My first adventure.

Posted by Mark on Dec 11, 09:21 PM

Yesterday was a bugger of a day. It was freezing cold and it snowed for the entire day. Visibility was often less then 100m and I was forced to make my way along a road. Today however was a beauty. It was still unbelievably cold but the sun was out and the snow gave the countryside a fairy tale look.

I decided to make camp early today. This has been only the second time during this trek that I’ve cut a walking day short. I had come to a tower perched high on a mountain and the scenery around me was beautiful. Furthermore, camping sites are difficult to come by in this area so I figured that I’d simply take the time out to enjoy myself. After all, the trek is nearing the end.

This also gave me the opportunity to reflect on a few things. The main thought that kept coming to mind was how I get myself into things like this. After all, trekking the entire length of the Great Wall is not something that the average person aspires to do.

As far as I can remember I’ve always been adventurous. At a very early age, about 8, I was setting my tent up in my backyard and would sit around a small camp fire, looking into the embers and dreaming of far off places. Sometimes I would pretend that I had to hunt for survival and would go around the garden digging up worms for dinner. At the time I thought of them as tiny thin sausages.

Throwing my meager catch of about 4 worms into my billy I watched as I waited for the water to boil. I figured that by then they would be cooked. Unfortunately I discovered that since they had sunk to the bottom of the billy the worms had been burnt to charcoal. I had great difficulty in trying to scrape the remains of the worms off.

At other times I would venture into the nearby creek in search of frogs and water rats. I had constructed my own bow and a number of arrows complete with nails taped to the ends for points. I never did have any success though.

But probably the first real adventure that I can recall occurred when I was about 10 years old. A friend was having a sleep over birthday party down the road from my home. We had all set up tents in the backyard and were having a ball. Our ‘base camp’ supplies included ample provisions of cake, ice cream and lollies. As you can probably imagine, this high sugar diet provided a lot of energy. With a little planning and coercing I managed to turn this energy into good use – mischief.

Once everyone had turned in for the night my tent partner and I set off on our expedition. I had earlier convinced him of the feasibility of my plan and we had prepared ourselves for any foreseeable difficulties by stashing away a large bag of lollies. At that age it seemed sufficient to handle just about any emergency situation.

The expedition was beautiful in its simplicity. We would simply wait until everyone was asleep and then make our way to the nearby pine forest, do a bit of exploring then come back and no one would know that we had ever left.

It was fortunate for us that the moon was bright since we didn’t have a torch to light the way. On the way to the pine forest we passed my house and I remember feeling quite sneaky and proud of myself for having embarked on this expedition without anyone being the wiser.

Once we got to the fringe of the pine forest we stood there peering into the darkness and listening to the pine needles as they rustled in the breeze. The longer I stood there the more my bravery declined. Although my friend was keen to head back to the safety of our tent I was determined to push on. After all, we had come this far.

When you’re 9 years old and just about to enter a dark forest many thoughts go through your mind. In my case the main ones were of Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood. Why wouldn’t there be a haggard old witch and big bad wolf lurking in the shadows? It seemed perfectly reasonable.

As we stood there trying to muster the courage to enter the forbidding forest a brilliant plan came to mind, no doubt having arisen from my thoughts of Hansel and Gretel. We would use the lollies that we were carrying to leave a trail that we or our rescuers would be able to follow if we happened to get lost. Unlike Hansel and Gretel however who quite foolishly left behind an edible trail of crumbs, we would eat the lollies first before dropping a trail of wrappers.

As we took our first tentative steps into the forest my heart started beating rapidly. We could see the moon shining through the branches that were gently swaying in the breeze. There was just enough light to pick our way past the trees.

As we walked deeper into the forest the trees behind us became denser and soon we were in a different world. In a gesture of solidarity my friend and I held hands as we continued on our way. Okay… I admit we were really holding hands because we were scared shitless.

As we passed through a clearing and got onto a dirt track that I had ridden my bike along countless times in the past we began to skip… while still holding hands. After all no one was watching so we couldn’t be accused of being girls.

We passed through another section of dense forest and then clambered down an embankment to a road. It was a large dual lane road with a narrow nature strip. As we crossed the road the headlights of a car appeared. It seemed that this intrusion was enough to break our solidarity as my friend took flight back up the embankment leaving me on the nature strip.

In an attempt to conceal myself I simply dropped flat onto the ground, hoping that the long grass would provide sufficient cover. As the car approached it slowed down and stopped a short distance ahead of me. ‘Are you okay little boy?’ asked the lady that got out of the vehicle. My response was simple. I bolted to my feet said ‘yep’ and ran back into the forest.

I found my friend standing at the fringe of the forest and together we ran all the way back to our tent, safely pitched at base camp ‘backyard’. As we muttered excitedly to ourselves and relived our adventure, the birthday boys father came outside and asked what we had been up to. Apparently my mother had called to check on me and when he had gone out to find me had discovered our empty tent.

Almost got away with it.