It was our first day on the trail. We were finally out there after interminable delays including a tooth that took four months to repair. The dentist got sick twice and then the dental mechanic had to have her holidays didn’t she? Hope you had a lovely time, sweetheart. Anyway there we were and just about to take a shortcut through Hutton’s Road, a bush track, that was on the map but took me two trips in the ute to find. (Maybe I will buy that GPS after all.)

It was Pico’s first experience of trekking. In fact it was his first experience of anything except being called a darling and stuffed with bread and lollies. Like Sancho he’d started life as a pet.

‘Well no more free lunches from now on, boy, you’re here to work!’

Unfortunately that doesn’t translate easily into donkeyspeak. Perhaps it was that or plain lack of experience but as we approached the track Pico went over and down. He just lay there on his side. I’d never seen a donkey die so I watched him very carefully.

‘Hmmm’, I thought, ‘they do it with their eyes open. That’s interesting.’

Just after I pulled out my mobile and was about to ring the knackers, Pico made a hasty recovery springing to his hooves with alacrity, packs and all. Amazing what these mobile phones can do!

So off we went, all four of us. Sancho and Platero brightly arrayed fore and aft with their dayglo strap covers and Pico with his cut down Indian version of an Aussie stock saddle. Now I know why there aren’t any Jackaroos on the subcontinent. They’d forever be suffering from pinched backsides!

It was still the first day. They tend to last longer than the others for some reason. Regardless we were almost in sight of our first camping spot when Peter popped out.

(No, not that kind of Peter!!)

‘Oh no, not another donkey lover!’

Oh yes he was and a sculptor as well. Both of these deficiencies evaporated when I realised he was a) not going to try to feed the donks and b) had invited me in for a cup of tea! Peter has never sculpted a donkey, sadly, but has made things like a seven foot long polished redgum hammer, a car door with a head on it that you hang on the wall for some reason, and a flat, yellow painted steel kangaroo. Perhaps I’m not very artistic but I’ll stick with the armless Venus de Barbie my daughter gave me when she was four. Now that’s something this poor philistine can understand.

So on we went ending our first day at a prearranged camping spot complete with swimmable dam. Walking all day and then having a long swim. Something you only do once.

The next day we paraded through Kyneton to have our pictures taken and be interviewed by the local press. Then on to some donkey owning friends, Pam and Peter. Interestingly their property may once have been an army training camp as can be plainly inferred from the complex system of electrified fences criss crossing the property. They must have been used for combat simulations. Unfortunately I didn’t have my trusty Enfield 303 with me so I couldn’t use it for protection as I threw myself onto the wires. Must try that one day. (Can’t mention Peter. There’s already been one in the story and it would be confusing.)

So after a merry interlude on we went again, through the Cobaw State Forest (= Trail Bike Proving Grounds), Baynton, Nulla Vale and lots of other places that no one knows about unless they live there. Like my home spot: Bullarto.

‘Where’s that, mate?’

‘Near Trentham...’

‘Uhhh where’s that?’

‘Near Daylesford...’

Another uhhh.

‘Ballarat...Bendigo?’

‘Gotcha, now.’

Sure but you ain’t got much! I’ll skip the bit about ‘they’ not teaching geography anymore. You really don’t need to know the name of anything as long as you UNDERSTAND that there are places that are not the place where you are. These can be referred to as ‘somewhere or other’. End of lesson.

‘Gosh,’ I said to myself, ‘hope it isn’t some paramilitary group doing secret training!’

Crashing down into the midst of them and not knowing what to expect we discover the helmets disguise a bevy of young girls, members of a St Catherine’s school excursion. The donks dive into the midst of them looking for handouts. By the time I explain what we’re doing and get the donkeys and myself back in control the teacher looks ready to have a fit. I can see we aren’t part of his sacred lesson plan so we take the hint and scurry off toward Narbethong.

John welcomes us that evening and drives me up to his joint for a cuppa. He’s the local National Trail coordinator and a keen trail rider. So keen in fact that the inside of his home is a replica of a high country cattlemen’s hut. We sit around the fire on sawn off logs and drink a hearty brew of billy tea out of pannikins. Hanging on the wall I note a holster and a bandolier full of cartridges. I’m glad I have very little resemblance to Ned Kelly!

The next morning John greets us again and shows us the way on. He suggests we forget the National Trail and just walk up the Jamieson Road. In retrospect maybe that was a good idea.

