Mountains Out Of Molehills

Kosciuszko loomed large for a 13-year-old kid. Turns out the summit was high enough for dad and son to experience pint-sized epiphanies.

- Johnny Dry

I HATE CAMPING but I love my 13-year-old son. In an ideal world, I would be able to keep those two propositions separate, in the same way that I hate barista beards but love the Godfather trilogy. Unfortunately, my son wants to go camping with me, whereas no coffee-maker has ever invited me to join the Mafia.

Camping is probably a good thing if you’re (a) very young; or (b) live in a pre-industrial society that has not yet developed the tools necessary to construct permanent buildings. As it is, (a) I’m very old; and (b) inhabit the most advanced civilisation the world has ever known.

My son and I had already been camping once, when a good mate drove us to a semiremote site, pitched our tent for us, and cooked us a delicious baked dinner using only a hole in the ground. It was all very impressive, and I’ve got no doubt my mate would survive the zombie apocalypse.

But at two o’clock in the morning I had to get up and have a crap in a field, and I realised that, if plumbing systems fail after Z Day, I’m happy to leave the earth to the undead.

But even one whole night’s camping wasn’t enough for my son. He next came up with the idea that we should climb the highest mountain in Australia – Mount Kosciuszko, NSW – and camp.

Although I hate camping, I like mountains. I’d once dealt with a messy break-up by trekking angrily through the Annapurna mountain range in Nepal, alone and unguided (that’ll show her!) and fueled only by the methane gas generated by two daily bowls of dahl.

However, at night I’d slept in tea houses – with walls, floors, toilets etc, etc.

The great thing about Mount Kosciuszko is that – at 2228 metres above sea level – it isn’t actually very high, except compared to other mountains in Australia. You can get up and down in a day.