It was dusk when they set out for what was supposed to be a quick walk for
the dog before a night out in town.
Raine and Anna had built a weekender “in the wilderness” at Lake Wapengo, on the far south coast of New South Wales, in Australia, and the track they walked along started right at their front gate and took them straight into the bush.
A hundred years ago, some sections of the forest had been logged. But today, the regrowth is thick with spotted gum, stringybark, coastal casuarina, coastal mahogany, and wattles of half a dozen varieties.
Wilderness, not in the technical sense of the word, perhaps, but wilderness, nonetheless.
A freak thunderstorm in the spring had broken the tops out of many of the trees, and the single-file riding track the couple walked along was strewn with debris. Broken wattles littered the path, their limbs pointing in all directions.
“Gee, that storm made a mess,” Raine said as he adjusted the dog’s lead.
Bazza was their new kelpie. Chocolate brown, alert pointy ears and brown eyes that looked right through you. He was always excited to go on adventures and his nose set the pace. Head down, tail up, he padded along enthusiastically, darting off this way or that as he caught a whiff of some new bush scent.
“Come on, Bazz”, Raine said impatiently, as he gently tugged the lead,” Come”.
“You should let him off the lead.”
Raine reached down, undid the clip, and Bazza was gone.
Wallabies exploded in every direction, and Bazza barked in pursuit.
For the first time Raine and Anna realised it was getting dark.
“Bazza, come, “they called.
The last light was fading fast, and they knew they should head home.
But leaving the dog caused hesitation.
“He’s only a pup,” Anna said, “Let’s wait a little longer.”
Almost, by surprise, they noticed the sun was now gone.
The greys turned to black quickly, and the track was nowhere near as familiar as it had been when the dog took off.
What had been trees were now dark twisted forms identifiable only when you looked up and saw the leaves silhouetted against early evening stars; and soon, that perspective was also lost as low clouds closed in.
Covered in debris, the track was now impossible to follow. They tripped repeatedly on fallen timber, rocks and roots; and, as it grew darker, even the gradient of the path became difficult to judge.
Raine had grabbed a headlamp, as he walked out the door, but only now discovered his daughter had flattened the battery the weekend before.
The forest closed in around them, like a huge spider, trapping them in its tangled web.
Now the trees were only recognisable by touch.
Stumbling on, they presumed they would emerge into a clearing sooner or later.
But as time passed, they were consumed by the darkness.
Branches and twigs clawed at their faces. Broken limbs caught on their clothes, jabbing, and biting.
At first neither of them had feared getting lost. What? Only fifteen, twenty minutes from home. No. Privately, though, they were both unnerved by how quickly the light had abandoned them; and now they realised the bush, so familiar by day, was an alien realm by night.
All semblance of the trail was gone.
No moon, no southern cross, no sound of traffic. No faint voices in the air. No porch light flickering through the trees.
Nothing.
Nothing but darkness.
“Anna,” where are you?
“Here”, she said with insistence.
“I can’t tell where ‘here’ is.
“Here,” she yelled, in frustration.
Bazza jumped up on her thinking she’d been calling him. “Well, at least the dog’s come back”.
“That’d be right, he’s had his fun.”
Raine reached out, and his hand found her face.
“Sorry,” he said, “with my hearing so poor in that right ear, I’m darned if I can tell what direction a sound is coming from.”
“It’s ok, “Anna responded, “It’s hard for me too.”
Raine knew his wife would not be fazed by a bit of a fall here or there, but he needed to assure himself, as much as her.
“The lake runs north south, and we are to the east of the lake. Right? So, if we walk to the west we have got to run into the road. It’s only a K or so, at most.”
The problem was neither of them could discern which way west was.
“Let’s just stay close, and keep moving in one direction for a while, and see what happens.
“Ok.”
Scanning the sky, they thought they could see a slightly paler shade of black over to their right, and they headed towards it, hoping it was an opening in the forest.
