This song was written many years ago at a family camping holiday in Station Creek, between Grafton and Coffs Harbour. We went there nearly every year and used to enjoy writing nonsense songs to sing around the camp fire.
For my overseas friends, this song makes an allusion to a very famous story in Australian popular culture.
I performed it occasionally, usually with my kids and their friends forming a backing band.
Finally in early 2014 amidst the confusion of packing up my house and selling the business, I decided on a whim that it was time to record. After a lot of fiddling with the arrangement, I was ready to record with my dear friend Brett Hamlyn from Deva studios. Luckily I was able to call in the services of Jason Bannister on drums, Mark David on bass, Odette Nettleton and Jessica McElroy on back up vocals and Stirling Bowen on Hammond Organ.
It was such fun to put this together please enjoy. You can listen for free on YouTube or buy the song from CDBaby, itunes and the usual digital retail outlets. If you like it please share it on social media!
Here is the YouTube link
Kalak Patar is a relatively minor peak (5550m) which rises steeply above the tiny trekker’s village of Gorak Shep, a few kilometres short of Everest Base camp. From here, one can witness some of the best views in the Himalaya. I climbed up there twice, one afternoon and early one morning so fantastic is it.
Mt Everest, a blue triangle looming large behind the other peaks
The great Khumbu Glacier carving its way through the valley. The tall pointy peak on the skyline is Ama Dablam
The way up
Everest Base Camp is easily the most popular trek in Nepal though the goal itself is often a disappointment to people. In fact the camp as such only exists during the short climbing seasons in spring and Autumn so most of the time there is just an empty glacier where the tents would be. Even in climbing season, visiting trekkers are most unwelcome in the climbing camp as they often bring in unwanted infections so a modest cairn of rocks on which people add their own autographed stone is the only real landmark. Mt Everest is also not to be seen from base camp itself as it is hidden by the nearby Nuptse and the steep ridges heading up toward the mountain.
Having said all this, I found it to be a remarkable place. I love glaciers for their wild unpredictable ever changing beauty and to be walking around on top of it in such incredible landscape was a wonderful experience.
Khumbu glacier en route to Base Camp
The only glimpse of Everest summit from near Base Camp
A few hundred meters from my temporary home here in Kathmandu rises a steep hill with an ancient collection of both Buddhist and Hindu shrines. Monkeys are protected here and the place is teaming with them.
Eyes wide open, body inert, I lie prostrate and paralysed – gripped in the grey zone between wakefulness and slumber which hijacks your body sometimes when sleeping at such lofty altitude. The spartan timber chamber in the “Yeti Lodge” beneath the shadow of the mighty Massif Everest shimmers with a ghostly pre-dawn glow. I slip silently from the confines of my puffy down sleeping bag, craning and straining to peer through the frosty frozen pane above my rickety timber bed. Looming sheer – towering kilometres into the thin lavender atmosphere stands the breathtaking granite pyramid of Ama Dablam, completely encrusted in shining ivory crystal ice. The tip of her summit glows vibrant vermillion charged with the first sparkling beams of far away sunshine which will not reach the valley floor for many hours to come.
Without shedding my toasty bed time thermals, I slide on my warmest coat and cotton trousers, grab my camera and sneak thief-like through the rabbit warren of thin plywood passageways (ensuring not to disturb the dozing of my weary fellow trekkers) drawn by the allure of the clear morning skies and the promise of a magnificent view to enjoy.
I clamber breathlessly up a small rocky rise behind the squat hand hewn stone building of the hotel, every movement an effort of almost heroic proportions in the thin rarefied air here thousands of metres above the level of the sea. The point of this spur affords stunning vista – above, below and in every direction around. I stand spellbound staring at the soaring snowy, stark rocky tors shooting towards the early morning sky in every direction. Peaks and glaciers above and the lush sinking winding snaking verdant valleys meandering miles below. Some of the mountains are black and craggy like humongous barnacles with fluffy beanies of icy white, others sport terrifying plunging walls, banded and marbled with countless colours, unyielding barriers of sheer inpenetrable ancient stone.
I gaze eastwards towards a stark stony ridge of rock and snow several hundred metres above. I visualise what new and marvelous ranges I might be able to view from way up there and I move magnetically towards it’s boulder strewn arch ridged back.
Puffing like a steam train, I plod steadily up the winding switching grinding pebbly mountain track and before long I am so warm despite the crispy dawn that I shed my thick downy jacket and bunch it under my arm. Hiking in pajamas!
Blood pumps through my brain like a bellows as I finally trudge beneath the gaily coloured fluttering prayer flags which festoon the gap between these mighty valleys. I stand there shocked to see before me dozens of stone memorials, like the chortens and stupas of this region – some as simple as a cairn, others constructed with great care and craftsmanship. Some painted and decorated, others as bleak as the slate from which they are made. Some display polished marble tablets displaying names and dates and times and loving messages from afar. Each and every one which stands lonely on this desolate windswept hillside, gazing up towards the world’s highest peak is a tragic reminder of a life or lives or even teams of lives lost to the savage beauty of this wild and unforgiving realm. Silent sentinals to courage, fear and folly – a glacial graveyard with views to die for.
As I move upwards to read yet another stark merciless plaque – name, dearly loved, born and then lost (usually way too young) on the harsh mountain face – I realise that all the snow beneath my feet is still frozen solid enough to support my weight but sufficiently yielding to kick in the toes of my boots forming little ledges and giving me grip on the sloping ice leading away above me, allowing me to ascend easily to the very top of the ridge.
