HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT

I was disappointed. There had been no blood, and no tears. No slashes, grazes, stings or falls. No leeches. No sliding around on plunging tracks smeared with slick mud. No scrub or vines or jungle so thick we needed the machetes we did not possess. No writhing around in such pain that either of us ever contemplated putting ourselves out of our misery. And there had no geographical miscalculations, let alone getting comprehensively lost. Everything I had come here expecting to find had not come to pass. It was, as I said, disappointing.

I, or rather we if I include my walking buddy Barts (aka Paul Bartels), had come to southeast Queensland’s Main Range National Park in search of adventure. We were here to undertake a two-day circuit of the park’s southern reaches, taking in Mt Superbus, Lizard Point and the Steamers, along with tracking down the wreckage of a bomber that ploughed into the jungle back in 1955. It is rugged country, of sharp topography and thick vegetation and notoriously difficult travel. Although laced by often vague footpads, this section of the park has no official tracks. Browse through some online forums and you get the feeling that getting lost here is almost de rigeur. I have also read commenters saying they have found here some of the most difficult walking they’ve ever done, made even worse by the presence of not merely stinging nettles but gympie gympie, a plant whose large heart-shaped leaves possess such staggeringly painful toxins that people stung by them have reputedly committed suicide just to escape the agony.

I had read all this, but these tribulations were not off-putting; in fact, they piqued my interest. I was intrigued. And I wanted, to use a cliché, a challenge. I like the idea of tackling something hard. But perhaps it