Deep in the Bush!

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As we set off Revel said that he wanted Trevor to come with us. Trevor is a local.....bushman I guess you could call him. Trevor doesn't have a telephone so the only way to speak to him is to turn up at his house which we did.

We found him out the front of his old minors cottage tending to his garden. Revel did the introductions and pleasantries then said to him "we're going on a bush walk and I wanted to take a look at 'the old hut' but I can't quite remember where it is, so I was hoping you would come with us". "When do you want to go" he asks. "Now?" Revel replied. "Ok" said Trevor and that was that. (Well if you're not going to own a telephone then you can't expect any prior warning, and it's harder to think of an excuse when you're put on the spot face to face so I don't think he had a choice and he seemed like too much of a nice guy to turn us down)


We got in the car and were just about to set off when Trevor stopped us. "I've just realised I've got the wrong hat on" he said removing the straw one from his head. He disappeared into the house and came back out with a bright luminous orange sun hat on, "that's better" he said, "this is a bush walking hat, it blends in well with the trees and doesn't scare the birds" he added sarcastically. I didn't get it!

We drove up into the bush at first and along a dirt track which became more and more overgrown the further in we got, barely able to see out the front windscreen at times for overgrown shrub branches, it seemed to me like a good 2 or 3 km before we finally stopped the car at a clearing to get out.

As we ventured into the dense bushland, I realised that this really was a place that nobody ever came to, I hadn't realised until now that even Revel and Trevor had not been into this particular area for over 6 years in which time much natural growth and change had obviously occurred. Revel was armed with some kind of utility belt full of emergency provisions, a few torches and a GPS tracking device and as for Trevor....well Trevor just had his hat and a pair of gloves to be honest, but like I said he's a bush man so that's all he needed.

I need to highlight to you that this isn't like taking a walk through an English forest, there is no track at all and before too long I found that if I were drop more than six or seven paces behind then I couldn't see where they had gone, you are constantly having to push your way through bushes and shrubs in many places. The only thing that I could see if I started to fall behind was the bright glow of Trevor's orange hat.....now I got it! That's why it's a bush walking hat, not that I actually questioned him on this but it seemed obvious now to make the assumption that it was partly for my benefit to see where he was leading us to and also for his own benefit so that he could be clearly seen if anything happened to him. After all this area of bush was full of old abandoned mines and therefore mine shafts to fall down if you're not careful.

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Photos

A clearer section of the Bush
This is actually a sclerophyll Forest to be precise which just so happens to be the preferred habitat of a Thylacine.

Entrance to an old abandoned mine
This mine has been unused for 80 years, Trevor and Revel are probably the only people who have been in there since, I don't think too many other people would be able to find it

Proud mum to be
No Tigers hiding in this old mine but plenty of eight legged life. Half way down the pitch black shaft I shined my torch over the walls and roof to find that these things were everywhere.

Moving on
Passages split off in different directions as we explored deeper

Detonation Boxes
We discover some old detonation boxes that would have been used to blast sections of the underground rock wall away. Hopefully there's no unused volatile ones laying about for us to step on!

This ones a bit bigger than the last
Just to give you an idea because I know this picture doesn't really give you any perspective, the fat round part of the rear body was about the size of a hazel nut.