Hiking Trip Log; Acacia Flat Campground

A short entry I wrote on our recent backpacking trip in the Blue Mountains on our Acacia Flat campground hiking trip. This entry documents some organic thoughts and feelings I had on our first day. We ended up having a little fun and fleshing out an intended 3 day trip into 4. In true hiker fashion, we rationed our food to spend a little more time in paradise.

Day 

Beautiful blue gums. Gigantic, magnificent eucalyptus trees. Lush, green underbrush that at sections, towers over you. It’s lightly raining, and the wet leaves kiss our skin and packs as we walk past. The Grose river follows along the trail, with wonderful emerald pools and water gushing through the rocks. 

I look up the trunk of a gigantic eucalyptus tree, the white sky stark behind it. I ponder as I walk, that all trees feel like they have a different personality, but the love emanating from them is the same. It’s a different skin, bark, form, but the same love from their collective consciousness, unwavering and undeniable.

I never used to be able to feel this love. But once I opened myself up to it, it was there for me in abundance. I firmly believe mother nature wants to nurture and cherish us all. After long hikes, when we return back into the real world, it’s as if I feel her calling me back. Through the sway of the leaves in the wind, from the biggest tree to the smallest blade of grass. The gum leaves are whispering to me today, telling me they are so deeply happy I’m back.

Evening

Amy and I arrived just as the sun was setting and set up camp, spotting just one other tent in the whole campground. Typical of us to get here at this time.

Later, we were cooking dinner in our little wombat den in the dark, when we saw a light bobbing through the dark forest towards us. A man emerged, and my eyes instantly went to the axe in his hand. Immediately, my body flooded with fear, freezing like a deer in headlights. He is smoking and has a moustache. But when he opens his mouth all he does is introduce himself and invite us over to his fire.

Straight away I address the picture I saw. I say, ‘Do you know how fucking terrifying you walking up to us with an axe is?’ although with a humour about it, in hopes that if he is in fact a serial killer the honesty will deter him. I make polite conversation for a moment, but he gets the energy and leaves.

Ames and I laugh about it as he goes and I tell her about the anxiety in me. She says men without sisters don’t understand that could be threatening. 

There is no way we were going over to that fire. This is a national park, and there are signs everywhere saying no fires are allowed. Even if he means no harm at all, this type of character is not someone I want to spend time with out in the bush in the middle of the night. Ames points out that smoking isn’t allowed either, also written on signs everywhere.

For the most part, I really am sure he meant no harm. But I struggled to sleep that night. Every critter, including a native rat scattering around our tent all night, was a possible man in the bush coming towards us. I got so paranoid at one point that Ames stuck her little head out the tent, patrolling with her head torch. She even got a big ass bashing rock ready to rumble, placed just outside the tent.

She knew nothing bad was happening, and I know she did it just for me. She stayed awake while I fell asleep. 

I gripped my pocket knife in my sleeping bag and eventually drifted off, feeling a bit embarrassed. I know my fear is both irrational and rational. Two girls alone in the mountains, a man with an axe a hundred metres away. Albeit a nice one.