest partially on its side, balanced on boulders. Fortunately it was a shallow creek and we were able to clamber out the uppermost door. We soon discovered the windows hadn’t shattered but that John’s plastic building bricks, a forerunner of Lego, had spilt noisily as their cardboard box turned about in the back of the vehicle.

  In the early 1960s there was often very little traffic on the Alpine Way; had we waited with the vehicle we might have waited all day. We walked to the nearest road camp, a collection of prefabricated huts called Siberia by the men who kept the Alpine Way open. Following the road up there from where the Land Rover lay in the creek was one of the coldest, hardest and most slippery walks I have ever done. Since then I have walked in much lower temperatures, but I imagine that I was in shock and that made the cold seem worse.

  The Siberia camp had a wonderful wood-burning stove where we were able to dry off and warm up, and the men working there kindly gave us warm drinks and biscuits. Some of them spoke other languages among themselves, and when they spoke English they did so with strange accents. Once we had finished our drinks and warmed up a little, they drove us back to the bend in the road below which the Land Rover was lying ignominiously in the creek. They pulled it out with ropes hitched to a couple of graders, graciously checked to make sure that there were no mechanical problems, which miraculously there weren’t, and set us on our way. We could not have been better looked after.

  We didn’t ski that day, we simply drove home. I was surprised but very relieved when Mum didn’t persist with our plans. Both of us were feeling rather nauseated and tired from shock and cold. I can’t recall how much damage there was to the body of the Land Rover or what was said between Dad and Mum after our return. I don’t think Dad was very happy, but if he was angry he didn’t show it in front of me. Afterwards Mum wanted to do something for the men at Siberia, so she gave them some ski lessons.

  In her published memoirs, Mum described the Alpine Way affectionately as ‘that road of so many adventures’.2 I have a black-and-white photograph of the family Land Rover skirting around a landslide in a steep-sided box cutting. There was certainly a unique quality to my mother and in hindsight the maverick in her was a special part of it, even if it didn’t always feel like it at the time.

  Some trips to Thredbo were better than oth
ers. Having successfully survived the risks of the road, sometimes we arrived to find that the chairlift wasn’t running due to high winds. We then resorted to climbing for our skiing. It was a chance to return to Dead Horse Gap, climb up towards the rocky summits of the Ramsheads and ski down through the deep, untouched snow among the twisted snowgums above Dead Horse Gap Hut. It was a tough but wonderfully wild challenge away from Thredbo. Mum loved the mysteries of untouched snow, discovering whether it was windblown powder, crusty, icy or wet and heavy. Every snow type had different challenges.

  In early August 1962 we were particularly lucky not to be skiing on the day the Crackenback chairlift cable snapped. About forty people were riding on the lift at the time, and as the double chairs began to swing, some of the passengers jumped down into deep snow beneath. Fortunately nobody was hurt, but it must have been terrifying for those on the lift. It had been a day of high wind with skiers unable to take the lift as far as the top station and perhaps the lift should have been closed altogether.

  For someone who had never had a formal driving lesson or taken a test, Mum really did very well on the Alpine Way. But she had had plenty of off-road experience: in February 1948, some five years before I was born, along with Willie Littlejohn and Ossie Rixon, she and Dad set off in Iris, an armour-plated US army disposals jeep across the mountains from Towong Hill to the Chalet. In the article Mum wrote in Walkabout she admitted, ‘I wished I had not gone.’3 It read as if vehicles would come between the bush and her enjoyment of it, and that walking, riding or skiing were infinitely better ways of exploring and enjoying the mountains. Now the Land Rover – sometimes called the Bergomeister, Mum’s German for Mountain Master – had replaced Iris and Sirius and was a means of getting into her beloved mountains and experiencing adventures on the way. It was the beginning of the end of her isolation, frustration and loneliness beneath the thick winter mists in the Murray Valley.