A whisper I didn't hear

I have changed all the names in this story as I have forgotten a few. 
A group of university bushwalkers walked for about five days in the Carnarvon Ranges long before civilisation made them accessible to everyone. See the header on my Facebook page. That's me on the right.

“Franny,” I called. “Be careful when you reach this part. The ground’s all broken  up.  Bit scary.”

I clung to a scrap of wind-tattered foliage in loose, gravelly soil near the top of the mountain.

Franny was puffing.

“Okay,” she called. “I hope we’re near the top.”

Just a fleeting thought flickered in my mind: all around me, except for the dirt a few inches from my face, was air.  High altitude air.

What if . . .

I’d already had to silence my fear of heights. It would be easy to slip.

Beside me a stone rolled and clattered down, pinging on and off the mountain side. Then silence.

The great valley and Carnarvon Gorge yawned beneath me.

We reached the top and walked around a ridge, then sat and enjoyed the magnificent view. We gazed at the rolling mountains and the tortuous Gorge snaking beneath them all.

                       

                                                Carnarvon Gorge. Photo by Pam Bishop

“Isn’t it gorgeous!” Ian exclaimed. As had most of us.

“We’ll have to make a rule,” said Greg, our leader. “Nobody is allowed to say ‘gorgeous’ anymore.”

But it was. They really were 'gorgeous gorges'.

Reluctantly we resumed our trek to safer ground for the night.

But we had miscalculated. Or perhaps we girls had been a bit slow.

The sun dipped beneath the horizon while we were still on that precarious ridge. Night would fall quickly there.

“We’re going to have to make a fire and stay awake tonight,” Greg, our leader, said. “We can’t go to sleep or we might roll over the cliff.”

So we spent the night sitting around a fire, singing and talking. Around us, beyond the circle of firelight, was blackness. An occasional rustle whenever we stopped singing.

We grew sleepy, but nudged one another to stay awake.

Dawn was a beautiful – and welcome – sight.

Carnarvon Gorge - Photo by Pam Bishop

Soon after, we scrambled down to the valley, partly through caves. First a big dark cave with a tiny clear stream trickling in it. In the floor was a round hole carved smoothly by aeons of running water - our doorway to the cave below. We squeezed through it, only to be greeted by the frantic, high-pitched chittering of bats flying in mad circles.

“Don’t scream,” murmured Greg.

Outside, we found a safe place to stretch our sleeping bags out on a rocky surface. We lay down thankfully on the hard, bumpy ground.

Morning – and we were down in the gorge, making a fire beside a small creek. I felt elated as I thought of the precarious places we’d walked, crawled, climbed.

I took a change of clothes behind some bushes.

As I changed, pain shot through my leg.

My knee had gone a strange shape and my lower leg poked out awkwardly. It hurt.

And I couldn’t move.

“Franny!” I called.

“Oh!” Franny looked in dismay. “Looks as if you’ve dislocated your knee.”

She helped me to finish dressing and limp back to the group. Greg had learnt first aid and clunked my knee back into place, then bandaged it tightly.

The others carried most of my heavy things back and sometimes I had to lean on one of them. But we reached the bus safely.

Was God whispering? What if my knee had gone out in one of the dangerous places, where I needed every joint and muscle?

All these years later, I feel He was whispering.

But in those days I had yet to meet the Great Whisperer.

The words hung in silence in the air.    I am keeping you safe.