Getting lost
There isn’t a good place to get lost, but I picked a very bad one. It was a wilderness island off Australia’s Queensland coast – no signal, hardly any people, a long way from help. I was walking something called the Thorsborne Trail on Hinchinbrook Island, a staggeringly beautiful 4-day hike of golden bays, mangrove-fringed creeks and mountains cloaked with rainforest. And on the first day I decided to take a detour to the top of Nina Peak. There was a path – it was narrow, but clear enough as it threaded through the lush forest – and I reached the rocky summit, cropping out above the treetops. I wandered among the boulders and gawped at the views, but when I turned to head down I realised I had no idea where I’d come up. I could not find the path in the melee of boulders. I tried a likely-looking line of dirt which soon petered out. I climbed back up and tried another. And another. Panic hit and I decided the next path had to be the one. Even when I reached a huge boulder blocking the way – a boulder I clearly hadn’t encountered on the way up – I decided to slide down over it, ripping the seat out of my only pair of trousers. But there was no path below. I couldn’t get back up. I was stuck. I glimpsed the sea I needed to reach and knew all I could do was forge my own way down the steep, roottangled, boulder-strewn mountainside. Did I do it slowly, with care? No. I barrelled, sobbing, down that hill.
I smashed through knee-deep leaf litter with no idea what ankle-breaking rock it might be hiding, or venomous beast, or hidden cliff, and I gashed my shin open on a fallen tree I tried to hurdle, and still have the scar. Eventually, eventually, I reached the shore. I was so relieved to be down I ran into the waves and narrowly missed stepping on a stingray. The lessons were manifold. Notice what’s behind you as well as ahead, so you can find your way back. Never climb down something you can’t climb back up. And stop. Just stop. Pinball panic will get you nowhere.
“The lessons were manifold. Notice what’s behind you as well as ahead, so you can find your way back. Never climb down something you can’t climb back up. ”