Mt Hyland Field Trip

I told you in my last post about my upcoming trip the Mt Hyland. Well it's no longer upcoming as I got back yesterday.

I should mention from the start that a couple of the pics in the last entry were in fact not on the way to the wilderness retreat. I put a little too much faith in the GPS, more about that later.

The idea for the first day of the trip was for most people to meet at the uni. Some were going to Mt Hyland in minibuses and the rest, like me, were taking our own vehicles. I got talking to a few people from the class before we left, including one that I knew from a previous res school last year.

When it came time to get on the buses, I asked my classmate from last year if she'd prefer a lift in the Subaru. Was it my dashing good looks, my wit, my charm, the chance to spend the next hour and a half alone with Mr Wonderful that encouraged her to accept my kind offer. No it was the thought of travelling in comfort with someone she knew, rather than in the minibus in discomfort, with a bunch of strangers. I think the only thing stopping her beating me to the car was that she didn't know which one was mine. Besides, she knew I was married and wasn't going to hit on her.

We left just before the buses and my passenger asked if we could stop at a service station on the way, to see if she could find a cheap plastic poncho. She'd forgotten to pack a raincoat. Once on the highway, still without a poncho, we got chatting about various things and at one stage I commented on the white Subaru in front of us, it was a later version of the one we were in.

All this time we were following the directions of the GPS, even though I've driven that road several times and knew the way fairly well. When it got to a point where it told us to turn left, I obeyed, even though I knew it wasn't the way I'd gone previously. I had it set to shortest route, rather than quickest and I'd approached Mt Hyland from a different direction before, so I assumed this way would work as well.

If you've got a GPS of your own, you'll know that when you stop following its directions it tries to recalculate your course for you. Well mine was starting to do this every couple of minutes and we were now on dirt roads.

I eventually realised we were heading south instead of north and that was why the GPS kept recalculating, must have missed a turn. When we did get back onto the, supposedly, right track it just seemed to get more confused, telling us to turn when there was no road to turn on. The right town names were showing up, but it certainly didn't seem like we were going to get where we wanted anytime soon.

Eventually I decided to backtrack to the main road and the route I'd taken previously. My passenger was now busting, so the the first priority was to find a service station, public loo, or suitable clump of bushes. When we found somewhere she could go I got out my mobile to call our lecturer just so he'd know we were running late, but there was no service where we were. And no, it wasn't a clump of bushes but they didn't sell ponchoes there either.

You can imagine how this was starting to look. I'm a happily married man with a, not unattractive, woman in the car with me. It should have taken us about an hour and a half to get to our destination, or to put it another way, we should have been there an hour ago. What were people going to think when we turned up late together?

Well we got onto the correct road, following my menory of the directions on the website more than the GPS. We drove up a narrow dirt road, surrounded by dense forest, and all of a sudden there was a clearing in front of us containg a a few buildings and two University of New England minibuses.

When we finally joined the group, no-one made a comment about us being late, although someone did say I'd changed my shirt (I hadn't, I'd just removed my jumper).

Below are some piccies of Mt Hyland Wilderness Retreat. The four days we spent there will be my next blog entry.


My accommodation. My room was the one with the french doors, shared with one other guy and five women, including my passenger. We guys were the only married people in the room and were on our best behaviour.


The building on the left is the main house. This is part of what we saw when we arrived, except that blue Subaru wasn't there because we were in it. There's another Subaru to the left of where I took the photo. It was the one we'd been following earlier. I bet you were wondering why I mentioned the white one earlier.


Olearia flocktoniae, the Dorrigo Daisy. There are only about 2000 of these in existence in only three locations, this was one of the reasons we were there.


Grevillea beadleana, Beadle's Grevillea, another endangered species.


The view from the escarpment, somewhere in Guy Fawkes River National Park. This is where we counted Beadle's Grevillea and wallaby poo, more about that later.