Many years ago – 400 million to be precise – much of what is now Far North Queensland was below sea level. Places such as Chillagoe, now about 200km inland, were surrounded with coral reef. I imagine that animals such as fish, whales, turtles and nautilus floated above the mango paddock where I worked, throughout down town Mareeba and most certainly Mossman. To stop them bumping into rocks, the prehistoric creatures were in desperate need of a navigational aid. This prompted them to build a lighthouse.
Today, the remnants of this mythical navigational structure sit on top of the aptly named Lighthouse Mountain between Mt Molloy and Mt Carbine. The mountain has been scaled by many people in the past, including one young girl who would eventually give birth to a child who would father somebody who on Valentine’s day 2009 (last Saturday of the summer vacation) would see the mountain as an opportunity for adventuretainment with a couple of mates.
Being the middle of the wet season, it is difficult to plan more than a few days in advance. Lighthouse Mountain presented a somewhat more rain-proof expedition than other trails in the area. Plans materialised from meta-plans at the last minute, which is really the best way to do things anyway.
I must admit experiencing a bout of insomnia the night before. Surely the effects of an iced coffee don’t last for five hours, right? Even so, never again will I drink a coffee after five in the afternoon. Perhaps it was a sense of excitement at finally making it outdoors (after weeks of rain) that kept me up. The Insomnia Support Chatline provided some assistance, for which I thank her, but I think I may have rudely interrupted her in the middle of trying to get some honest work done in a different time zone.
People often complain about how the English language lacks a sense of elegance and style. I suspect this reputation comes from English’s ability to adulterate innocent, harmless foreign words into monstrocities like ‘rendezvousing’. Perhaps the blame also lies in how easily English allows misinformed bloggers such as myself to use such vile creations in sentences like: “However, I woke up the next morning with ample time to prepare before rendezvousing with Cowan, Matt and Alex”.
The first venture out into unfamiliar territory often fails to an efficient route. Such was the case today: we spent the better part of the first two hours following Luster Creek and making it to the base of the mountain. Here’s the route we took. Along the way we found a flask of stale tea and a massive stick insect. The bright green stick insect must have been close to 30cm long, but it seems that Cowan lost the photos he took of it.
View from the lighthouse (click for full sized image). I do admit that it's a bit dark. It's really easy to stitch panoramas together with the Gimp and Pandora plugin.
After a couple of breaks along the way, we eventually made it to the lighthouse just after lunch. While the view from the top of the rock would have been amazing (and Cowan reports that people have climbed it, only to get stuck up there), we were disappointed to discover that this lighthouse lacked a staircase. Not surprising, really, when you consider the fact that the lighthouse predates the advent of the staircase by 399 million years. Did you know that the word for ‘stairs’ is the same in Japanese as it is in Korean?
We made it back along a power supply route which joined on to the main road – in hindsight this would have been a quicker way to get straight to the lighthouse, but who’s worried about speed on a Saturday morning anyway? I’d estimate our total mileage for the day would have been about 16km, more than half spent travelling cross-country (ie, without a trail). We made a brief stop at Churchill creek on the way back – unusually cool and clear today after the recent rains.
It’s unfortunate that most of our peers in the area spend a great deal of time drinking. Alcohol, whose many applications include enabling the socialisation of people who are uncomfortable with themselves (or just plain awkward), is not a prerequisite for having a blast. Sure, parties are great for catching up with mates and all, but it’s important to know that you can have a good time while staying sober as a noodle. I find that the satisfaction from a good day spent outdoors is usually longer lasting to boot.
For those who are interested in planning future expeditions, topographic maps can be bought in Cairns from Absell’s Map Shop or Cairns Navigation Centre. Google Earth (or Maps) is also a useful resource, providing recent satellite imagery.
2 Comments
hi mitchell just was looking at the photos and was wondering if you wrote everything on the website cause if u did then wow.
Dear Alex, this website is a blog. The word ‘blog’ is actually an acronym which stands for Bananas, LOrikeets and Gorillas – the traditional components of a blog, however recent technological advances have made it possible to use other animals instead. In my case, I have a large industrial warehouse full of monkeys and computer terminals. I introduce bananas into the warehouse with a forklift, which causes the monkeys press keys in a random fashion. The data created by the monkeys is than sent via an avian internet connection to a bird sanctuary in Bolivia, where I employ a flock of highly trained, once-orphaned flamingos to pull out all intelligible strings of text. Anything that makes sense is then appended to a compilation known as “Cosmospostman Volume 2″ and published as an opiate for the masses. Coincidently, the prose that comes out of this process has never failed to be a partial description of my life. Also strange to note is that the monkeys have yet to produce a line from the works of Shakespeare. You should start a blog. Let me know when you do!