In the Kanangra Boyd State Forest

you still haunt me after I’d forgotten you and the dream

I thought you were buried and at peace

but find you still live on, both of you, and me with you, in that last adventure

I do not have your courage would not have tried the feat you attempted

perhaps you were not brave either until you found you had no choice

and then the matter was resolved and contracted in a black hole fist

was it thirst that you last thought of or hunger

or did the blessed cold reduce your sensations so only the animal plodded on

until that part had to stop?

I know you felt elated at survival

winning the lottery of air crashes

I was with you, I was there

how excited we felt

unconquerable, on top of the world

I’d hurt my leg, the going was very rough

and the burns left us a bit shaky

perhaps it was shock rather than elation that leant us our wings to descend to the water

the cold crept on, and simple disorganised life became implacable

the cold   the wet, we began to panic

we can’t be that far away

the mist in the trees like porridge

false warmth, false nourishment

we are mates, we’re blooded now

when we’re in our forties, telling our teenage sons how we survived

walked out of the crash and they confess they’ve got their girlfriend pregnant

or have been expelled from school

we will laugh and ring each other up and say

“you haven’t forgotten have you, how great it is to be alive?”

our wives will shake their heads

we’re special you and me

winners

you still haunt me boys, mates

I thought I’d buried you

but the journalist in his money-for-old-rope article brought you back

I can still feel you on the track in the stumbling root infested rock barrages city shoes

I didn’t want to read the colour supplement autopsy of your last days

our dream was enough

your lives came to me in news bulletins on the radio

your deaths were a shared experience

that flapped through the murky ether to my witness

perhaps I must challenge the morality of colour supplements and proclaim our truth

what really happened to us

what really happened

could I say we were happy?  thrilled, excited?

whichever one of you I was?

could I tell our parents the cold death was worth that feeling of winning?

or maybe it wasn’t

maybe their loss, or what they would’ve gained if only we’d done

if only they’d done

how could they give up so soon?

I knew we were alive

note from: http://www.bwrs.org.au/bwr/members/reports/call_out/history.pdf

REPORT 27-Jul-01 REFERENCE NO: 0040

TYPE: Callout NOTIFIED BY: Insp. Dennis Rayner - Bathurst

Police

DATE: October 27th, 1993 MAP USED: KANANGRA

PARK: Blue Mountains National Park

CAUSE:

Search for missing airmen who crashed in Wheengee Whungee Creek, Kanangra.

REPORT: TOTAL INVOLVED:

After the first media reports of a missing Socata Trinidad plane being found, S&R rang Oberon Police

to offer assistance in the land search for the missing occupants.

Oberon police contacted S&R on Monday night at 7.10pm and asked for our assistance. The base

was to be Whalans Paddock just south of the Boyd Crossing Kanangra.

S&R were able to field approximately 35 members including base personnel and were able to field 8

search parties.

The search area was based around the crash site on grid 288290 down into Spinebender Creek,

Wheengee Whungee Creek, Christys Creek and ending at the Kowmung.

The first body, badly decomposed, was found at 10.35 am in Wheengee Whungee Creek at grid

309288. The second body was found in the creek approximately 40 minutes later 150 metres

downstream. Crisis incident debriefing was offered to all members who were with the bodies and

assisted the police.

PEOPLE INVOLVED:

95

x