Adventures with Video Part 2

by Ian Smith
(New Zealand)

Bush Composite

We have few, if any, 'nasties' in the New Zealand Bush, no snakes, bears, scorpions and only one poisonous spider, the 'Katipo', which I was unlikely to strike here. So, in essence, I couldn't have been safer in any rain-forest region of the world. Nor was the pitch-blackness all that unnerving. Deer possibly passed quite close to me during the night, and I heard the snuffling of a wild pig some distance away. 'Morepork' and other native owls sounded off at intervals during the night, some distance away from me and the unnerving sound of a possum carried on only a short distance away, some frogs croaked, and at about 10.30pm, I heard the sound of a distant police-siren, the barking of a police-dog, and a sound which I took to be an ambulance, but which, in fact, was the Search-and Rescue' mobile operations centre being driven into position. The sounds would have come, judging by their intensity in quiet bush, from about 3kms away, no more.

However, while I lay there feeling a bit guilty about what Judith must have been thinking, a party of searchers had already (11pm), set out down the correct route, followed it to the coast (these people knew the details of the track, well enough to follow it with only headlights and torches), and finding nothing there, had returned by 2am without a 'result'. I hadn't expected that a search would begin until first-light. Every fifteen minutes, I had called-out, but a strong breeze had got-up about 11pm and the constant roar of the wind through the trees would have made any shouts go unheard.

However, the breeze moved the cloud on overhead and through the largest gap in the canopy above me, I could see one star at-a-time; no more than that. It was a long night, but, amazingly, I dozed-off several times and actually had some sleep; my ponga-frond bed was quite comfortable under-the circumstances.

Dawn finally took a long time to break, even the dawn-chorus of native birds was not until 6.30am. I just lay there until things began to warm-up a bit, had a muesli-bar for breakfast together with about a few table-spoons of water, and prepared for the walk 'out'.

With the sun overhead, I decided to walk with it on my back at least until 11am, that way, I would walk in an arc, which would gradually veer south-west which would mean that I would, sooner-or-later encounter 'Pratt Road' which led to 'Cathedral Caves' a popular tourist draw-card. If I struck a line which carried me too far north, I would have a formidable trip right out to the main highway, much of it parallel to Pratt Road, but a pointless waste of effort, especially when running low on water. Pratt Road' was a substantial target if I simply kept on deer-trails westwards, and took every south-leading option as it presented itself.

In good daylight, the 'going' wasn't too bad, although there were lots of fallen trees and other obstructions to negotiate. I even got back onto my track 'in' and followed a series of ribbons tied to overhead branches for the best part of a kilometre, but took a wrong turning and got off the track again. Usually, ribbons tied to over-head branches are meant to be seen from one to the next, but in this thick bush area, it was pure guesswork, combined with the most viable route across ground, which brought up the 'next' ribbon each time.

It was almost inevitable that I would veer off-track again. I even picked up sets of footprints, someone had been through the patch of bush in the last few weeks accompanied by quite a young child. Like myself, they had become confused, as by following the prints I became aware that I had passed the same fallen log twice,and so I reverted to my original plan, left the track and struck-out west again. Apart for the trouble I was putting everyone through, it became quite enjoyable at times.

The land was 'Triassic', which is to say 250m to 200m years old and the large inclined slabs of exposed basalt rock I had to sometimes scramble from one to the other of, were ancient seabed very likely, as world-wide, the seabed, away back to the time of the earth's creation, was basalt. The only other rock at that time, was granite, very much a 'moonscape', as it is made up of basalt and granite, to this day. However, most of the bush was so rotten, that nothing could be relied upon to provide a hand-hold.

By midday, my water was running very low, down to less than an inch in the bottom of the bottle. I paused for a minute or two, had my last muesli-bar, and sipped the rest of the water until I was all done. There was a stream not far away, and I took a bottle-capful of water from a clean-looking part of it. I had hardly swallowed
it when, within seconds, the inside of my mouth turned to dust, almost, and I had a raging thirst. Still, it was 'water' and no-matter what; I might need it in a dire emergency, so I refilled my bottle by scooping up water with the cap and tipping it in. That took about 20 minutes.