Winter is my favourite season in Australia. Despite a lot of moaning by some of the local inhabitants, the season is not unduly cold nor the days terribly short. The air is frequently crisp and clear, without the haze of smoky, dusty summers, and temperatures are great for all kinds of outdoor activities.
For a month or so, I had been mulling over how to observe the solstice. I am not a season, anniversary or even special occasion marker, preferring to opt out of our S&M (surveillance and marketing) culture entirely, but Doug and I had been solo a lot, climbing and bushwalking and, even a couple of confirmed introverts occasionally enjoy some company.
A sunset paddle out to the Tollgate Islands followed by dinner and photos seemed like a good idea. The last time we paddled out to the Tollgate Islands at sunset was 11 July, 2018 (how good is it to have a trip database?) and we were accompanied by just a couple of friends.
Nine paddlers launched from our home beach and in two groups made our way out to the Tollgate Islands. The rain earlier in the day had cleared and it was a lovely afternoon on the water. We regrouped on the western/sheltered side of the Tollgate Islands and then split into two groups again with one group paddling slowly back to the beach whilst enjoying the sunset over the bay and the other group lapping around the northern most Tollgate Island and returning via “the gap.”
After a big dinner, we had a communal photo/video show. I unashamedly stole this idea from my late friend Richard Collier. Rick was one of those infrequently encountered true individualists and adventurers. At the age of 71, he was leading a party of younger climbers on Mount Geikie in British Columbia, the only one of the party to have the head-space and cojones to lead the crux pitch up loose rock on this remote alpine climb. The mountain gave way, and Rick was suddenly gone.
Back in the days when we lived in Calgary, Rick’s home town, every November, Rick would organise a big slide show at his modest bungalow in the south of the city. Sensibly, his wife would disappear for the evening which usually started around 6.00 pm and had been known to go until 3.00 am not due to wild drinking and partying but instead the result of a whole cadre of grizzled mountaineers who had brought slides (this was well before the days of digital photography) of their mountain trips over the previous year. Each photo would be accompanied by descriptions of long, convoluted approaches and climbing routes. There were avalanches and rock falls, hair raising exposed traverses, loose and shitty rock (this was the Rockies after all), long mountain days and nights, planned and unplanned bivouacs.
Many of the big names in the local mountaineering scene were there and, as a new mountaineer, the company, mostly male, could be intimidating. This was, however, well before the era of ego aggrandisement in which we now live, and it was considered highly suspect to talk up any climb or ski mountaineering trip that you had accomplished. Understatement ruled. Anyone who pretended that 20 or even 40 kilometres on a trail was a long approach or that the climb required anything more than the odd piece of gear every rope length was not really considered a hard man (or woman). Modern society could do with a little less hubris, a bit more humility and a lot less spray.
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