It was a massive fissure, splitting the desert apart that the eight of us climbed into. Step after precarious step, observing each thin line in the gorge wall deposited there after each rain season, marking every millimetre down to the gorge floor 80 metres below.
It was overcast and signs were placed at every entrance into the gorge that we would need to exit immediately if it looked like rain because people had been swept away in flash floods in the past. In fact we had only an hour before read the memorial erected in memory of a rescue worker who had lost his life attempting to save the life of an individual who had been caught in one of the aforementioned flash floods.
The day threatened rain and it had been at the bottom of one of the more inaccessible gorges with two small children that it had indeed started to rain. Needless to say I panicked and had tremendous difficulty maintaining an air of cavalier nonchalance. In fact, I think I had said something to the effect “I’m having an anxiety attack” as people confirmed that they too were, in a more colloquial sense, starting to ‘shit themselves’.
The journey into the Gorge had been one of those life affirming confidence building experiences for the children where their Uncle Ian had done a brilliant job patiently directing the children where to place their hands and how to carefully negotiate their way along an otherwise death friendly environment. The whole journey we were taking into the most difficult part of the gorge took about forty five minutes. By difficult I mean that there existed more treacherous parts, but these were largely inaccessible without the equipment to abseil. The parts we were in didn’t need ropes to get through, but one wrong step and you would at best get wet and worst be swept away to a plummeting injury. There are no adverts for one punch sentencing for gorges so… safe to say the gorge would be acting in innocence should it inadvertently murder you.
And so at the most tranquil and beautiful parts, rain began to fall.
I looked out across the distance to notice two men abseiling their way down into the pool that was further down from where we were. It would have been so beautiful watching the rain fall splendidly down between the metres and meters of sheer rock face into the tranquil pool of water if it wasn’t for the gripping fear that by my calculations we were 45 minutes away from the exit. The point where we had got to was called Regan’s Pool. It was named after a rescue worker who was tragically killed mere meters from that very spot during a flash flood four years previously. Thankfully I made no link between the plaque we had been reading a couple of hours ago and where we currently were.
Ian was keen for the kids to find their own pace. I abandoned this idea as, fighting hysteria, dragged the children as one would perhaps drag hand luggage through a crowded airport. I crashed through the water, tossing them up on to rocks that had previously taken long minutes to negotiate over and unceremoniously dropped them onto the other side. Lessons in self-actualisation were over.
Once we were safely out of the bit I felt would hurt the most should a wall of water come bearing down upon us I was stunned to meet a German walking casually through to the point we had just evacuated. What struck me as patently absurd was the shiny black leather cowboy hat he had perched on his head. I don’t think there is anything that could be worn with such a hat that would make it look like it belonged, but this guy didn’t even try. A light coloured polo shirt with comfortable looking board shorts finished off his appearance I mean really, really finished it off. I casually wondered out loud whether it was a brilliant idea whether he should continue. He explained that he had spoken to a State Emergency Worker and while bad weather was on the way there wasn’t much of a risk of a flash flood. I guess I subconsciously put together the words ‘much of a risk’, the fact that the information had come from someone who may not be the foremost expert in unpredictable weather patterns, the guys black hat and the sign that had said EXIT IMMEDIATELY IF IT LOOKS LIKE RAIN a point which seemed a little lost on everyone because it was actually now raining…anyway I just nodded. I wished him luck and then made a note of the time so I could let the authorities know when we got back to the top that a German tourist was last seen at ten to twelve and for that matter it may all be for the best given what he was wearing.
The rest of the journey out of Hell’s mouth was a little more dignified and I was starting to feel a more relaxed the closer we got to the exit point when I was startled by the men we had seen abseiling down into Regan’s Pool accompanied by the German who now appeared quite insane - looking panic stricken in his shiny black leather hat. Upon inquiring about his change of heart he said something about taking two photos and deciding that it perhaps wasn’t the best sense to risk his life taking any more. They came tearing up behind us and crashed through the women and children in their efforts to lay hands on the ladder and haul arse out of there. The two abseilers were either deaf or German because they made no attempt to communicate with us, although one of them had the name Tom written on his helmet, a means to identify his body we presumed upon discussing the events later. I will add in my defence that my wife recalls none of the fear I noted in the men’s eyes but I will insist that this can be the only reason for their apparent rudeness and wild eyed appearance they had taken on.
Once we were a considerable distance out of the gorge I quietly wished that a wall of turbulent water would come rumbling out past us at a safe distance and I would feel a heroic sense of self satisfaction. Instead there was just an echoing silence and deep seated sense that there was something wrong with me and that I should perhaps take to wearing a shiny black leather hat with the word ‘Shmuck’ written across the back of it.