Our next stop after a short walk - we’d done 34 Km the day before - is the BNT yards just out of Marysville. While I’m making camp small groups of people appear and head for the far corner of the yards. I soon discover what it’s all about. They are rogaineers and doing some kind of adult’s hide and find. Later on the chief rogaineer arrives and tells me that there will be groups coming and going every eight minutes up until 12 PM! I don’t answer and just stand there with a look of incredulity on my face as if to say, ‘You’ve got to be joking.’ He was and the rogaineers give up at 8 PM - they must have run out of torch batteries - and I get a good night’s sleep.

I have a rest in Marysville - that Achilles tendon - and head to the local shop for supplies. And head right out again! The prices are double and triple anywhere else in the country! Fortunately there’s a bus back to civilisation and I ride down to Healesville to do my shopping the next day. Getting back on the bus with half my groceries in my backpack I overbalance and fall backwards onto the pavement. Total loss: two eggs.

While camped at Marysville we meet several local horse and donkey people. One of them tells me a version of that old one about the SEC linesmen who put a gum leaf in their tea and were found the next day sitting stiffly around their campfire and very dead. In this version a naive school teacher plans to give his pupils some of that same tea in order to experience the real Australia. Nice try Steve. Rosemary from the pony club is more genuine and invites us to use the pony club hut as well as taking our picture. Nice lady.

We soon set out again and follow the trail toward Keppel’s Hut. And we get lost. Somehow we walk down a side track. It’s only a few extra hours walk and very picturesque and we manage to get back to the trail. But it’s too late in the day to make Keppel’s so we camp in a thin strip of land between the road and a precipitous drop into the Taggerty River. Fortunately despite it being Easter very long Weekend, no one drives through and there’s a thick sward of grass for the donkeys.

And on we went. Keppel’s Hut is almost overgrown and there is a pair of rocks guarding the entrance that I know my donks will feel is too narrow to pass through - I call it the Eye of the Needle - and we press on. The trail eventually becomes a timber cutter’s version of a superhighway with huge piles of blasted rocks and recently devastated coupes on either side. Added to this are numerous signs saying this is a prohibited area and reminding us to wear our hard hats. Somehow we’ve slipped into someplace we’re not supposed to be. But it’s Easter very long Weekend and we carry on.

Our next drama is Hugh’s Track. After a long slog through the hills and through active logging coupes with threatening no admittance signs we arrive. Hugh must have been on holidays as the sign says the track is closed. But there’s no other way to go so it’s forward march. After hours of fighting our way through brambles and sloshing through bogs we come to the inevitable log over the trail. And no you can’t go down around it unless you don’t want to come back up again. And no you can’t go up around it unless - you get the idea - so we go UNDER it. Who said this was a horse trail? Shetland ponies, maybe. Four wheel drive vehicles NEVER.

After more sloggin through the high country we arrive at a camping area that the BNT Trail Guide says isn’t there. Fortunately it is but we have company. It’s an older couple with an antique Landrover straight out of an Attenborough documentary.

‘We didn’t expect to see donkeys here!’ says the woman.

‘What did you expect’, I say to myself, ‘a pride of lions?’

They are clearly a long time married: she does all the talking. She wears a pair of binoculars and a bird club pin as part of her unisex uniform and despite my obvious desire to rest and set up camp gives me a lecture on equine biology.

‘...The wild ass of Asia is called an Onager...’

‘And what do they call you?’, comes to mind, but I never was much good at being rude.

Anyway they, with the emphasis on she, eventually leave. And without so much as offering me a cup of tea. Some people!

And on we went. After a camp on Taponga River and gifts of bread and fruit as well as a hot cooked meal we begin the ascent of the aptly named Mt Terrible. It’s still Easter very long Weekend and the seemingly vertical track has been nicely loosened up by endless convoys of 4X4 tourists escorted by trail bikies. But we know we can do it. Well, let’s say the donkeys can do it. I sort of hang onto them and eventually we get to the top. Were all dripping with sweat but we’re there. The man way up in the fire tower shouts something to me but I haven’t the energy to shout back.

We’re at 1350 metres so I take everything into the old fire spotter’s hut, unpack my thermal undies, tuck the sleeping bag inside the swag and light a fire. The sun sets on three peacefully grazing donkeys and I snuggle up for a cosy night’s rest.

Then they arrive. I don’t go outside but from the bits of shout and speak I realise it’s a party of amateur astronomers up to see the alignment of the planets. I can’t resist having a peak too. We’ll what do you know they are nicely lined up. Good on ’em, they finally did it. I consult my astrological tables and breathe a sigh of relief: it’s not the Age of Aquarius. Thank Heaven! I couldn’t bear going through the Sixties all over again. Rock musicals, drug affected gurus, violent peace marches and horror of horrors, the mickey mouse music of the Beetle’s!

