Can You dig it / Yes, I can

After an hour's walk, Rachael and I took our first rest on top of a rock-strewn hill, sitting near the hill's single tree, a lanky gum. For some reason I'd been talking about the Galapagos. I said that everything must've changed in the thirty years since I'd been in the islands. I'd been on a sailboat with my family, and though we only had permission from the Ecuadorian authorities to stay three days, somehow we managed to sneak around undetected for three weeks. We made first landfall at Stephens Bay on San Cristobal Island. At sunset a small school of dolphins had escorted us in, swimming under the bowsprit for a stretch; we saw seals too and a hammerhead shark. The bare land sloped up from the shore black and volcanic. In the morning we went ashore in the Zodiac, riding in on the waves and landing at one of the few sandy spots. The hot, buggy island had felt strange and primordial. I'd walked along the black shore collecting the pale purple "arms" of shattered sea anemones, which I later made into a series of ugly necklaces and bracelets.

For another hour Rachael and I continued through low, spinifex-covered hills. According to the map, "Spinifex is prolific in Central Australia because it can survive on very low levels of nitrogen and phosphorus." These grasses can be sorted into two types, hard and soft; hard is most prominent on the trail. "It is almost impossible to put your hand into a tussock of hard spinifex." Yes, true.

The path brought us down out of the hills onto the broad flat on either side of the wide Finke River. The Western Arrernte Aboriginal name for the Finke, "Lherepirnte," meaning salty river, is the source of the trail's name. The river is supposedly one of the oldest in the world, part of its bed dating back 400 million years. It's also one of the longest in Australia (a continent with rather modest rivers), starting in the MacDonnells and winding southwards for about 750 kilometers. However, it's worth pointing out that the Finke is only a "river" in the Central Australian sense--meaning it's mostly a long sandbox for big gum trees, dotted with a few small waterholes, the remnants of intermittent flash floods.

The windless day had grown hot, probably up in the eighties. We lunched at a newish, covered shelter, sitting on one of its two large sleeping platforms; between the platforms was a cabinet to store one's food. Fancy.

We crossed the sandy river, passed through a small gum tree woodland like nothing else I'd seen on the trail, and soon came to a side trail that led a half dozen kilometers to Glen Helen. Up until our first morning stop, we had been considering a side trip to Glen Helen, for ice cream bars mainly--a banana paddle pop for Rachael--and also to camp for the night. However, we decided to stay on the trail and wait a couple more days for cold treats.

Our trail plans had changed repeatedly over the last days. When we had started the trip, Rachael had hoped to add a three-day side hike from Ormiston Gorge: out across the Pound, to the foot of and then up Mt. Giles, before returning to the gorge and the Larapinta. But, after much indecision, we had decided to forego this side trip. We would finish a bit earlier, our thinking went, so as to have more time in Alice before I had to fly out to Melbourne.

Beyond the Finke, we turned west then northwest, heading back towards the high ridge of the Heavitree Range. More spinifex, lots of witchetty bush and mulgas too. Walking alone, I turned to song to beguile the hot afternoon hours. I often sang on the trail, though only when alone. My repertoire was limited, and often I could only recall portions of songs, but nonetheless I much enjoyed my solo performances. Bruce of course played an important part in my singing, in particular his "Reason to Believe" and "Thunder Road" (for some reason the only two of his songs I could remember in their entirety). "Reason to Believe," as last year in Spain, was my favorite, and I sang it more than once each day, often experimenting with different styles and cadences and accents.

Besides Bruce, I relied on my elementary school years, a time from which my brain is apparently better able to retain lyrics. In first and second grade with Miss Weakley, I had daily sung a trilogy of patriotic songs, which I reprised while walking: "The Star-Spangled Banner," "My Country 'Tis of Thee," and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Actually I could only remember the first verses of the last two, but I always liked belting out "Glory, glory Hallelujah" and I still do.

