Sandstone, October 2020 - part 2
Sandstone caves and breakaway bones
Part 1 is here, if you missed it.
A rooster’s crow is generally considered the morning alarm call for most rural locations. In the Goldfields region in late spring, a much smaller winged beast fills that vocation, and in pack quantities. The sun had barely peeked above the horizon that morning and with it returned the flies. Godzillions of them. I quickly closed the flyscreen on my swag as they all beat themselves against it trying to reach the tasty treats inside. I looked across at Mal. He was awake, staring out from his screened swag at a similar sight. “Morning,” I yelled above the drone of their persistent, frenzied attacks.
Mal was taking a photo of the scene from his position to send his wife, Lisa. “This will freak Lisa out,” he said. “She hates camping at the best of times.”
We soon got up and stretched. I opened the esky and surveyed the damages from the night before. The Bush Chook (beer) stocks had taken a hammering. This pleased me, as it was now apparent that Mal was also an enthusiast of our state bird brew.
“Guess what’s for breakfast, Mal,” I said.
“Hmmm, let me guess . . .chicken?”
“You are indeed correct, sir.”
My plan included packing simple and pre-prepared foods, so that we did not need to cook. Whole chickens, mostly. Boiled eggs also. And a bag of salad which was packed so that my wife thought I’d eat something green. We ate a section of chicken and a couple of boiled eggs each, washed down with an iced coffee. Our bodies then as temples to the poultry alter. Camp was packed up, the embers of the fire doused with water and covered, and we were ready to start our search.
I had explained my plan on the journey north the day before. I told Mal that I had considered the advice I had received from one of the locals when Sally and I had visited years before. He had told me that there is an area of land between Bellchambers, where Ray and Jennie were camped, and the Youanmi gold region to the south, which is considered no man's land because the geological profile of the area is not conducive to prospecting. It would seem appropriate from a psychopath’s perspective that this area would be a logical place to dispose of someone with little to no chance of them being found. So, with that in mind, I had created a map of the area which included outbreaks and caves within short distances from offroad tracks. “He wouldn’t have risked traveling too far,” I had reasoned to Mal. “Just far enough that the location wouldn’t be included in the missing persons search, and not too far offroad that he could have become stuck himself.” Mal had nodded in agreement, and perhaps also considered the possibility that I had spent way too much time thinking about such activities. Which would explain why he packed so many knives for the trip.
The area I had mapped covered roughly one hundred and fifty square kilometres. The main focus being on the Breakaways, the first of which was only ten kilometres south of the camp. A short distance relative to the area, however well outside a standard search and rescue domain, as anyone with knowledge of search and rescue logistics—SES volunteers, mining medics, and the like—would well profess.
We reached the turnoff to the first track early in the morning. The track was rough but easily navigated in the Landie. “You’d get a trailer in here pretty easy, don’t you think?” I asked Mal.
“Yeah, no problem.”
As we drove in, I searched for locations where someone could easily turn a trailer and return to the main road. A few kilometres in and coincidentally at the edge of the Breakaway, there was a vast flat section of sparsely vegetated solid ground. “This looks like a safe spot to park a trailer while you get rid of a body,” I said to Mal with a devilish grin. Mal shook his head and quietly prayed for my forgiveness as I turned the Landie and skidded to a halt. “We’ll start here.”
We got out and prepared our gear. I noted Mal was wearing his workboots, trousers and hi-vis shirt, the same as Ray would have worn for easy spotting should he get lost. Smart man, I thought to myself. We both carried a small backpack with essentials: torches, water, first aid kit, GPS and Personal Locator Beacon (PLB). I also carried a short mattock. Mal also packed a concerning number of knives.
“So, we’ll just walk around every rock formation, caves and crevices in a loop then return to the Landie and move to the next spot,” I said to Mal, waving my mattock in a circular fashion pointed at the Breakaways in front of us. This section was a vast tabletop that extended north to northeast, with caves dotted the entire length along the south and west. Its total formation included at least five kilometres of breakaway. Sandstone cutouts and large granite boulders were abundant. From our parked position looking at the sheer scale of the scene, with the sun now starting to scorch us and the land, and the flies ever-persistent, it seemed that it would take days or months to cover. All we could do was try with whatever time allowed.
We started with the boulders and caves to the west, Mal and I criss-crossing each other as we searched in and around any possible hiding spot. We knelt under ledges, shone our torches into crevices, and checked the ground for signs of disturbance. “There are so many great spots to hide a body here,” I teased. Mal prayed some more.
A while later, we had reached the northern end of the west face. One last sandstone cave had formed below the tabletop of granite. It was wide and deep, so large that darkness filled it. I had climbed up to the opening as Mal continued searching an area lower on the cliff face. I stooped down to peer inside. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw a large skeleton and patches of leathery skin. My heart rate peaked at approximately 223bpm as I fumbled for my torch and shone it toward the sight. It was a kangaroo. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before turning back outside to regain composure.
Mal had completed his search below and had reached the ledge beside me. He was scanning the surrounds, oblivious to my shocked expression. He soon scanned the back of the cave with his torch from our standing position. I caught him gasping as he stopped bolt upright, clutching his chest and nearly careening back off the ledge.
"Oh my god, it’s a kangaroo" he said. "I nearly had a heart attack."
"I know, right?"
"It couldn't have been that easy," he said shaking his head, although I sure wish it had been.
We moved on, continuing our search as the sun rose higher and hotter. The short moments in each cave were a cool respite.
Continue to Part3: Barry Hutler In The Wild
