by Susan Berran
Within a few minutes a g cloud of dust was winding its way up the dirt road towards us. It didn’t really sound like a car, more like a go-cart about to fall apart. It came to a skidding halt, right beside us, spewing up gravel and dirt, straight into our faces. Then, out jumped this really tall, skinny, hippie looking woman, with jet black, mESsed up hair. She had about eight rings in each ear, another one through her tongue and even one stuck through her nose, as if she’d walked in front of someone throwing a spear.
“GET IN, ” was all she said.
By the time I realised how pale Mum was, we were rattling along, up through the forest, in a clapped out, rusty minivan that smelt strongly of mould. We had no idea where we were going. There was no road, just this goat track that the van was climbing over; rock by rock. Suddenly, as we sped through some bushes, right before us was this mi tree. She hit the brakes, we all flew forward as dirt and dust poured in through the holes where windows should have been. The door slid back … WHAM! And in the mist of a dust cloud, there stood the driver …
“EVERYBODY OUT, LET’S GO! ” And as I looked across and into Mum’s worried eyes, I could almost hear what she was thinking … ‘This wasn’t in the brochure.’ But then, as the dust slowly settled, it revealed a small clearing amongst the solid green rainforest, with a very modern and professional looking shed at the centre.
We had the most incredibly, totaly wicked and awesomest day ever! And best of all was that Miss ‘I’m-so-smelly-the-entire-forest-will-die’ Melly wasn’t allowed to go; she was waaay too small for the harnesses.OOOOHHH. What a shame … Not!
So while she was being babysat back at the shed, we had the best time in forever! After being harnessed up into all of this really CO O L climbing gear, we followed our guides for about half an hour, even deeper into the forest. It was a prety hard slog too. The track was barely visible and thick with bush, wet and really rocky. Jared was trudging along, right behind me, as we climbed over boulders and pushed through branches … Thwack!
“Oops, sorry Jared.”
When we finally got to the first hook-up tree, we were connected to a rope by about three shackles each. Then, one at a time, we were hoisted away, high up into the treetops and onto a platform that had been built around the trunk. It was kind of like standing on the tallest tower in the city. But instead of looking out over a concrete city jungle, this was the real thing. We were looking out over the bright green canopy of the rainforest and all the way out to the ocean.
We were soooo high up that Mum wasn’t even game enough to look over the edge. The wind was so strong that the tree began swaying side to side. I thought Jared was going to need a change of daks he was SHAKING so much. He reckons he was just cold, but he was sweating enough to put out the sun. He was looking realy worried, but I was fine, naturally. And I reckon it was Mum that left the claw marks in the tree trunk because she was hanging onto it so tightly. The guides kept trying to tell us all this educational stuff about the rainforest and what lived in it, so Mum kept ‘shooshing’ us, but there was absolutely no way that I was going to do any learning on my holidays, so me and Jared just kept trying to sway the tree even more, which was really freaking Mum out.
Anyway . . . from there on, we ‘tree surfed,’ from treetop to treetop, around the side of the mountain. One of the guides went first to show us how it was done. It was sort of a combination of ‘flying fox’ and ‘abseiling’, but a whole lot higher, a whole lot faster and a whole lot awesomer. One by one, we were shackled up to a thick steel cable that stretched from tree to tree. Then we got to ‘FLY’ across each great abyss between the tree-top platforms.
After checking the shackles, the guide would give the command to ‘STEP OFF’ the side of the platform. Then …
… whoosh … in an instant I dropped straight down, plummeting towards earth, like a lead fart. Then just as suddenly I stopped, … twang … the harness tightened giving me a wedgie from hell and then finally, … whizzz … I flew across the cable towards the next tree. But about a metre from the massive tree trunk coming at warp speed ten, straight towards me like a brick wall,
… THWAKK! The guide hit the brakes on the cable to stop me, so that I could then just step up onto the platform. The only problem was, the harness was around my body. So when the brakes hit, my body stopped DEAD in a millisecond … my head, arms and legs however, kept going. Snapping forward like a ragdoll and then flopping back into place like jelly.
