by Lophophaps » Wed 13 Feb, 2013 7:21 am
The walk started from the Mersey Forest Road access to the Walls of Jerusalem. The group was in Melbourne, but one person, best identified only as T, had moved to Canberra. He booked a flight to Tullamarine that arrived just before our Devonport flight flew. No we said, come the evening before, your flight might be delayed. He said that he would be okay as is.
He wasn’t. The Canberra flight was late, and he missed us. Catching a later flight to Devonport was not a problem, but getting into the Walls was. He got a lift with another party, way behind us. We spent two days in lovely snow (it was summer) at the Walls. On walking out we stumbled across T, camped between Lake Ball and the Junction Lake Track, waiting for us. In those days there was no track, or even a pad. T was about to give up and go home.
When the walk was over, we had to walk from Cynthia Bay to the Lyell Highway and our bus. Dreadful. T’s boots had been giving him bad blisters, and he resolved to give them a walker’s funeral. (The boots, that is, not the blisters.) On the upstream side of the Derwent River bridge he took off his boots, put what was left of his socks in the boots, and tied the laces together. He had no use for the stove fuel, probably shellite, so he tipped the fuel into the boots. The boots floated, and he lit them, pushing them into the current. Away they went.
There was a scramble to the bridge to see the boots flaming and floating to their Valhalla. What we didn’t expect was an audience. A busload was standing on the downstream side, gesticulating madly at the floating burning boots. Japanese tourists. We declined to clarify matters.
I would have dearly loved to witness the story they told when back in the land of the falling Yen. Before Photoshop the pictures would have been evidentiary.
Moderation note: Making your entire post in large font size is like shouting continuously and generally regarded as bad etiquette. Fixed.