We kept the beach on our right side for about an hour and a half, until we reached a rocky headland, and then we veered left, away from the coast. The track followed a natural cobble formation that was difficult to walk on. The boys were doing it tough — as were my knees, although I didn’t let it show. The track gradually disappeared and soon we were picking our way through thick poa-grass plains, using the flat granite outcrops as stepping stones. It wasn’t exactly a straight line, but we were heading in the direction I wanted.

‘Looks like we’ve left the path you mapped out,’ announced Chris, after the boys had started falling behind. He stopped and turned in circles, using his body to shield his GPS screen from the sun’s glare. ‘Says here we’re supposed to hug the coast until we get to Deep Cove.’

‘I thought we could take a short cut, Chris. If that’s okay with you? Means we won’t be getting water for a while, though.’

‘Didn’t you say there was a watering place around the point back there?’

A slight whine had crept into Chris’s voice, and I noted it with a smile as I powered on ahead. It would take me weeks to get my knees right, after this. But at least I wasn’t as dehydrated as the rest of them — I had an extra water bottle and was sipping on it secretly when I was out of sight.

Chris was a fit-looking guy: one of those slim fellas who jogged regularly (in brand-name active wear, no doubt, and probably with a club or one of those wanky boot camps). Today, though, he was sweating for the boys. Their wellbeing was his responsibility, and nobody except me had had anything to drink since we’d left camp that morning.

The waterhole up ahead, I remembered, was an old tin-
mining site. A Chinese exploration team had dug out a creek bed back in the 1800s. When I was a kid, the old fellas said it was haunted, that it had caved in on some of the workers and their bodies were never recovered. But the old fellas thought everything was haunted, so I didn’t believe it for a minute. It was one of the stories I’d been planning on passing off as undoubtedly true, though, at that night’s camp fire.

But between here and there was a large hill. And we were going to go over it.

After that, if things went to plan, we would head back to the coast. It was about two hours’ walk from the waterhole. We would make camp there for the night and I’d smoke two joints to make up for the one I’d missed that morning. I hadn’t been this straight for years and my mind was racing, like a crazy bastard.

~