With renewed vigour, I make a beeline for the summit – punching and crunching my old leather work boots into the steep flanks of the slope until finally, gasping and enthralled, I clear the edge of the ridge. I totter on the knife edge of the highest ground around, dwarfed by peak after jagged snowy peak – each thrusting itself away above the next in an age old race to pierce the atmosphere of our world and rise up to where there are only gods and stars.
Sheer mind altering mountain magnificence.
As my heart throbs and my ears sing, I am struck by the first welcome warming rays of pure brilliant sunshine beaming in from where she rises above a vast hulking monolith of ice and stone far off to the east. Crazed with joy and head swimming from a dazing deficit of oxygen, I peel off my remaining clothes and turn myself slowly, rotisserie like – five kilometres high – soaking in that distant star’s amazing radiation. My goose-bumped skin sears with sensation, the tang of sharp morning rays almost unencumbered by atmosphere on one side and prickled all over my naked form like a hedgehog massage by the icy biting waft of freezing alpine breeze.
Charged, vitalised and energised to the max, I need to get off the hill before the snow can soften and I am caught wallowing in the drifts. I clamber, climb, slip and slide my way back down the frozen slopes, past the pass and all along the rocky path clad now only in my cotton pants and boots with a great bundle of garments in my arm returning to the little refuge far below.
Bare chested and exhilarated, I burst into the as yet sub zero timber dining room of the tiny trekking lodge to the utter astonishment of my fellow trekkers who are rugged up and cosy savouring their morning meal.
Minutes later, well wrapped up again, I order a steaming mug of chai and devour a hot hearty breakfast.
I feel very much alive!!!!
Three wonderful weeks winding through the ways and valleys of Khumbu, Northern Nepal. From lush low-lying lichen lined forests resplendent with rhododendron and magnolia to towering pyramids of sheer ice encrusted granite slicing higher and higher into the clear shimmering lapis lazuli sky.
Great grinding crashing cracking clunking snapping cascades of frozen wonder plunge like pearls around a woman’s neck from the shoulders of the great peaks, gathering in glaciers which bulldoze their way through mighty hills like a child can push their hand through sand.
Lakes line the valley floors, one tan, one emerald the next such stunning glistening shining topaz that you take off your sunnies to confirm the colour only to find it is yet brighter still.
Wonderful people I have met along the way. Mountain folk – tough as all blazes, men who will carry a full size fridge on their back for days up a winding mountain path – but the moment they lay down their load will flash a smile of such genuine heartfelt open kindness that you really wonder what they must be on.
Such a pleasure it is to spend some time in a land where walking is – and always has been – the only viable way to move. Distances are days not k’s and the sound and smell of motors is a far off distant none too favorite memory.
Time seems to drift through the valleys and passes in it’s own special way out there, hours merging into days – days into weeks. I hope that time will draw me back up there some day soon.
Here, from the comfortable brightly appointed guest house of the Chokyi Gyatso Monastery I overlook the steep verdant valley of Dewathang nestled among the towering tors and ridges which are crammed between the Indian plains and the mighty Himalaya. Bhutan seems like the most civilised place on earth. The people treat each other and themselves with a rare dignity, patience and humour, while the children giggle and flash curious eye twinkling glances at me as I explore the local village. Thick dripping jungle all around is teaming with wildlife including elephant, monkey, bear, tiger and several species of leopard, the other westerner here has spotted 130 species of bird in six months. Monsoon time is upon us and the entire surrounds are a swirling constantly changing theatre of atmospheric attitude. Above, below and all around stream fog, mist, cloud and thick thunderous cumulous which burst like a floodgate without a moment’s notice. The internet likewise wafts in and out through the ether as though the outside world were trying in vain to push it’s way in, only to be gently reminded that she is not really needed all that much. I think the outside world might have a lot to unlearn.
Rugged grainy blocks of sheer stony defiance rise out of the olive green mass of the forest below like the yellowing stubs of teeth worn down by millennia of grinding.
Flat top plateaus stretch to the horizon in every direction like atolls becalmed in a murky olive ocean
Sliced in two by the ribbon of the road, the peaks and deep mysterious cool dank canyons lie unmoved by our feeble foray into their fortress.
Thin capillaries of modern daily human existence wind into the wilderness, lined now with the garish autumn rush of European trees and gardens.
The bush beyond celebrates the changes of season with an ancient subtlety noticed only by the few who care to indulge their senses in the sights and smells of a land ancient beyond comprehension.
Our modern life stalks the tightrope of time knowing that our own existence and disappearance from that realm will be but a blip.
Barely noticed
Barely seen
And ever so fast forgotten.
Bright cheerful morning sunlight streams through the narrow windows of the tiny loft bedroom, collecting flashes of vibrant colour from an array of carefully placed crystals and bottles projecting them kaleidoscopic across the walls. My fist night away and I have been early treated to the warm hospitality of my dear friends in the chilly climes of of the New England Plateau 600km north of Sydney. These are the only people I know who have a well in their house! Henry bought the dilapidated, fire damaged industrial complex 12 years ago and has been steadily converting this 100 year old factory (which produced butter, ice, cordial, bacon amongst much else) into a gorgeous home and studio perfect for pursuing his love of music and art. Time to slip down from my little room, large enough only to fit the warm comfortable bed and nothing else. Fiona’s delicious breakfasts are legendary and I am hungry like the wolf.
