The Steamers

Thursday 23^rd February – Disposal Store Shopping

Clint and I went disposal store shopping. We didn’t actually want to buy a disposal store, looking more for a backpack and ponchos for our upcoming walk through rainy mountains. Clint ended up with an American army poncho, while I ended up with a five-dollar glorified garbage bag poncho from BigW, along with a twenty-dollar Kmart backpack, my previous one having been stolen. A pox upon thieves who steal packs from secluded national parks.

Two packets of two-minute noodles, some muesli bars, and lollies later, and we felt suitably prepared.

Friday 24^th February – The Steamers

Clint and I drove as near as we could get to Mount Steamer, and proceeded to walk the rest of the way. It was quite wet, our ponchos proving to be remarkably useful. Clint looks surprisingly like a ghoul in his. The weather’s annoying habit of clearing up only after we put our ponchos on was a bit of a pain, but having them sure beat walking wet.

We spent a few hours walking along old, and at times unmarked, tracks, before heading up a steep incline and spending the evening weaving our way around the base of a cliff, with a reasonably deadly drop to our left. We managed to make it to the top just on nightfall, and set up camp surrounded by small dead trees, with 150-metre sheer cliffs on either side.

Some photos by Clint Felmingham.

Saturday 25^th February – Mount Steamer

Clint and I woke around nine, heading off shortly later. We climbed up to the summit proper of Mount Steamer, and then headed down a ridge, which really wasn’t much more than a glorified mountainside to start with. We experienced such delights as an hour and a half of eight-foot high bracken, cleverly interlaced with raspberry bushes, hidden fallen logs and collapsed tree stumps. Fortunately for me, Clint went ahead so I could hear his curses when he fell over hidden logs, and managed to avoid most of them myself, although the raspberry was a little harder to avoid. An interesting trivia fact learnt: it is possible to see nearly one foot through bracken fern in normal daylight, but it is not possible to see raspberry bushes until they have entangled one in their nasty sharp barbs.

Other highlights included pushing our way down a very steep hill through prickly seed laden scrub, having the rain bucket down as soon as we emerged from the forest, walking through ankle deep water, running out of drinking water and fantasising about lemonade, and getting a lift back to Clint’s car with a friendly local and finding the car still intact. All in all, it was a successful expedition, and the chips and milkshake we had on our way home were well worth the effort.