Raise your hand if you climbed a mountain today.

25 January, 2010

We are a family of champions. Maya in particular was really excited about Mt Warning aka Wollumbin, so after our stay at the clean but strangely unfriendly Murwillambah caravan park last night, we headed for the mountain.

Now this is an Australian mountain, which people in my hometown of Portland would call a hill, but in Australia it is fairly sizable: 1150ish metres. The trek to the top is an 8.8 kilometer round trip with a "challenging final rock scramble" and is estimated to take 4-5 hours. Without little kids it would be a nice afternoon hike, and with little kids you would just assume it wasn't going to happen. We brought some Anzac biscuits and a couple of litres of water and set off, planning on turning around whenever the kids had had enough. With Eli on my back in the Ergo, we set off around noon. There were a few initial, unrealistic complaints: "My legs hurt." "Do you mean they are tired? Because we have only walked like 300 meters." That kind of thing. But soon we got into a rhythm and the kids became more eager to get to the top. Wow. So up we went.

Nate said he wanted to be a mountain climber when he gets older, and we talked about that a lot, and just how tall the tallest mountains are. He thought it was amazing. Maya said she wants to be a jungle girl. When asked what that entails, she explained that she would be saving animals. Awww. We read all of the signs about the climb and talked about why it had changed from subtropical rainforest to warm temperate rainforest, and then higher up to something else (I forget what, but I do remember that there were a lot of massive Gymea Lilies up there). Of course there was plenty of spectacular scenery.

Here's me and Maya (and Eli back there) taking a little break. I'm already feeling it.



The last bit is so steep and rocky that there is a chain to hold onto to help get up. If I had read the sign, I might not have attempted it with Eli on my back, and might have tried to persuade the kids to just be happy with how far we had come. Here's the sign:



It says "Only fit and experienced walkers to proceed beyond this point." That doesn't really describe the average 4 year old, 7 year old, and woman with a two year old on her back. Well I guess we're all experienced walkers since we, you know, walk a lot. I don't think that's what they meant.

Here's the steep bit:



And Eli having a go at the bottom:





Anyway, those kids were spectacular. They did it. They did it because they wanted to and they thoroughly enjoyed the whole way up. The views on all four sides were just amazing. It was a little bit hazy, but we could see the sea and we could see where Byron Bay would have been if it had been clear enough to spot it. Interesting looking back there from here after looking here from back there.

So we climbed a mountain today! I am so incredibly proud of them. I'm proud of myself too, to be honest, for carrying a 13ish kilo kid on my back for almost 9 kilometers, half of which were up a mountain. Go me.

Because we underestimated our kids' endurance, we were under-prepared in the food and drink departments. We finished everything at the summit which left us with nothing for the 4.4 ks down the hill. Silly me, I thought the downhill part would be easy. Well, I knew the rocky chain part would be slow going, especially for Maya as her legs just aren't long enough to reach a lot of the crags. Nate was like a rocket though, so fast and so agile and declaring, "I'm not tired at all! I could walk up and down this part all day! In fact, I want to do it again!" Nick helped Maya down though. Then surely the rest would be simple. Geez, I was so wrong. It was completely exhausting. Nick piggy-backed Maya for awhile to give her little legs a rest as her ankles were bothering her. With a couple of ks to go I finally had Nick carry Eli for awhile so that I could just carry my own weight, much to Eli's protests. Nate started slipping a bit and then getting increasingly emotional about it. We knew they were completely exhausted, so we just tried to be as encouraging as we could and remind them that they had climbed a mountain! That is a huge deal. We talked about how good it would feel to turn that last turn and see the carpark, and to have a big drink, and when the time came it did feel so good.

We didn't have long to travel after our almost 6 hours on the mountain - just a short jaunt to the Mt Warning Caravan Park. We had some well earned dinner, scrubbed the dirt off of ourselves in a nice cool shower, and look forward to spending tomorrow hanging out by the pool and relaxing. Like a holiday.