MINDLESS MUSINGS

This one is another story from the same National Park visit I wrote about earlier; apparently we hadn’t been dare-devil enough and needed to put our lives into further jeopardy.

Pitch black; and Corey, Jonno and I head off on a bushwalk to God only knows where. We found a path and we just followed it with our torches. What better thing to do when one is drunk and stoned in unfamiliar surroundings.

I do not know how far we had walked, but we arrived at a small cliff face. Our options were simple: follow the path around and probably up to the top or climb the estimated one-story precipice. No prizes for guessing which one our shattered brains decided.

Drunk and stoned we choose to accept the challenge of climbing this straight up cliff.

We made it! I do not know how, but we did and it was a happy time. Looking down it was clear that we had taken a very real risk climbing up. It would have been dangerous sober in the light of day! Corey and I decided not to press our luck again and decided to follow the winding path back down to where we had begun; however, Jonno was not having a bar of it. He wanted to climb back down. Who were we to argue?

By the time Corey and I reached the bottom Jonno was there looking very proud of himself. He had pushed his inebriated luck twice and succeeded. We nicknamed him “Cliff-hanger” after the Stallone film. I need here to remind the reader just how wasted we all were. It was after midnight, and we had been drinking and smoking pot for many hours prior to this adventure. Jonno had pushed his luck twice and survived!

So having put our plastered selves in harm’s way and prevailing it was time to get back to the tents…

After a few minutes of walking it became clear we were lost. How do three sloshed idiots figure their way out of such a predicament? They take wild guesses and walk on as if everything will be fine. It was surprising that nobody panicked (alcohol can have that effect). We just kept walking and when each split in the path arrived, we randomly chose and walked on.

Do you believe in miracles?

After not very long we saw the first tent of one of our camping neighbours. We were back at the campsite, and I danced and screamed with delight. Fate had one final attempt at having me seriously injured when a giant bloke came storming out of his tent ready to rip me in half for carrying on in such a manner at 2am in the morning. For some reason he did not appreciate my exuberance at surviving such a harrowing ordeal (it felt like that at the time) and seemed keen to demonstrate his dissatisfaction courtesy of his hands around my neck.

Fortunately, my mates managed to placate my would-be assailant and we quietly walked back to our tents to partake in more marijuana and beer; and to inform our fellow campers of our exciting adventures.

I don’t know what got a bigger laugh: Jonno’s ‘Cliff-hanger’ antics, or my near severe beating, but a good time was had by all.