Meanwhile, with the help of others heading up to the festival, the 4WD was put upright and Larry and the others were ready to keep going.
I was not.
I refused to get back into the vehicle with them. I wanted to go back to Cairns. They wanted to keep going. And every other vehicle on the track was heading north to the festival.
Eventually they convinced me I had no other choice but to continue with them to Helenvale.
Unsurprisingly, I didn’t trust Larry or his crappy driving skills. So I walked up the hill. And when we got to another hill I got out and walked up that one too.
I did this a few times until at some point the others convinced me to get in the vehicle and stay in it.
But walking that red clay track surrounded by rainforest, jittery from what could have been a much worse accident, embedded the landscape into my mind and body in a visceral way.
Many years later it emerged in the landscape of Dirt Circus League.
Such an interesting read, although I’m not entirely sure you would have been safer walking up a hill with idiot driver still driving. I’m envisioning the car slipping backwards again & rolling over you & crushing your bloody knee! Agree that nature is so powerful.
You’re right, it was a risk. But I never went driving anywhere with Larry again.
Wow! A scary yet ultimately valuable experience.
It was terrifying at the time but it also made me bond with the landscape in a way that has stayed with me my whole life.