Gregory Bryan - To Hell & High Water: Walking in the Footsteps of Henry Lawson

TO HELL &

HIGH WATER

Walking in the Footsteps of Henry Lawson

TO HELL &

HIGH WATER

Walking in the Footsteps of Henry Lawson

www.bigskypublishing.com.au

GREGORY BRYAN

Copyright Gregory Bryan 2012

First published 2012

Copyright remains the property of the authors and apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission.

All inquiries should be made to the publishers.

Big Sky Publishing Pty Ltd

PO Box 303, Newport, NSW 2106, Australia

Cover design and typesetting: Think Productions

Images: With the exception of the Henry Lawson images, all photograph credit: Sean Morahan, Jane Crowle, Barrie Bryan, Gregory Bryan.

Cover photograph: Sean Morahan. Henry Lawson image courtesy of Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry (pbk)

Author: Bryan, Gregory.

Title: To hell and high water : walking in the footsteps of Henry Lawson / by Gregory Bryan.

ISBN: 9781921941788 (pbk.)

Subjects: Bryan, Gregory.

Bryan, Gregory--Travel.

Lawson, Henry, 1867-1922.

Australia--Description and travel.

Australia--History.

Dewey Number: 920.710994

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry (ebook)

Author: Bryan, Gregory.

Title: To hell and high water [electronic resource]: walking in the footsteps of Henry Lawson / by Gregory Bryan.

ISBN: 9781921941832 (ebook)

Subjects: Bryan, Gregory.

Bryan, Gregory--Travel.

Lawson, Henry, 1867-1922.

Australia--Description and travel.

Australia--History.

Dewey Number: 920.710994

TABLE OF CONTENTS

To Jennifer

who stays behind for me

and, of course,

To Henry,

who went ahead.

FOREWORD

In the Footsteps of Henry Lawson

I am humping my bluey far out on the land,

And the prints of my bluchers sink deep in the sand.

- On the Wallaby, When I was King and Other Verses, 1905

Id knocked about the Bush too long, and run against too many strange characters and things, to be surprised at anything much.

- The Babies in the Bush, Joe Wilson and His Mates, 1901

How are you travellin, Gregga? my brother asks.

Good, I lie.

I tilt my head further forward, looking only at the hard-baked ground beneath my butchered feet.

Do you need anything, Greg? Jane asks.

No, thanks, I lie again. However, I do need something. I need help. I need a way out of this mess that I have gotten myself into.

It is early on the second afternoon of this 15-day ordeal. I have set out with the ridiculous notion of walking from Bourke to Hungerford and then, as if that is not enough, my plan is to turn around and walk backjust like my favourite author, Henry Lawson, did in the summer of 1892-1893. I have only a day-and-a-half behind me and I have already realised I am in way over my head.

Do you want a cold necktie? Jane asks.

No, Im good. Three lies within the space of a minute. I have to get out of here. I look only at the ground as I shuffle away from the others. I know that if one of them catches my eye, I am gone. I am losing my fight to keep my emotions intact and under control. I hide my face and the pain that must be deeply etched there. I avert my eyes from my three companions worried looks, knowing that if they see the self-doubt hidden within my eyes that I am going to burst into a torrent of tears. I am on the edge of breaking down completely. To do so will end everything right here, where I stand, 50 km from Bourke and with 400 km of my planned trek not done. I must get away to be alone. I do not say goodbye. Fighting my pain, I concentrate on increasing the speed of my shuffled escape.

My tears are a millimetre below the surface. But I am not a crier. I can think of only one other time in recent memory where I broke down and cried. Back then, overwhelmed by the task of completing my graduate studies, I almost completely lost my mind and my grip on perspective. A broken mess, I desperately tried to hang on by a thread. But then when even that thread broke, with it, I broke too. I am on the edge of a similar breakdown now, standing at the precipice on broken, unsteady, blistered feet. I feel as if there is nothing but a black hole before me. I feel completely powerless and I see no way out. Here, in the Outback New South Wales emptiness, I recognise the same thread now. It is torn and tattered. It is as thin as paper. I cling to it like a madman, knowing that if the thread breaks, I break too and descend into madness.

It is so hot, I say, trying to divert my thoughts. The mercury is pushing beyond the mid-forties. It is about 115 degrees in the old Fahrenheit scale. One-hundred-and-something-scary in the shade, Henry Lawson wrote of his time out here. The heat is something scary alright. Less than a week beforehand, I kissed my Canadian wife goodbye in temperatures of 20 below zero. My body is struggling with this rapid change in temperaturewith acclimatisation to the furnaces of hell. My fellow Henry Lawson re-enactment walk trampsmy brother, Baz, and my old school mate, Moztold me of a phone conversation they shared before I left Canada and returned home to Australia.

If it was me, I would have wanted to spend some time in Australia beforehand, Baz said, getting used to the heat.

Greg has never been one to make things easier for himself, Moz responded. He has never been one to look for shortcuts or easier going.

I am looking for an easier route now though. The Track is littered with large stones, some as big as the fists I clench against my pain. Trying to pick my way through the stones is tedious and dangerous. With a false step I will twist an ankle. With the wrong footfall the sharp edges of a stone digs deep into a blister, slicing at the tender skin like a knife through butter. I move to the roadside. It is sandier here, with less stones, and smaller ones at that. I know, however, that snakes lie in the roadside grass: Taipansperhaps the deadliest snakes in the world. As much as I must be careful, I am too tired to think. I am too tired even to care, let alone to be careful.

I place one foot in front of the other. Left and then right. Left and then right. As difficult as it all is, I tell myself my journey is really just this simple: Left and then right. Left and then right. Left, right. Left, right. Left, right, left, right, left, right, left.

I feel myself starting to regain control of my emotions. I am a machine. Not thinking, not caring. Not feeling. I push onon toward Hungerford.

I am committed to making it to Hungerford and back, come hell or high water. Come hell or high water. Hell or high water. Hell or

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are many people deserving of acknowledgement for their roles in helping to bring this book to fruition. I appreciate everybody at Big Sky Publishing for the quality of your work. Particular thanks to Diane for support and leadership.

Thank you to Mrs Yvonne Swaffer for sharing with me her family history about the Hungerford region, including the Royal Mail Hotel and the Henry Lawson poem in her family. Thank you to Graeme Foster for permission to reproduce that poem in this book.