EULOGY FOR OUR WILDERNESS
This was not midnight at the oasis; it was—ominously—midnight on Mars. Only it was not midnight at all. It was, in fact, 10am in the middle of an Australian summer, a time when hope—not dread, destruction and death—is meant to characterise our lives.
Between the receding, faraway horizon of hills—and the eerie, pendulous blanket of apocalyptic orange cloud pressing down on us—was a sliver of china blue, an intimation of the way things were meant to be. The fallout cloud wept spiralling, blackened daggers—scorched eucalyptus leaves, bushfire’s vanguard. An angry red blister of sun glared through the dystopian miasma. An hour earlier, it had been so dark one walker we passed was using her head lamp.
The day had felt odd from the outset. Light and atmosphere had fluctuated wildly. But it was hard to get my brain around. I was trying to be logical, but something was askew, foreboding. Was this purgatory?
Of course, it was not; it was, rather, day five of an intended six-day 100km-plus walk through Kosciuszko National Park and its Jagungal Wilderness. My 16yo son was with me. We were both experienced walkers, and for the first time on a trek I had a sat-phone (and as usual a PLB). The phone was a wife-pact: I call in each evening, get an update on any relevant fires that could prompt evasive action, and she gets (relative) peace of mind.
I knew (I thought!) from my nightly check-ins any fires were far away. But by mid-after-noon, black leaf precipitation was increasing. Armageddon shrouds of smoke and ash were moving in. Dry lightning and its crackling thunder intensified. A brief downpour banged on the tin drum roof of Happy’s Hut, our location.
By freakish circumstance there was mobile reception at Happy’s, so I used that for an earlier than usual check-in with Parks. The news was not good. Hell had been unleashed. The once distant, now massive, Dunns Road fire was travelling far faster than expected, and authorities had decided that anyone in or near its path needed to leave the park. Everyone out! Now! But with us still being a