At long last the stargazers leave. It’s quiet but there’s something wrong. I’m sweating even more than I did on the climb up. Off goes the swag, off goes the sleeping bag, off go the thermals and I finally get up and douse the fire. The next day the firetower man tells me there was a temperature inversion! Just my luck. Or was it that alignment of the planets?

Getting down is just as hard as climbing up but Sancho finally gets the idea ‘better slow than sorry’. Unfortunately he never forgets this and on every descent thereafter, steep or no, slows down to a crawl.

Anyway after giving a few donkey rides at a local camping ground we arrive at the Kevington Pub. What’s this? There’s a woman camped nearby and she’s on her own. Ah, after all that bush camping and roughing it to hear the gentle sounds of a woman’s voice. Who knows she might like donkeys and, and... And nothing. She has an old Toyota 4X4 with two signs, BITCH and BEAST fixed to the roof on either side. She appears from nowhere with a fishing rod in her hand and gives a very average greeting. That’s sad enough but later on while I’m having a nicely microwaved meal at the bar she comes in for a beer. What follows is a full hour of shock horror hearsay and bigotry that would embarrass dear old Pauline. After expostulating about eating witchetty grubs with ‘the real boongs’ she finally departs. And after a day of resting so do we. The way to the next section of the BNT is being resurfaced and the road lies somewhere under clouds of dust and the roar of heavy machinery. I decide to head home.

To be continued.

 Home Again, Home Again

So there I was trekking up the road to Jamieson. Going home and sad in a way that I couldn’t carry on further into the high country but I consoled myself with General MacArthur’s famous dictum: I shall return!

Yes, up the road to Jamieson and past the camp ground with all those donkey ridin’, donkey lovin’ kids. And their parents. As soon as they spot us I’m invited in for a cup of tea – I never turn down a cup of tea! – and a chat. The kids, of course, want more donkey rides but Jim’s keen to carry on. Two days of rest is enough to give any donkey trekker very itchy feet (and a few other itches as well!). So after a short break off we go again. But we’re followed! Our new friends catch up with us at Jamieson and I manage to squeeze two wide eyed and happy youngsters in between the packs. They get their ride after all!

They’re also a lot of help: the whole family entertains the three donks as Jim goes to the shop for some bread and sticky buns. And there’s another lesson about donkeys for Jim. As I’m opening one of Pico’s packs to put away my groceries, he swings his head around and takes a neat little bite of plastic wrapper and bread! Fortunately there’s little damage and I forgive him. He can’t help it if he wasn’t brought up properly.

Back on the road and I run into one of those annoying people who want to stay in the car while they drive along and make smart remarks at me through the window. This one’s a yank worshipping hang glider who saw us from up on high. His banter distracts us and we wind up having to backtrack off a high embankment to get back onto the road. Hmmm, maybe I’ll should have taken the old duck gun along with me.

Soon we’re up in the hills overlooking Lake Eildon and a nice couple stop to take our photo. Several more cars arrive – we’re stopped at a CRB lookout – but the newies stare at us like we’ve just dropped down from Mars. They don’t look like they want ‘to take me to their leader’ so off we go again.

This turns out to be a very long day. There’s no BNT guide book to tell us where the next camping area is and there isn’t. At least not until the day is almost gone. It’s coming on dark when we settle into a tiny cleft in the hillside which is just big enough for my tent and three by now voracious donkeys. We’re just off the road but there’s no traffic up this way after dark and we have a nice quiet evening.

The next day takes us to Running Creek which actually is running and full of sweet water to fill our plastic bottles. (Real trekkers don’t use canteens.) We also have our first campfire for days as there’s a clearable area. But try sweeping up a 6 metre circle without a broom or rake sometime. (Don’t worry Jim is developing a patentable self propelled foldaway rake for just such occasions!).

And on we went. Coming down out of the hills near Eildon we’re greeted by the roar of motorcycle engines. Just our luck. There’s a once a year trail bike festival and we’ve walked straight into it. A posse of teenage piston heads comes roaring up the road straight at us. And they have the cheek to wave! Now why couldn’t their parents have given them something nice to ride. Like donkeys for instance! They disappear in to the National Park – into the National Park?! – and we carry on past their proving ground wondering how we’ll find a place to camp away from all that noise. But – blessed be the patron saint of all trekkers – we find a beautiful pozzy alongside Snob’s Creek and our ears are filled with the music of the babbling brook.

The next day on our way into Alexandra we’re welcomed by a local family and all four of us are given snacks and drinks. The donkeys get water and carrots and I get raspberry cordial and bananas. Everybody loves donkeys it seems.

