In 1987, the Scottish war correspondent who has covered more battles than anyone, Jim Pringle, came to visit me in Brisbane with his wife, Milly.
Pringle and I had been in the Vietnam War together for 13 months – sharing an office, sharing a car, even sharing a bedroom, and, of course, sharing the danger.
We had lost the same friends dead; lost the same colleagues dead; befriended the same Vietnamese reporter; shared the same views about the hopelessness of that war; and formed an unbreakable bond.
So now here we were together again, 20 years later. But this time in the peaceful paradise of April in Queensland.
In those 20 years both Jim and I had married and bought a home.
Mine and Helen’s in Brisbane, his and Milly’s in Paris and Phnom Penh.
Jim and Milly wanted to see the sights … so Helen and I looked for somewhere close to Brisbane totally unlike any war zone: relaxing, tranquil … even soothing.
Not surprisingly, we came up with Noosa … the classy, but expensive, surfside town an hour-and-a-half north of Brisbane where the loudest noises came from waves and parrots.
Despite its isolation, and the competition from the Gold Coast, Noosa had become a huge success because the locals kept something out of the hands of developers and real estate agents.
That “something” – for which they fought long and hard decade after decade – is 7,000 acres of rugged hilltop, beaches, and headland.
Which eventually became a protected National Park.
Ironically, their long campaign ensured that all real estate in Noosa became worth much more than anywhere else in the state.
Soon, unlike the brasher Gold Coast, Noosa welcomed an influx of white linen and gold bangled retired interstaters from freezing Melbourne who walked the Hastings Street boutiques in cork-wedge sandals and nautical moccasins.
That 11 square-mile Noosa National Park is traversed by mile-after-mile of sandy walking tracks through rainforest leading to pristine beach sites like “Hell’s Gates”, “Boiling Pot” (once called “Witches’ Cauldron”), “Fairy Pools” and the “Devil’s Kitchen”.
Scary names for the uninitiated.
And all of this right next door to a busy tourist town of surf beaches, upmarket holiday units, waterways, lakes, coloured sand cliffs, and delicious restaurants.
After a long lunch near the beach telling war stories, our smiling little party of four walked up the long hill to the heavily-treed National Park and slowly made our way for a few hours along the cliffs … admiring the crashing Pacific Ocean.
Sometimes we descended to tiny deserted pure white sand beaches but, mysteriously, all the usual nude bathers had disappeared.
This was better than Vietnam – no American military uniforms, no helmets, no flak jackets, no explosions, no black pajamas. Even a day off at China Beach in Danang couldn’t compare: the Viet Cong took their R&R there too.
For the first time in our intense relationship Jim Pringle and I were living life to the lees.
I’d always remembered Jim as a slightly stern, serious character … staring into the distance, pursing his lips, leaning with one hand on a desk in our Saigon office while cogitating what to do next.
But here, he was laughing.
Full of enthusiasm and fresh air, with the waves busy behind us, Jim and I – now past our best in our mid-40s – bounded ahead of Milly and Helen up a steep hill through the bush looking for koalas, kookaburras, parrots, and other Australian wildlife.
Our delight was such that it never occurred to any of us that the sun was setting … until we entered the 3-mile long aptly-named “Tanglewood Track” under a lush rainforest canopy that formed a dark scrub tunnel.
We knew where we were because of the huge sign: the name carved into a log and the letters painted yellow, in the way that was fashionable in the 1980s.
Helen suggested the letters were chiseled out so that a blind person could “read them” with their fingers.
Then clouds came over and it started to rain.
We didn’t know that the Tanglewood Track is listed as taking “two to three hours” to traverse … in daylight.
That was when we came around a corner and a view of the ocean to the south of Noosa suddenly became visible where some trees had fallen or been felled. A man stood on the track staring. It was as though he was waiting for a bus on Adelaide Street.
Without speaking, he trotted away …. down our track.
With no moon, soon it was impossible to read any of the park signs which, I assume, would have helped in daylight.
We came to a fork where there were two choices.
Milly said, “I’ve got a match!” which was great news. She struck the match, it went out, and we couldn’t see a thing for the next 10 minutes.
“Light another one, Milly,” I said staring at where the sign was.
“I only had one match,” she replied.
Who carries only one match? Now we couldn’t see which way was in and which way out.
We plugged on, now in single file, with me, as the local, leading in a white shirt and Jim bringing up the rear in his khaki vest.
Every so often, as we rounded a hillside, we could hear the joy of the tourist streets of excited, crowded Noosa. It sounded just like a merry-go-round. But hope would fade, along with the sounds, as we continued down into another deep gully.
Later, we would hear the merry-go-round again. It was turning in its circle, but the question was, were we going around in circles too?
Milly pointed out that there were no street lights in this national park, no lit trails, no reflective signs, no phone boxes, no shops, no water taps … and no warnings not to linger after dark.
As far as we knew, we were now all alone in that giant park which these days is said to welcome a million visitors a year.
We couldn’t see anyone … but then we couldn’t even see each other’s faces: not even the glint of Jim’s Coke-bottle glasses.
Jim wondered aloud if that silent runner was still with us?
When none of you knows which way to go when lost in the dark, it creates an empty feeling in the stomach. Being in the front I hesitated: should we have taken the other track at that fork? Should we retrace our steps now? Or would we regret it?
I was worried group dynamics was in control. None of us were making any decisions … we were shuffling along in the dark each thinking someone else would find an escape from this interminable maze.
The clock was ticking.