A bit tired and sore himself, Raine asked if Anna needed a rest.
“No, I’m alright, “she said, “Have you got any idea how long we’ve been blundering around out here?”
“No idea.”
Time too had become alien.
They pushed on a metre apart, arms outstretched, searching the darkness for obstacles.
Raine had Bazza on a lead and every few steps, he’d clamber over a log the dog would duck under, and the sudden tightness in the line would bring them to a halt.
Raine reached down, thinking with his hands, to undo the tangle.
It was slow going.
Instead of the break in the trees they’d hoped for, they found themselves sliding down the side of a damp gully, the moist earth catching under their fingernails, brush and twigs scratching their faces.
“Ouch”, Anna cried.
“What’s wrong?
“A stick poked straight into my neck.
“You, OK?
“Yeah, just hold up a second.”
“Did you cut yourself?
“I can’t really tell; I’ve got mud on my hands.”
They were both breathing heavily, their clothes heavy from sweat.
“Oh shit!”
There was a sharp crack, a loud thump, and a dog’s whimper as Raine tripped on a tree root and fell to the ground. The branch that broke his fall clipped the dog, and Bazza was licking Raine’s face thinking he’d done something wrong.
“It’s ok, mate, you didn’t do anything.”
The couple were now hunched on the ground, metres apart, deep in their own thoughts.
Neither of them spoke the word “LOST,” but they both knew they weren’t going to be able to find their way out.
Shock set in at how suddenly they had been cut off from the world.
They felt as if they’d slipped through a crack in the landscape, time travelled to some other world, where nothing was familiar, nothing was known.
They could not see the ground. Could not see the sky, couldn’t make out the trees, had no idea how long they’d been stuck in this eucalypt void. Surrounded by darkness. Together, but alone in the night.
There was no light switch to turn on, no warm soup on the kitchen stove, no comforting flames flickering in the pot belly stove.
“You know, I think we should stop blundering around like this,” Raine suggested hesitantly.
“What are you saying?” Anna asked.
There was a long silence.
The sound of their breathing the only sign of life.
“What I’m saying, “he started, and paused, “What I’m saying is that maybe we should hole up in one place. Make ourselves as comfortable as we can, and find our way out in the morning.”
“I agree,” Anna responded, “it’s dangerous scrambling around in the dark. Sooner or later we’ll break a leg, or get a stick in the eye.”
Anna was leaning against a huge Spotted Gum, a tree that would have been standing when Cook sailed up the east coast. She was protected from the cold wind that had sprung up, and looked around at the impenetrable darkness, no different when she opened her eyes, or closed them.
Neither spoke for a long time.
“Ok, if we’re going to stay here all night, we should try to make some sort of shelter in case it rains. You know, like Bear Grylls.
They both laughed.
“That’s a good one. How are we going to do that when we can’t see anything?
“I’m leaning against a big spotty. Just crawl across to me, and we’ll pull broken branches in around us and lean them up against the tree.”
Anna’s practical response warmed Raine’s heart.
“You’re a champ,” he said, “I’m so glad you’re not one of those plastic women on TV.”
“No way, I’m wrinkly for a start!”
The comment made them both smile.
Having made the decision to stay where they were they both seemed to relax a little. Raine crawled over to Anna’s voice: “keep coming, keep coming.”
She stamped her foot on the ground; he reached out and felt the heel of her boot.
“Arr…there you are. Now, where’s this Taj Mahal?
“I’m leaning against it.
He pulled up beside her, and Bazza climbed on them in excitement.
“No Bazz, not my face,” Anna said, as the young Kelpie licked at her in the blackness.
Raine got the idea himself, felt for Anna’s face, and kissed her forehead.
“Well, this is a different Friday night,” he said, giving his wife a hug.
“Yeah, it’s certainly not the warm cappuccino I was expecting.”