Alexandra has a small caravan park and I decide to stay there for a couple of nights to clean up, wash my clothes and do some shopping. At the op shop I scoop a copy of Tom Robert’s ‘Horse Control’ which I’ll swap for a donkey book one day.

Unfortunately, I don’t realise the donkey studding Pratt family live just over the hill from where I’m staying. We meet on the road as I’m heading off to the Strathbogies. Perhaps next time.

Almost to Yarck I run into a chap who synchronicitously appears. He wants to start a donkey trekking business based in Benalla and who does he run into? I give him my ‘Why Donkeys’ handout and the address of John donkey trekkin Hopwood. Who says there aren’t angels, guides and earth spirits?!

Then up into the Strathbogies. My map which cost me heaps doesn’t show a confusing fork in the road halfway up the ranges but my good fairy swings back into action and a local lemon grower pops up just in time to show the way. As well, he asks me if I have enough food and water. Isn’t that just wonderful!

This is the steeeep side of the ‘Bogies (a bogy is a type of spirit by the way) but we’ve been up Mt Terrible and this is foal’s play. Near the top we find an old tram which was dropped there back in the seventies by some alternatives who also dropped the lifestyle. It’s half rotted into the bush but it gives a romantic touch to the spot and we camp there. There are only skerricks of grass but a kindly road grader driver stops by to chat and the next morning drops off some fruit. Isn’t it a nice world?

The Strathbogies are beautiful. We cross them in two days and on our last night we camp overlooking Longwood. There’s a beautiful view and as well we soon have company. It’s another donkey lover and he buys me a bottle of my trekkin tonic, 5% lemon juice lemonade, then takes me up to his place to have a shower. (He must have been downwind when I passed his place earlier.) He and the Ms have two donkeys and we trade secrets. I’m given a ride back (without the plastic on the seat) and some supposedly organic vegetables. The tomatoes and the squash are nice but the beans must be genetically engineered. Even the donkeys won’t eat them.

On into Longwood where I have a pot of tea in a sidewalk café while the donkeys clean up the grass in front of the CFA building. A young bloke comes over to ask what I’m doing then tells me what a great idea it is! Ah fame. Not far down the road we run into one of the Martin girls and spend the next half hour deep in donkey talk. Which brings me to Jim’s Law: If you travel through an area that has donkey owners in it you will invariably meet them. Of course you will meet a lot of other people too but that’s just a bonus!

And on we go. Our next big stop is Nagambie where the caravan park overseer can’t believe his luck. He soon has the donkeys pegged out in front of his partially constructed house to eat the grass and charges me all of $3 to stay there and do all the usuals. He’s into garlic, however, eating fresh cloves constantly, an idea he picked up from a Lelord Cordell book. Well you know what they say, sometimes the cure is more catching than the disease! But he’s a great help: lets me have my pick of fresh figs off his tree and his wife gives me a packet of muesli snacks.

By this time you’ll be wondering why I don’t just spend the rest of my life on the road. I would but my legs have their limits and much as I enjoy it, a tent is not a home. But a big tent. Hmmm maybe with a big tent…

Heathcote is soon on the horizon but not after Greytown and Costerfield. Look don’t get me wrong they are great places but when you are walking and there are lots of kangaroos in the area and there are also lots of drivers going through skittling those kangaroos and nobody comes out to bury them...get the idea. Aside from that we were interviewed by a charming reporter from the Heathcote papers, got invited in for a ‘cuppa to a place we couldn’t find and a bloke stopped off to give me two tinnies of beer out of the goodness of his heart!

At Heathcote we stopped in to visit the Dempsters who we met on our first ever walk back in 1999. Bob drove a team of horses in Melbourne back before the second war and Lorna was an accomplished competition rider. They can remember back before the days of indemnity insurance when you could have an elephant ride at the Royal Melbourne Zoo. Bob still has horses and has two carts he drives around the town. While I was there they showed me a clipping from the Broadford papers about…me! Seems my movements were monitored by the press unbeknownst.

So on again, past the curious, the bewildered and the helpful. Mia Mia, Redesdale, Metcalfe and finally Malmsbury where I ran into a familiar face, Andrea, who just happened to be on the road. She couldn’t believe how far I’d come but then she doesn’t know the secret: donkeys! They set a pace and just keep going. What else can I do but keep going myself. But I must admit to feeling tired sometimes and when I got to Drummond, one day’s walk from home, I let my knees sink to the ground. It had been a great six weeks but, ‘Ah, home at last,’ was never so truly uttered.