by Ted Dawe
There was a pathway at the end of the road and about fifty metres in, a stile which we all had to get over with heavy gear on. Normally a thing like this would have been a breeze, but with our big loads the balance was tricky and I nearly made a dick of myself by being the first one to fall down.
After we’d tackled the stile we disappeared into dense bush. Every now and then I could see the whole line but for the most part I could just hear them. Up ahead there was a group of squawking girls. Lara was amongst them. I could hear her sweeter voice amid the squeals of the others. Behind us Noel Cudby and his henchmen were mumbling their way up the mountain. Everyone was in high spirits but it soon faded as the climb took its toll. The musketeers were too puffed out with the tonnage on our backs.
We were on a trail that got narrower all the time and there was no sign to show where we were going. I have to admit I was a bit nervous about getting lost but I couldn’t mention it to the other two. Boyne seemed to know the track well and insisted on stopping every now and then so he could show off his knowledge of tree names. I reckon he was making most of it up, trying to sound intelligent. Typical teacher. None of us knew the difference between a kawakawa and a matagouri. Whether a wood pigeon was really a kereru or a fantail was a piwakawaka. Still, any excuse to stop was good. My legs were in danger of catching fire inside my jeans they were getting so hot. I wished I had worn shorts after all.
After some hours of winding down big ridges to little streams and then slowly winding back up the other side, Boyne stopped us and put his hand joyfully to his ear. Could we hear anything? We all tried but I could hear nothing over my own wheezing breath. The idea was that our destination was within earshot. After another ten minutes it definitely was, though. We threaded our way up the valley to the point where it seemed to open out into a huge bowl shape. Once we were in that bowl there was no mistaking the deep rumble of the falls. There was something a bit scary about its power. After another hundred metres we reached a broad flat area and saw the small lake with the falls at the far end.
It was an impressive sight but everyone was so tired we just slumped down in the bracken. I could have easily gone to sleep right there with my pack still attached to my back. Iain and Jamie were the same, their faces were so red they were giving out light.
Boyne released the three-year-old from the backpack and the two of them began striding about pointing out various features of no-interest. The trip hadn’t started well. I couldn’t believe that anyone could do this for pleasure. It had to be some way of punishing us for being slackers during the year.
Amazingly, after about ten minutes our batteries began to recharge and we were able to get up and have a bit of an explore. The kids divided themselves up into four groups. The two girl groups were, predictably, the sporties and the nerds. Lara was in the nerd group. The boys were us (the three musketeers), and a group with the boy-giant Cudby as its leader. Our first job was to pitch our tents and we were given long, boring instructions on how and where this should be done. Along with a lengthy explanation of the buddy system, how we shouldn’t pee in the water supply and how when we wanted a crap we had to tell someone first and then go off with a shovel in one hand and toilet paper in the other. As if.
Soon the area in front of the lake was dotted with little tents, campfires, clotheslines and other signs of human habitation. Everyone was feeling a bit better because the smell of the stew cooking and the darkening sky were promising dinner and a sleep.
Three of the sportier girls burst out of their tent and ran over to the pool. There was a moment of hanging back at the edge and then they waded in towards the deepest part. Every step provoked a scream, and even though the waterfall made a steady roar you could hear the screams float over the top. To be fair, though, I knew it was cold, because I had paddled in it earlier. It was beyond cold actually, it was freezing.
Next thing Cudby and two of his mates dived in from a big rock on the far side. Boyne came over to give them a brief lecture on the dangers of diving into pools while they froze to death in the shallow water. There was no way I was going in even though both Jamie and Iain had braved it by now. I sat down to watch their slow progress. They were suffering, I could tell, and all the reports about “how great it was when you got used to it” were wasted on me. The next thing that happened was that, to my amazement, Lara appeared at the water’s edge in a really styly bathing suit.
She turned to me. “Coming in?”
“Why yeah, you bet, I’ll just get changed.” I can be remarkably obedient at times.
I changed into my togs inside thirty seconds and plunged into the water fighting the urge to make high-pitched squeals. A minute or so later I really didn’t feel a thing. Everything had gone numb and certain things felt like they were about to drop off. (If you know what I mean.)
The water was cold and deep, and more than a bit scary. The sky above us was now a rich, purply black, and it seemed to hang low over our heads. It wasn’t only me who was scared either; no one would go out very far from the shallows. By now, near the waterfall, it was so dark that you couldn’t see the bottom: it was just white water and black water. Iain had told me this story about big eels biting the feet off ducks and I couldn’t get it out of my head.
THAT NIGHT
AFTER dinner we sat around the big fire and Boyne tried to get us all to join in on a camp fire singalong.
“How about a round of ‘On Top of Old Smokey’?”
Out came the guitar and before long we were all at it. A bit embarrassing singing such a corny song, but luckily it was dark by this stage, and it seems that in the firelight you can get away with anything. Still I was a bit taken aback. I mean what is it about these camps where they always try to get you to sing stuff from a two hundred year old song book? I mean who sings “Kum Bi Ya My Lord” these days?
Boyne and wife obviously.
For a while there it seemed to me that the whole trek had just been to get us somewhere where we could all be made to sing “Hold Him Down, the Swazi Warrior”.