OwWw! That reeeally hurt.
Jared was next; he stepped off
… whoosh, he dropped
… twang, wedgie
… whizzz , he flew
… THW …
“Wow, what’s that!?” I called to the guide as I pointed to a seagull.
… WHAMMM!
Oops!
The guide kept apologising to Jared for not hitting the brakes in time. And it was actually really educational, seeing just how fast the ants were attracted to Jared’s blood, as it twisted and wound its way down the tree trunk. His nose wasn’t broken, just a bit twisted and bent. It sort of looked like an upside-down tree, because it was covered in splinters and had all of this flowing green nostril stuff hanging from it … yeah, boogers.
Jared took it pretty slow for a couple of the links after that, but only until he could see just one of everything again, instead of double. On the very next link after that, me and Jared decided to see who could reach out and grab the most leaves on the way across. Jared reckoned that one of the guides said something about not touching the rainforest, but we weren’t really listening, so I figured … hey, what’s a tree going to do … jump up and kill us for pinching a few of its leaves.
When they finally finished yakking on and on about trees and bugs and stuff, I was hooked up and readied for the next run … “READY TO STEP OFF? ” said the guide.“Ready” I replied.
“STEP OFF. ”
I stepped off the edge of the platform, whooshed , twanged , whizzzed and zoomed across the open space with the wind racing through my hair. Tree branches, full of leaves, were getting closer and closer as I zipped by. I leant out my body as far as possible … closer … I stretched out my arms … closer … I wiggled my fingertips to gain every millimetre that I could … closer … nearly … “SAM!!”
I didn’t know who’d yelled out, or why, but suddenly CROCODILEs flashed through my mind and I whipped my arms in and clamped onto the rope like a leach to a bleeding blood vein. As it turned out, the leaves I was so close to grabbing are incredibly poisonous. They’re covered with hundreds of fine hair-like needles and even just a brush against one of the leaves causes imediate and excruciating
agony. Within an hour the area touched is paralysed and there have been cases of it causing actual death! Which apparently I should have known because …
“The guide told us all about it at the very first tree!” Mum ranted loudly.
I knew that … yeah right.
I was beginning to wonder if this was really a holiday, or just somewhere for parents to get rid of annoying kids. Maybe Jared’s mum and my mum had arranged the whole thing and that’s really why he was allowed to come with us. Maybe this was the holiday destination where families arrived together … but only the parents left. The jungle floor was probably littered with kids that had ‘accidentally fallen’ from the trees. And was the ferry operator really trying to save me … or push me?
Maybe me and Jared needed to be just a little bit more on our guard.
Which also probably explains why I thought I’d let Jared go first on the very last run between trees. Because on this link we’d be flying … upside-down!
Sure it was just as safe.
Sure it was just way more fun that way.
Sure only kids were allowed to do it because of weight restrictions.
Yeah right!
Just as Jared was about to step off, I noticed something really different and peculiar about one of the huge jungle ferns on the grou
nd far below us. “Hang on,” I said looking closer, “I think I’ve just discovered a rare new species of tropical fern.” I announced confidently. Mums jaw dropped.
See, I had been listening … nerrr!
The guides looked blankly to the area that I was pointing at.
“WHEREABOUTS? ” they asked.
“Right there! About halfway to the other side and directly below the rope. It’s really bright green underneath just like all the others, but the tops of the leaves are all speckled and multi-coloured. They’re all splotched with orange, yellow and reds too.” This was so wicked. I could see the headlines now …
“THAT ONE? ” a guide asked with this stupid, wide grin, right across his pimply moosh.
“Yes!” Geez, what a DOOFAS. Obviously they never look down, because it was right there in front of them, out in the open!
Suddenly both of the guides were just about falling off the platform, laughing their zit-covered heads off and cracking up.
“WE CALL THAT THE, UPSIDE-DOWN SPECKLED PUKE FERN” said one guide finally, as he gasped for breath from laughter.
“DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY? ” said the other one as he snorted, barely able to talk and wiping away laughter tears from his eyes.