Thankfully, at this moment Jim Pringle – the fearless Scot – took the lead and pushed on deeper down into darkness as if he knew the way.
Milly’s wooden sandals, so smart at lunch in the Noosa bistro, were impossible on the soft sand track. So, Helen stopped and gave Milly her sandshoes. But now Helen was in bare feet … not a good idea in the Australian bush after dark.
Not in a country with the majority of the world’s most poisonous snakes.
But it was Milly – born in Cambodia, a land of wild forest elephants – who suddenly asked anxiously above the quiet of the night “Do kangaroos attack people?”
I re-assured her they wouldn’t … but I also knew the eastern browns, the death adders, the tiger snakes and the taipans might: but decided to keep that to myself.
Milly instead warned Helen – woman to woman – of the dangers of allowing cobwebs to get into the eyes.
Helen, walking directly behind me, started holding on to my white shirt because she could no longer see it, or me.
It turned out to be fortunate that she was in bare feet.
“We’ve left the track!” she squealed … “I’m walking in leaves and sticks.”
Shuffling around in the forest floor, Helen eventually led us back to the sandy track and we continued on.
“We’re crossing a wooden bridge!” was her next report.
Jim pointed out that it must be one of those bridges – the ones with no sides – which we’d seen earlier in our trek. They were timber, more like planks than bridges, and the gullies they crossed varied from scrubby gulches to … well we just didn’t know.
All I knew was we had crossed a bridge with no sides … without even knowing it was there!
This was getting serious.
Helen started thinking: “The two war correspondents in front are oblivious to the danger.” And the hours were passing.
Suddenly, Jim announced we should stop.
I thought it was to rest, or to plan our next move.
Helen said, “Good idea, let’s stay right here until first light.”
Always more cautious than Jim, I considered the choices: spend the whole night here wet and cold to avoid breaking a leg falling off a bridge; start yelling for help; or light a fire? … Ah-no. We’d used our one match!
This was pre-internet, pre-mobile phones, so we could summon no external help or reference.
Our future was now entirely up to us.
I could feel the uncertainty: we were the opposite of secure. The opposite of carefree.
But Jim’s joy had not diminished: he seemed to be revelling in this predicament. Maybe that was why he was still a war correspondent and I wasn’t.
“Let’s take a photo!” Jim said to the darkness.
I suppose he pointed his camera at our voices. All I knew was that when that flash went off I was blinded all over again.
In reply to my loud complaint, jocular Jim started to recite the headlines in tomorrow’s newspapers:
TWO INTREPID WAR CORRESPONDENTS LOST IN NATIONAL PARK!
THEY SURVIVED VIETNAM, BUT NOT NOOSA!
FERAL KANGAROOS FELL FEARFUL FOUR!
FOUR MISSING: ELEPHANT HELD FOR QUESTIONING!
FAMED JOURNOS BECOME THE STORY!
The wetter, hungrier, and thirstier we got, the more cheerful Jim became.
His gallows humour was lost on me. But I was impressed — as I had often been in Vietnam — that Jim could face the worst of war and come out the other side. He always reminded me of Browning’s line: “For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave”.
We pushed on in slow silence – until, finally, after six hours inside this rich womb of nature, we saw it … a street light.
Helen, Milly and I laughed extravagantly and too loudly, such was our relief to be out of that tangled wood.
Now we were walking on bitumen.
And just up ahead, like a mirage, appeared the epitome of civilisation – a French restaurant.
And it was named after the world’s greatest newspaper, Le Monde: no doubt many of Jim’s war dispatches had been published in this paper.
As we celebrated our escape, un serveur brought menus plus copies of Le Monde slung between giant wooden rolling pins.
Milly and Jim translated the French news for us.
Jim Pringle and I had emerged from danger yet again, with our unbreakable bond intact. We were still one another’s best.
And Milly and Helen were now part of our story.
[Next week - Lost in the Bush]
A great follow up to "Part 1". No bottle of water?
Never did get up to Noosa, I was a Gold Coast'er, Kirra beach mostly. I must admit, a somewhat lower class of 'clientele'. Food? Pick up a pie at Yatala on the way home. Visited in '95. (The change in the top crust, no longer 'flakey', was a disappointment.)
Memories. Got to wondering, what does Kirra look like now, 60+ years later. Looked at some images online. Shouldn't have, development. Ugh.
Hugh and Helen, the very first time I went to Noosa was in the Summer of 1968. My sister and her two children, one was two years old the baby 6 weeks old had rented a beautiful big old home right on top of the hill in Noosa. Her husband couldn’t stay as he had to go back to work so she kindly invited our Mum and myself to stay . So to get there we set out on the weekend my husband driving my mum , my dad and myself to Noosa, where we had never been in our lives before. We stopped. part way at a garage for a break as it was a long journey in those days. Then as we we’re all refreshed, we went back on the road thinking it won’t be long now and then we saw a sign that we were close to Nambour, So we realized we must’ve missed the turn to Noosa so we. backtracked and finally saw a sign NOOSA so we went on this winding road then up over a big hill and down and then before us was Hastings Street where were to meet my sister so it may have taken us about 3 hours to finally get there. No mobile phones in those days. My sister had been to the meeting point a few times We had arranged if we weren’t there she would come back in half an hour which she did a few times . Yes they were referdixes in those days. but we didn’t have one for Noosa. So it was quite an adventure and a lot of laughs on our long journey to Noosa.
At night time my sister’s husband, my Dad and my husband all had to go back to work in Brisbane. My sister my Mum, myself and the two little ones stayed at Noosa for a week and had a great time.