What made it even more of a shrink was that Boyne was one of those guys who could not sing in tune for a million bucks. He sort of droned. I reckon that the Landrover’s diff made a sweeter sound. His wife had this high-pitched voice of the opera variety. The two of them made music that wasn’t pretty. My only excuse for joining in with this singing was that by joining in we were all able to drown them out, so avoiding ear damage. So at about 9 p.m. it was something of a relief when big drops of rain began to fall and we all had to pack it in and make off for our tents.
I used to think that there are few sounds sweeter, more restful, than rain on the roof. Especially when you are lying in a warm bed drifting off to sleep. But I was wrong. What I was thinking of was light rain on a tin roof. What we got was Noah’s flood on a one millimetre thick nylon roof a few inches from your face. This was given to us with a good serving of wind. The three of us were lying in our sleeping bags talking at first but then we stopped. It was too noisy and we were all getting a bit nervous although no one would admit it.
Maybe it was my imagination but it seemed that the waterfall was getting louder. So was the stream. It sounded like it was sneaking nearer to our tent.
“Iain! You awake?”
Grunt.
“That waterfall, it’s really loud, man.”
Grunt.
“I reckon the stream is getting closer to out tent. Maybe we pitched too close to the water.”
“Go to sleep, Sandy.”
“I reckon we should go out and check up on stuff. See what’s happening out there. What d’ya reckon?”
“Doubt it, Sandy.”
I knew that no one was keen on looking outside because we were all cosy and it was now pitch black out there. I peeped out. The rain was coming down so hard you couldn’t see very far. The waterfall was just a white torrent in the distance and all the trees around the clearing were lurching around like they wanted to pull up their roots and run for their lives
.
I pulled my head back inside and tried to go to sleep. It was no good. I couldn’t even close my eyes. There was too much going on. The tent was shaking and tilting as though hands were pulling it in every direction and all the time leaves and sticks were being thrown at it by the angry trees. I sat up and shone my tiny torch at Iain and then Jamie. They were both out to it. How could anyone sleep on such a night?
Then I heard a new noise. Very freaky. It was a clunking. I lay still wondering what could be making it as it grew steadily louder. Then like some great inspiration I realised what it was. The rocks were moving in the stream. Those big rocks we had walked over a few hours earlier were making their way down the mountain.
This was no time to sit it out. Even though I risked abuse I had to wake the other two.
“Jamie! Do you hear that?” I shone the torch on his face. Slowly he sat up and listened.
“I reckon the rocks are moving.”
There was a sort of clunking noise behind the steady roar of the falls and the whipping sheets of rain. It was easier to make out now. We both listened intently. There it was all right, a dull rattle buried somewhere below the steady roar of the falls and the slap, slap, slap of the tent.
“Remember,” Jamie said, “we are the tent closest to the stream.”
That had been my idea, to save walking time when we had to fetch water. It didn’t seem such a good one now. We both peered out the flap but it was too dark to see much. Even the campfire embers had been completely extinguished.
“Sandy, you go out and check it out. I’ll wake up Iain.”
It was my call, my fault too, so I knew I was the one who should go outside to check. Iain had managed to go back to sleep. Amazing.
I fumbled around for my gear, struggling to make out what was mine and what belonged to the others. If only we had been more organised, like we were back at the farm. It was some time before I was able to pull on my jeans, raincoat and boots. I felt good now though because I was properly togged up.
When I squeezed outside I was amazed by what I saw. The river, which had been small enough to jump across, and ran twenty metres from our tent, was now broad and brown and three metres away. The surface writhed with patches of foam and the dark shapes of branches rushing by.
The lake had got bigger too, but it was nothing compared to McTavish Falls. These had changed from something that resembled a fall of glistening hair to a dam burst. The water now leapt out towards the middle of the lake and there were swirling clouds of spray at the end of it. Happy Valley had turned into the Valley of Death.
I rushed back to tell the others. There was no need: they were already getting up and pulling their clothes on. I guess they knew the news wasn’t going to be good. By the time they were clear of the tent the water was less than a metre away. We had to work fast, pulling down our tent and gathering up our stuff as best we could. None of us talked now, we all knew what we had to do.
Once everything had been hauled clear we ran over to Boyne’s big tent. We had to yell again and again before we got any answer. His head appeared at the flap.
“What are you boys doing up? It’s the middle of the night!”
“There’s a flood,” I yelled. “We have had to move our tent.”
“Go back to bed, boys. We’ll sort it out in the morning.”
His head disappeared back into the flap, muttering something to his wife about “that city kid”.
The other two didn’t know what to do but I did. I stuck my head in the tent and shone my torch on the three of them. “Look, Mr Boyne. This won’t wait till the morning. The river’s coming up so fast we’ll all be washed away.”
This just made him grumpier but at least it moved him. “Get out of our tent, Sandy, I’ll have a look. If this is a false alarm you’ll be taking an early dip.”
By the time we had him up and dressed the river had passed the spot where we had been camped. It happened so quickly it was unbelievable. Where was all this water coming from?