Careful not to lose contact with each other Raine edged down Anna’s legs and grabbed any branches he could reach and pulled them towards him. Luckily the storm had left a litter of smaller wattles and casuarinas close to the tree.
Once or twice, he kicked at some smaller branches, or used his pocketknife to cut twigs off bigger limbs so there was nothing sticking out.
They jumbled this rubbish up against the spotted gum, leaving the heavier bits on the ground, and leant a few straighter ones up against the trunk.
It was slow, careful work, all done by feel, and they applied themselves to it in silence, distracted from the fact that they were stuck in the bush, and were going to be there all night.
Kneeling in the dirt, they groped around with open-fingered hands for some leafy brush for a makeshift roof.
Then, with no more branches within reach, they crawled inside the ramshackle mess and huddled together.
The aboriginal presence at Wapengo is strong.
Raine and Anna had strolled along the estruary many times and discovered middens in the shade of the banksias: piles of shells where family groups had once gathered in the sun eating shellfish.
They had pictured the children splashing in the shallows, their white teeth glistening in the sun, laughter filtering through the trees.
“I wonder how many aboriginal people have spent the night up here like this,” she said, “We’re surely not the first.”
Sitting in the dirt, with the kelpie cuddled up between them, they felt almost comfortable.
Inside the humpy the black ink in front of their eyes had lost in its intimidating edge. The bush was not so alien. Scratching around in the dirt with their bare hands; they had connected with the earth somehow, become grounded in the place. They had made a little “home”; and even though they still couldn’t see anything, they were pretty snug, in a damp sort of a way.
They sat in silence, alone, forgotten to the world.
Outside, the bush was still, a black void like the space between the stars they could not see.
Every now and they’d hear the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of a kangaroo bounding past, each footfall coming to their ears more through the ground than the air. In the distance there was the occasional hooting of an owl, or the screech of a possum, a bird call they couldn’t recognise; and closer, the faint rustling of leaves as some tiny creature, most likely an antechinus, foraged for food.
Sleep came slowly.
They’d laid down, heads on their forearms, searching for comfort, wriggling this way and that, eventually leaning against each other, back to back, aware of the warmth of the other’s body. The dog joined in, nestling in the hollow between their legs.
And that’s how the night passed: a man…a woman…and a dog, alive on the planet earth, with the unfathomable Milky Way overhead and dirt beneath their feet.
They woke about the same time, half opening their eyes, reluctant to move and lose what little warmth they’d garnered from each other.
It was no use, though, the pre-dawn chill bit at the exposed skin on their hands and necks, and their hips and shoulders ached from the hours of direct contact with a raw earth bed.
Bazza stood up, and shook.
Raine undid his leash to let him wander off for a pee.
As they sat up, they looked out on a bark painting.
The blacks were now turning to grey, the indiscernible monsters of the night before slowly becoming rocks and trees again.
A shroud of mist hung in the air, its vapour giving the smooth, white-barked spotted gums a mystical presence.
Raine and Anna crawled out, as the first suggestion of light caught on a myriad of spider webs hanging like Native American dream catchers between broken limbs and burrawangs.
Strange as it may appear the image conjured a sound, an unheard, but imagined tinkling in the air.
They looked up; saw a grey blue sky between clouds suddenly edged in gold and crimson from the first touch of the sun.
“Well, that was a night,” Raine said, dusting his jeans, “you, ok?”
“Yeah, a bit stiff, but ok.”
As the light grew, greens, browns and yellows warmed the landscape. Circling around they discovered the little humpy they’d built was in a hollow not far off the track. They slowly found their bearings, and headed towards home.
“Bazza…come, “Raine called.
“You know,” Anna said,” we’ve stayed at dozens of camping areas and resorts over the years, all sorts of beautiful places from tourist brochures, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget that night out here.
“It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it was special somehow.
“It was just so raw, so real.
“We were totally cut off from the world.
“But I felt connected.
“Connected to the earth. Not sitting on it, but a part of it.”