Chapter Two

It all began when... They're funny, those words. Everyone uses them, without thinking what they mean. When does anything begin? With everyone, it begins when you're born. Or before that, when your parents got married. Or before that, when your parents were born. Or when your ancestor colonised the place. Or when human came squishing out of the mud and slime, dropped off their flippers and fins, and started to walk.But all the same, all the side, for what's happening to us there was quite a definite beginning.

  So: it all began when Corrie and I said we wanted to go bush, go feral for a few days over the Christmas holidays. It was just one of those stupid things: "Oh wouldn't it be great if..." we'd camped out quite often, been doing it since we were kids, taking the motorbikes all loaded with gear and going down to the river, sleeping under the stars, or slinging a bit of canvas between two trees on cold night. So we were used to that. Sometimes another friend would come along, Robyn or Fi usually. Never Boys. At that age you think boys have as much personality as coat hangers and, you don't notice their looks.

  Then you grow up.

  Well there we were, only weeks ago, though I can hardly believe it, lying in front of the television watching some junk and talking about the holidays. Corrie said, "We haven't been down to the river for ages. Let's do that."

  "OK. Hey, let's ask Dad if we can have the Landrover."

  "OK. Hey, let's see if Kevin and Homer want to come."

  "I reckon we might. It's worth a try"

  "OK. Hey, if we get the Landrover, let's go further. Wouldn't it be great if we could go right up to Tailor's and into Hell."

  "Yeah OK, let's ask."

  Tailor's, Tailor's stich, is a long line, an arete, that goes dead straight from Mt Martin to Wombegonoo. It's rocky, and very narrow and steep in places, but you can walk along it, and there's a bit of cover. The views are fantastic. You can drive almost up on to it at one point, near Mt Martin, on an old logging track that's hard to find now, it's so overgrown. Hell is what's on the other side of Tailor's, a cauldron of boulders and trees and blackberries and feral dogs and wombats and undergrowth. It's a wild place, and I didn't know anyone who'd been there, though I'd stood on edge and looked down at it quite often. For one thing I couldn't see how you'd get in there. The cliffs all around it are spectacular, hundreds of metres high in places. There's a series of small cliffs called Satan's Steps that drop into it, but believe me, if these are steps, Great Wall Of China is our back fence. If there was any access the cliffs had to be the way, and I'd always wanted to give it a go. The locals all told stories about the Hermit from Hell, an ex-murderer who was supposed to have lived up there for years. He was meant to have killed his own wife and child. I wanted to believe in his existence but I found it a bit difficult. My brain kept asking myself awkward question like: "How come he didn't get hung, like they did to murderers in those days?" Still, it was a good story and I hoped it was true; not the murders part but the hermit part at least.

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