The only thing to do now was to get all the others up, break camp and scramble for higher ground. We split up and went from tent to tent trying to get a sense of “lives-in-danger” into all these sound sleepers. I couldn’t wake up Cudby by shouting so I gave his face a loud bitch-slap. That had the effect I was after. He roared and was lunging about in his sleeping bag like a stampeding giraffe.
In about ten minutes or so all the tents were down and everyone had dragged their stuff over to the path we had come in on. It was so black and stormy that we couldn’t go any further. Everyone stood there stupidly, like cows waiting to go to the milking shed, then one of the parents took over. He was an older man who had told us some hunting stories by the camp fire.
“All you can do is wrap yourselves in your tents and wait till morning. No one is going anywhere for a few hours so get used to it.”
That’s what we did. He had a sort of “in the army” way about him so no one argued or moaned.
The musketeers huddled together in amongst all the other groups. When we were making camp all the tents had their own little areas and we were all far apart; now there was no one who was keen to be far from anyone else. It wasn’t togetherness either, it was fear. The fun had been washed away along with the camp-site.
After about half an hour I noticed that the other two had gone to sleep sitting up and leaning against me like bookends. I was just thinking about this, considering waking them up, when I closed my eyes and that was the end of it. When I reopened them it was to a brightening sky. I looked around at the little clumps of people around us. Some were asleep; others were just staring blankly into the dawn.
MORNING TIME, MOURNING TIME
AS it grew lighter the scene slowly revealed itself. The flat area of the campground was now gone; it was all part of the lake below the falls. The river was forty metres wide and flowing fast. The falls gushed out over the lake in a plume of brown water, the sort of thing thrown up behind a jet-boat. One thing stayed the same, though, and that was the way the rain was still falling. It was bucketing down and there was no sign of it letting up. The splatting on the tent wrapped over our heads along with the roar of the falls made me feel alone and blocked off from the others around me. Talking was nearly impossible.
After about an hour or so everyone was awake and Boyne went round taking stock of the situation. Nearly everyone had lost something in the midnight scramble to get clear of the rising river. Two girls had lost their packs. One boy had no raincoat. We had lost Uncle Frank’s precious hatchet. I wondered what he would have to say about that. Several of the kids were soaked to the skin and now were getting cold. There were two cell phones in our group but both had got soaked and didn’t work. We were up a mountain, cut off by streams, getting colder with no way of communicating with the outside world. Great! Call this the modern age? We might as well have been cave men. God I hate the countryside!
The adults bunched together for some sort of conference. I could see that they were working out what to do next. After a while Boyne stood up and walked down the front so he could talk to us.
“We’ve been talking and we have decided what to do. There is no sign of the rain letting up. I know this was meant to be a two-night camp, but that isn’t going to happen. The best thing … the safest thing … is if we all walk out at first light.”
There was a muffled hooray, which came from various tent clumps positioned on the bank. It was the first indication that everyone else was feeling like we were. That this was no fun, the camp was over, and civilisation was looking better all the time.
THE DESCENT OF MAN
WE were a different group coming down the mountain. When we started out we had been a light-hearted, noisy group. Admittedly gravity and heavy packs knocked that out of us, but not for long. Now we were just a bunch of silent plodders. There were no pauses for Boyne to tell us any interesting nature facts either. I could tell from his face that he was just worried about his own little family group. Up ahead I saw
Lara stumble and fall heavily on her behind. No one in her group helped her up, they just stood there as she slowly and painfully got to her feet. I would have liked to help her but I was too far back on the narrow path. It wasn’t long after this that I noticed that several of the kids were crying. One of them was a boy. It was Noel Cudby’s friend, the one who used to tease the twins. I felt sorry for him now, crying in front of everyone. The other two were girls so that wasn’t so bad. It was almost non-stop. A soft, low crying like the bleating of lambs. They had had enough and had given up.
Up near the front of the line I saw one girl had lost a boot in the night and was now just hobbling over the sharp rocks. Boyne and his wife and kid didn’t seem very interested in anyone else now, they were only concerned with helping each other. Everyone seemed sad and beaten.
Even though our packs were lighter (we had lost all the cooking gear) it was still slow going downhill. The track we climbed up had turned into a little stream now and we had to pick our way down it as best we could. I kept wondering how we were going to cross the three little streams near the bottom. We had got over them on the way up without even getting our boots wet but it would be a different story now. I glanced back and saw Noel Cudby’s face in a group following us. He looked really scared. For the first time I felt sorry for him, a little kid trapped in a big kid’s body.
“You okay, Noel?” I called, surprising myself, as well as him.
He nodded and managed a weak grin. I thought of Aunty Lorna’s words and knew that for once I had done the right thing.
MANY RIVERS TO CROSS
FINALLY we reached the first of the little streams. It was bad but not impossible. Iain pointed out an old tree further up that lay across a ravine. It looked as if it had lain there for fifty years, slowly rotting away. Everyone sort of shuffled across it with their legs astride the trunk. No dare-devil balancing now. The bark peeled away and the wood beneath was greasy and unbelievably slippery. Iain rigged up a sort of handrail with a long piece of manuka. I think that this was the only reason that no one fell into the crashing stream below.