“No! ” I said, as the two of them collapsed into fits of hilarious laughter again. (Mental note; work out how to get poisonous leaves and wipe on guides’ toilet seat.)
Let’s see them chuckle about that.
After what seemed like ages, the guys managed to stop rolling around and pulled themselves together. Finally.
Jared was going first and he was ready and waiting for his last ‘surf’.
“READY TO STEP OFF? ”
“ Ready, ” came Jared’s shaky and higher pitched reply.
“STEP OFF! ”
But this time he didn’t whizz away through the treetops. He sat swaying only a couple of metres away from the platform where the guide had stopped him. Then he was supposed to flip upside down, stick out his arms and legs, kind of like a star. Then they’d let off the brake and he’d go whizzing off across the cable and flying upside-down to the last tree.
Well, after ten minutes of convincing by the guides that it was completely and totally safe and that nobody had ever fallen … (but I saw that one of the guides had his fingers crossed behind his back) Jared finally sat back and threw his legs up into the air and stuck them out like a ballerina, doing the upside-down splits. But there was absolutely no way that he was going to take his hands off the rope.
“LET GO! ” one of the guides called. “ No! ” came Jared’s reply.
So he hung there, holding onto the rope between his legs for dear life. His face going redder and redder as the blood all rushed down to his head. I could actually see his head swelling up and getting bigger, like a bright red water balloon. Zits all over his face started to POP and erupt from the pressure, spewing out their yellow lava and adding it to the ‘speckled fern’ below… I thought that any second now, he was going to pass out for sure.
“COME ON, LET GO, ” the other guide said, trying desperately to encourage him.
“ Uh-uhhh. No way! ” he repeated.
“Oh c’mon ya big skirt!” I chipped in. “ Will you do it Sam? ” he asked.“Yeah, sure I will.”
“ Promise? ”
“Promise!” I assured him.
“ Promise, stick a needle in your eye? ”
“Promise, or stick a needle in my eye.”
“ Promise or you’ll eat a blowfly ”
“Promise, or I’ll eat a blowfly!”
“ Promise, or poke a … ”
“GO!! ” we all yelled at him together.And with that, he let go.
“ AAAAAArrrrrrrrrrHHHHH!!!! ” As the guide let out the line, Jared flew off into the distance, squealing like he’d just found out that he’d be bald by the time he was twelve. He was totally freaking out. Like a shooting star he zoomed across the green universe. He was the loudest, reddest and skinniest star with a galaxy of acne that I’d ever seen.
Wow, I couldn’t believe that he’d actually believed me. Because there was absolutely, positively, definitely , no way that I was going to do that, ever!
Mum went next. She stepped off the platform confidently and glided smoothly across to the other side. I could hear the cable creaking and crackling as it stretched and strained under her weight.
It was so embarrassing! Mum was ‘ woo hooing ’, squealing and ‘ yahooing ’ all the way across. She was loving it! And all I was thinking, was that from the sound of the cable I wish I’d gone before her. I mean, Mum’s not big … but … well, I heard and saw that cable straining! What if she’d weakened it? What if she’d already torn half the wires? Why didn’t I go before her? Whenever you see accidents on the TV, they always seem to have gone wrong on the very last ride of the day.
… click click … I mean it was bad enough that so many people had ‘puke painted’ the fern while flying across upside-down … “READY TO STEP OFF? ” … and Jared was on the other side expecting me to go through with the upside-down flight. But am I … “READY” … to do it? Knowing my luck I’ll be sent hurtling down through the ‘puke’ fern and into the great, green abyss below. And I was betting that under all that thick green… “STEP OFF! ” …there was probably a river swollen with hungry CROCODILEs. So I decided that I was positively, absolutely, definitely not going to fly up-si … what the!? AAArrrrrrrrrrHHH!!!
