THE MISSING mountain MAN
If Taranaki were an animal, it would be the Irukandji – a jellyfish, seldom actually seen, whose size is disproportionate to its danger. The Irukandji, according to survivors of its sting, produces ‘a dizzying whorl of horrendous pain’, including muscle and joint aches and an impending sense of doom.
I reckon I came close to death by Irukandji on a sailing trip in the Whitsundays in 2007 – I was about to jump into the water when our skipper pulled up the anchor and shifted the boat, to reveal in the sunlight that the channel we were anchored in was stuffed with jellyfish of all kinds.
As far as doom goes, I’ve been terrified of Taranaki Maunga since the deaths of two climbers near the summit in 2013. I don’t tell my tramping buddy Jean about my fear, or about the fact that I’m using our Around the Mountain trip as a dodgy sort of aversion therapy. (She’ll find out when she reads this story. Sorry Jean.)
Instead, I sell her on the idea that we’ll be chasing the threads of the Reverend William Murray, who went missing on Taranaki in 1923 and whose remains have never been found. Or at least, not all of his remains.
It’s a clear
