JoelPART ONE – Lessons from Mount Howbee
December 2020
I’ve always been pretty active my entire life, and for most of my working life, I’ve worked a physical job. But as any hiker would know – that doesn’t mean too much when you’re face to face with the realities of the natural world.
It’s been a rude awakening BUT it has been so worth it. Worth the rolled ankles, scratches, cuts, head bumps, cramps, back aches, leg aches – the list goes on.
I’ve found the best moments of my short time in the hiking world, aren’t captured – cannot be captured – through a photo or a video. It’s purely the experience of it all that lives within! You can say the same thing.
As well as my personal growth through this, I’ve probably learned more about the “How Not to Hike” haha.
Why Would Anyone Want to Hike..
Growing up, my family and I would do the occassional walk (hard to classify it as hiking), and it used to bore me like nothing else on the planet – what’s the point of walking in a glorified circle, getting hot and bothered for no reward – plus, here in Australia, you’re always watching you back waiting for a snake, spider or a drop bear.
Following is a series of hikes from the past 10 months that have built the foundation for my small hiking career. This is when it began.
Mount Hobwee
Just to add to the adventure, my wife and I actually did this one together over the Christman break last year. We were supposed to be relaxing and taking it easy after a hectic year. On one of the days staying at the Natural Bridge Retreat, I had remembered some nearby caves that were situated along the NSW/QLD border – The Bushrangers Cave. Don’t ask me where I heard about this…
The view was beautiful as we walked up the road to the start of the track, but within minutes, we were walking through shoulder high grass – constantly plagued with the thoughts of snakes and spiders. This continued as we followed the border – up and up and up. Already my wife was starting to doubt if I knew where I was going – and so did I.
We did manage to reach the caves – dripping in sweat and my untrained legs burning. This is good, I thought, we made it. Time to explore. This was the nicest park of the walk, exploring the cliff line, standing under a small waterfall and enjoying a small lunch. Ah this isn’t so bad after all.
As we got to the end of the cliff, I noticed a track heading straight up the mountain… and told my wife it would be fun. She knew it was a bad idea, expressed her concerns – which followed by me saying that we need to be more adventurous and spontaneous. I had no idea where it went or what the track was like. We found out soon enough – it’s a goat track…for a long while. My eyesight isn’t that great so I was relying on my wife to spot the pink tape that was on the occassional tree.
Have you ever had the feeling from the beginning that something was a bad idea… Well the entire hike I had this feeling. Hours went by throughout the day and we never could decide if we should cut our losses and find our way back, or keep going in the hopes of finding something amazing.
As inexperienced “hikers”, the path just seemed to go on forever. There was a bit of excitement if we reached a fork in the path or an occassional sign, but it never really led anywhere special.
It’s these kind of moments that really test your relationships – thankfully we worked together with this and kept as calm as we could. Eventually we reached a summit (I have no idea which one), and we had some phone signal.
I shared our location with a friend and said if we end up going missing, we’ll be around here haha. Because I was sorely lacking in hiking and navigation experience, I had some worry about how this would all unfold. Retracing steps generally isn’t too hard, but sometimes on goat tracks – everything starts to look the same!
Eventually a sign led us toward a lookout – oh wow how exciting! We began to tell each other it is going to be worth it…
We were met with an anticlimatic view… it was indeed a lookout, but not a very nice one. There was a small opening, just barely enough to stretch your arms out for a photo. We went through that crazy hike – just to be met with this! And now we have to get back to camp before dark – oh and we didn’t have food and only a little water – just great.
We made the decision that we needed to get back to our campsite. It was after lunch and we’d be hiking for three hours or so. There’s always the thought in the back of your mind – what if we go a little further and see something amazing? We could be so close… thankfully logic prevailed and we turned around and started our way back.
Just to add to this hike, it felt like a constant battle with spikey plants and tree roots. All the while, our legs were burning with the challenging gradient.
If you’re a seasoned hiker and you’re reading this, you’re probably laughing at how pathetic I’m sounding. But in all honesty, there were points in the day where I was actually a bit concerned for safety of my wife and I.
Some say that downhill is a lot easier. For us, it wasn’t. It was just as difficult as the knees were in the same pain as the way up haha. This was supposed to be our holiday! Why on earth are we doing this instead of enjoying the campsites waterfall with a beer in hand…
Eventually we did make it back down to the Bushrangers Cave. We were exhausted, but we at least knew where we were going!
As we started to walk back down along the border, we noticed the amount of these massive ants! Perhaps they were the jumping Jack ants? My wife had some run up here shoe and bite her on the ankle – this was not good after a full day of “adventure”. It took a few minutes for us to settle and find a place to rest where there weren’t more ants. The campsite was only a few hundred metres away now so surely we’d make it back safely – all that stood before us was the tall grass.
Before we had even made it another fifty metres past the ant colony – we came across a massive black snake sunbaking on the path – to this day, it has still been the biggest black snake I’ve ever seen. Not knowing what to do when the snake began moving, I picked up a large rock and hurled it near the snake it hopes of scaring it off – not a great idea in hindsight. Lucky for us, it did leave into the long grass – but unlucky for us, that was the way we needed to go to get back haha.
Moving quickly, we made quite a dash through the long grass to get back to the dirt road, where our campsite was only 200m away. We had made it! Rolling in at around 5pm, we were so glad we came out reltively unscathed – physically, but mentally – we were a little shook up.
Just to add to our daily drama, we discovered a tick had lodged itself in me… but after a quick pull, it came out – head and all.
Don’t get me wrong, I love adventure and exploring – but it’s pretty serious business when you’re going to trails or tracks that are recommended for more experienced hikers. This hike would be so much more enjoyable if I was prepared and ready for it.
I’ve learned a lot since then (which more of these stories will show you), and this hike will definitely be one that we won’t forget anytime soon.
Lessons From Mount Howbee:
- Learn to crawl before you walk, and walk before you hike.
- Walking in the wrong shoes and socks is the quickest way to bring about discomfort.
- Don’t let pride get in the way of listening to your “spidey senses”.
- Research any hike you want to do and assess whether it’s within your capabilities.
- There’s no shame in turning around.
- Don’t annoy snakes on purpose.
- Always carry enough food and water for the off-chance that something like this happens.
- When an ant bites you, jumping around doesn’t solve the immediate problem, try to get it off first haha
- Be very cautious of long grass and the hidden perils that lie within it.
- Check for ticks, leeches and any other nasty little creatures.
