The Heysen Trail 10. "Too many sheep"

 

 

I was feeling a weary, bit of joy when the hill finally showed signs of levelling out. I glanced back and saw the fence disappear from view - testimony to its gradient. On top I disturbed a murder of crows feasting on a carcass. Was this the last resting place of the headless deer? To find out, I would have had to crawl over the four-foot fence. The blood I could see from 50 metres away wasn't exactly an invite. The way things were going on this trail, I could have laid down next to it and turned into crow fodder myself.




Dare I say it? Oh deer!!

 

I continued along the fence and still, probably due to exhaustion, got lost. ‘It said follow the fence, not  jump it, Mars!!!!’ Having lost any sign of the trail I had a gut-full and sat down to indulge in a cup of soup and some of my last blobs of extra deserved chunks of goats cheese. It was difficult to get to a sitting position with a knee that was stiff and full of fluid, but even more difficult to find where I went wrong on the map.

I was sitting at the end of a broad strip of sheep-dung-covered grass, pondering my next move with fences running on either side – paddocks as far as the eye could see, when I heard the sound of an engine coming near from the direction I came. A guy appeared at full speed, without a helmet, on an off-road motorbike and started working the two gates in front of me. At first he just wanted to ignore me, but I told him I had lost the track and could he please, please, please tell me where I went wrong. He pointed at a small rise in the landscape about 3km away, and said that the Heysen trail was to be found on that hill. I thanked him and told him that he had the best job ever in this amazing country side. With a cynical smile he replied, “there are just too many bloody sheep.”

Polite sheep

Having packed up, I soon understood what he meant as several hundred of the woollen bundles were herded towards me by a ute, some more guys on bikes and two working dogs. Being a city slicker, this were to be my first such experience of being swamped by sheep. It has to be said that the sheep were very polite, or were they just being cautious, and moved around me in a wide arc. I stood there like an agricultural tourist taking photographs of it all. After passing through the gate, the followers were expertly scattered in the paddock by a new dude on a bike running figure eights at full speed.

 

"You can go your own way!!!"

One of the sheep – there is always one – couldn’t keep up with the family. In my mind I was encouraging her to go faster. C'mon, you can do it!! Chop Chop!! Later on,  I spotted the grand ol' lady on the back of the ute, motionless, and laying down flat. By now she has possibly disappeared in the station's freezer. Life on a station in its full glory.
 

The sheep bee-lining me and if you look carefully the grand ol' lady struggling in front of the ute

“What a day it has been” I thought as I limped along an uninspiring dirt road. I had an accident, almost, and may still, quit this hike, nearly killed myself on a steep slope, watched a playful pod of dolphins in the surf, got stuck in the soft sand of Tunkalilla beach, saw many birds and other animals - even dead ones, clutched on to a fence and hoiked myself up into the sky, escaped the evil clutches of deer-hunting decapitators, got lost on a sheep station but life couldn’t be slapping me in any more in the face if I wanted it to.

 

This dog just stood and watched the sheep rather than chased them

 

The sun had started to set when I arrived at the Balquhidder/Waitpinga campsite. It was built on the side of a hill – ‘where is the flat ground for a tent?’ -  with a tiny shelter that my tent had great difficulty fitting under or was it supposed to go on the platform? I set up quickly when a large flock of white-tailed, black cockatoos flew over screeching their melancholic sounds under a pink sky. The sound evoking a queasy feeling of depression. ‘I concur’ I thought'.
 

The platform or the shelter?

Tomorrow I walk across the road and ask for a lift to the nearest town.

 

Grey Bits

The sheep station I was lost on for one hour was the Balquhidder station. I have to thank them for letting Heysen trail hikers traipse through their property, for showing me the way back to the trail and allowing me to take these photographs without asking for permission.