JINXED IN THE HIGH COUNTRY

WE CAME upon the animal suddenly and he was as startled to see us as we were surprised to see him; but, still, he didn’t move. Looking at us over his shoulder, he was an animal in his prime and he was probably a little reluctant to give way to us as there was nothing in the forest that could really challenge his being or his domain.

I stopped the Patrol, wishing the camera with the long lens was closer, while we exchanged glances. Sun glinted off his antlers and shade speckled his glimmering coat, and then, as suddenly as we had met, the spell was broken as the two other vehicles in our group came idling along and pulled up behind me. The sambar stag leapt in to the surrounding bush and within the blink of an eye had vanished from sight.

Just minutes earlier we had turned off the Buckwong Track, a through-route to the Davies High Plains and a relatively well-known track that passes along the edge of the Mount Murphy Historic Area, on to Greggs Track. It was immediately obvious from the amount of leaf litter, twigs and branches that covered the two wheel marks of the faint track almost completely, the route was little