I didn’t even get the chance to let go because I wasn’t hanging on yet!! I didn’t even realise that I’d stepped off …
. . . whoosh , twang , whizz! In an instant I was hanging upside down with my arms and legs flapping about totally out of control. They were flying about in every direction and as I desperately tried to find anything to grab hold of I began to sway side to side higher and higher. I kept reaching up and grabbing for the cable between my legs, as I twisted and turned, making me spin faster and faster. I was freakin out as Jared and Mum cheered and waved, while I flew through the air towards them, whizzing across the long cable at top speed, spinning faster and swaying higher all at the same time. THWACK! I finally smashed to a halt on the other side. I was completely stuffed! “ That was awesome! ” Jared boomed. “I can’t believe you did that!” said Mum beaming with pride.
“AWESOME DUDE,” one guide said as he thrust out his hand and ‘high-fived’ me.
“NO-ONE’S EVER DONE UPSIDE-DOWN AERIAL ACROBATICS ACROSS THE LAST RUN. YOU JUST WALKED OFF THE PLATFORM LIKE YOU WERE TAKING A SUNDAY STROLL. AND THEN TO DANCE UPSIDE-DOWN ALL THE WAY ACROSS … WHOOOA! ”
“W-w-w-well I just w-w-w-wanted to sh-sh-show you how it sh-sh-should be done.” I said in an almost whisper.
There'd been a MASSIVE storm overnight. Trees had fallen across roads and cars. Even more branches and stuff floated in the hotel pool amongst the other garbage, but we weren’t letting the gale force winds stop our fun.
I told Jared that I was starting to wonder just how safe this place was for kids. But he reckoned I was just being paranose … PARACHUTE … parasnip … para … he thought I was crazy.
But absolutely everywhere we went, there seemed to be something dangerous and deadly.
We were down to the last few days of our holiday when Mum finally let us head up to the beach on our own. While her and little Miss butt-barfing’ Melly ‘rested’ back at the hotel. She reckoned it was to show us that she trusted us, but we knew it was really because she fell asleep sunbaking the day before. She looked like she’d been over TOASTED on one side and was walking like a concrete giraffe on stilts. So she just wanted to moan and rest in peace while Melly had a sleep. It was our chance to spend a day just kicking the footy around on the beach, waayyy up on the sand and away from the water’s edge of course.
So we headed off along the creek behind the hotel. And now that we didn’t have to wait for Miss ‘my-legs-are-teeny-weeny-shrivelled-up-celery-sticks’ Melly, we were at the beach in five minutes flat.
The sand was
littered in palm fronds, twigs and coconuts from the storm.
At the far end of the beach, humongous BOULDERS and ROCKS formed a wall that separated the road from the beach. Poking out from between the rocks, was this HUGE pipe that came out from beneath the road and city. It was made to carry away the storm water, but with the massive storms, the water had carried in paper, plastic bags and all sorts of garbage and rubbish, all pouring straight onto the sand, then making its way across the beach and into the ocean. The SMELL was really gross!
We started kickin’ the footy back and forth to each other. Jared’s not a great catcher, so it was continually going over his head and further along the beach. So before we knew it we’d worked our way along to the far end of the beach and close to the drainpipes. They were way HUGER than they looked from afar, almost as tall as me.
We didn’t really pay much attention to it until Jared did this one masive kick. He sent the ball sailing over my head. It skidded off a log, bounced between a few rocks and ricocheted straight into the dark depths of the pipe. Great!
“You’re getting that!” I yelled to Jared.
“ Fine, ” he replied.
We both wandered up towards the pipe … peeewWw! If my nose hadn’t been so smell-resistent from the constant stench of Smelly Melly’s RANCID nappies, I would have passed out from the disgusting odour. And the closer we got to the pipe, the greener Jared was looking. The water from the pipe was a gross, grey-brownish colour from all the crap and RubBiSh in it. It had created its own little mouldy stream, flowing the twenty metres or so along the beach and into the ocean. As we stepped into the sticky, icky stream in our bare feet, globs of goopy ‘STUFF’ sloshed over and around our toes. Kinda like the SLIMMY, MOULDY glob of hairy stuff that your Mum pulls out of the plughole in the shower every now-and-then. My feet were being consumed by some glob from an alien blob.