Other songs from my later youth in the seventies would arise from memory too: "Joy to the World" by Three Dog Night ("Jeremiah was a bullfrog, Was a good friend of mine...."), "Born to Be Wild" by Steppenwolf ("I like smoke and lightning, Heavy metal thunder, Racin' with the wee-nd, And the feelin' that I'm un-der"), and most of all, for some reason, maybe because it's a good walking song, Chicago's "Saturday in the Park." Ambling along through the spinifex, I'd sing, "Saturday in the park, I think it was the fourth of July"; then, setting the scene: "People dancing, people laughing, A man selling ice cream, Singing Italian songs." Next I'd ask a question: "Can you dig it," and follow up with the answer: "yes, I can." Finally I would become wistful: "And I've been waiting such a long time, For Saturday." After that verse, I could only recall bits, such as "people talking, really smiling" and "slow motion riders," and again, "Can you dig it, Yes, I can." It's funny how really satisfying this song could be.

A couple hours after lunch we reached the foot of the ridge and started a long, steep climb. The two-kilometer ascent was one of the toughest on the whole trail, and it would've wiped me out a week or ten days before. And I was soon breathing hard and moving slowly, but I kept moving upwards with only rare pauses, feeling a sort of giddy pleasure in the challenge. Once on top I stopped for only a moment to take in the long view before heading westwards on the crest, upwards still but on a more gentle gradient; I barely noticed my pack, and I made big fast strides, feeling as if I could fly along.

Soon I reached Hilltop, the high point of the ridge, marked by a large stone cairn. The crest was a backbone of stony ground, with half-burnt mallee bushes scattered about. I collected small pieces of firewood and piled them by the cairn, where previous hikers had built a fire. Other hikers had also cleared a few small tent sites, and I cast about looking for the most comfortable; the one I settled on didn't quite accommodate our tent, so I enlarged it, tossing the stones to the side.

Rachael soon arrived, and then just before sunset Chris and Krystal. They had planned to camp at Glen Helen, but I wasn't surprised when they showed up; for the last week we had, usually without discussion, made many of the same decisions about the trail and campsites. Chris asked me, "Capper, what's the second best tent spot?", a harmless question probably, but I felt maybe I'd been selfish. We all paused in our camp duties to watch the sun set behind Mt. Sonder, which looked markedly closer and was; two more short days on the trail and we'd be at its peak.

After she started the fire, Rachael made freeze-dried vegetarian pasta for dinner, an entree she said was distinctive for its "sickly tomato taste." But I liked it. Chris and Krystal cooked on the fire, heating up water for their own freeze-dried meal--something with lamb--as well as a pan of "deb" (fake mashed potatoes). The wind came up, blowing flames and sparks about.

After we ate, I asked Chris and Krystal if they wanted to hear a Tolstoy story. Chris seemed hesitant, but only a little. I chose "The Empty Drum," which turned out to be the worst story in the book--a nonsensical and repetitious tale about a peasant who marries a sprite turned beautiful woman, and a king who covets the wife and so tries to get rid of the peasant by setting him a series of dangerous, difficult tasks, that the peasant successfully completes with the help of his magic wife. It's a story best enjoyed as a single sentence, such as the previous one.

Rachael made hot chocolate, and Krystal brought out a bag of marshmallows, a treat from their last food drop. We used sticks to cook them over the fire, and I made a few even though I don't like marshmallows. Chris claimed he made the perfect marshmallow, but even his wife was skeptical--until she tried one of his creations. He managed, she said, to produce a marshmallow with a firm, chewy skin but a completely melted interior. He made one for Rachael and she too was won over. Only I declined, mostly because I was feeling sick from too many marshmallows. But he clearly really wanted me to have this wonderful experience--Chris enjoyed his prowess most when he could share it with others--and eventually I gave in. Indeed, it was perfect, at least if you like that sort of thing.

Krystal soon said she was exhausted--in Chris's words, "she's lost the plot"-- and we were all off to our tents by nine. I lay on my back and watched shooting stars fall across the windy night sky.