Western Arthur Range Index

Day 5 : Inclement Weather at High Moor

The inclement weather simply did not let up.

It rained and rained and rained. The wind blew with a feverish pitch, occasionally buckling the entire frame of the tent down upon me. We were left drowned in the constant sound of flapping tarps and the ferocious drumming of the rain.. completely unceasing and unyielding. All we could do was wait the weather out, reading and sleeping.

I woke up with a start after having had a strange and somewhat disturbing dream involving dogs, wild boars, and a child with a shotgun. As the images of the dream started to quickly fade away, I began to realise how eerily still and quiet everything was. The silence was all encompassing and the stillness was almost palpable, after 36 hours of just the thrashing of tents and the whistling of the wind.

I was snuggled up warmly in my cocoon and didn't dare move, thinking that the slightest sound would shatter the delicate stillness that surrounded me. I looked around, still trying to get my bearings, and when I turned on my headlamp, I saw that the tent netting was completely saturated with thousands of miniature dew droplets that gleamed back at me. I slowly peaked my head out and realised that it was not as cold as I had thought that it would be.

I decided to get out of the tent and to have a look, hoping for a brilliant starlit sky but as I crawled out the only thing my headlamp illuminated were dew droplets that were suspended in front of me, hovering weightlessly in the air, that clung to my face as I moved forward. I couldn't see much further than my feet as everything was cloaked in a complete whiteout. Apt for the all-encompassing stillness, I thought to myself.

I crawled back into the tent as quietly as I could, not daring to make a sound, cringing at each and every rustle of my sleeping bag, the silence magnifying each sound I made a thousand times. As I settled down, the warmth of the bag slowly began to seep in and I fell asleep once again to the almost inaudible bubble of the brook that slowly trickled underneath the platform below me.

Next : Western Arthurs Day 06 - High Moor – Haven Lake

Western Arthur Range Index