Cat and Kass moved much faster without Indi and Amanda to slow them down. Amanda was reasonably fit and she could maintain a consistent pace for a long time but nothing quite like the one Cat and Kass could set. She also liked to take it easy and enjoy the walk. Cat and Kass, on the other hand, preferred a faster approach. Cat’s long muscular legs gave her an advantage over the flat but Kass’s smaller stature let her dodge beneath the undergrowth in a smoother style. Cat was a self-described competitive who disliked having to follow. And, while Kass never would have described herself as competitive, there was a decent part of her that was driven to keep some pressure on Cat’s heels. She took pleasure in Cat’s determined expression every time the woman glanced back and saw Kass right there.

The initial path they took followed the track but it wasn’t long before they diverged from it. Travelling through the bush directly did slow them down, so they left it as far along as they dared before branching to the right. The area where Cat had taken her morning run had been further up, and slightly above the plateau where they’d originally set up camp. The ground up there had been mostly flat forest floor, with a slight boggy mossy feel to it in places. In contrast, the land they now walked on consisted more of rocks than earth. It made walking here much more difficult than her morning run had been. The forest foliage was also lower and more dense, forcing Cat repeatedly duck beneath branches. Still she moved with speed regardless and they made quick pace towards the top of the cliffs.

They reached the cliffs around about lunchtime but neither one mentioned food yet. They still had a long way to go.

Kass held on to a tree and peered over the edge, trying to gauge the distance and if there was a better point to head down. The cliffs were near vertical but along them jutted out many rough handholds and some hardier cliff growing bushes. It made simply down climbing seem like a possibility, albeit a very risky one.

“How long’s the rope?” she asked Cat.

Cat sat her bag down and pulled it out. “25 m, assuming Amanda’s right.”

“Does that look like 25m to you?”

Cat peered over the edge again. She shrugged. “Looks a little higher to be honest.”

Kass nodded. That’s what she’d been thinking too.

“Doesn’t look so bad for down climbing though. We probably don’t need it for the bottom part.”

Kass nodded. “What do you think’s the best way to do this?”

Cat though for a moment. Kass peered back over the edge.

“Rope through the legs, over the shoulder.” Cat shrugged.

“Dülfersitz repel?”

Cat shrugged again. “I don’t know what it’s called.”

“I was just thinking maybe we could make a prusik and just down climb slowly?”

“With what, you got some cord?”

Kass shook her head and considered the problem further.

“While you think about it, I’m gonna tie an anchor.” Cat got up and started tying the rope off around a tree. Once she was sure it was solid she dropped the rest over the edge. “Looks like about 10 metres of free climbing at the bottom, what do you think.”

Kass peered over the edge and nodded. “What about the bags?”

“I’ll abseil down to that tree” Cat pointed to a reasonably solid tree sticking out of the cliff near the end of the rope. “then you lower them down to me.”

Kass gave a nod. Cat pulled a small travel towel out of her bag and held it up. “I’ll send this back up once I’m down if you want? Just some skin protection.”

Kass nodded once again. Then she checked Cat’s knot as Cat, impatient to get down, wrapped the towel around the rope, coiled it between her legs then over her shoulder and leaned back out over the edge. She abseiled as fast as she could, which using a Dülfersitz, was not particularly fast. She missed the speed of using an actual abseil device. She figured Amanda had probably brought the rope with the idea to just use it as a hand line, particularly for Indi, but Cat had never understood the point. To her, there were only two options, stuff where you needed to be completely tied in, and scrambles. Anything in between could be placed in one category or the other. If it weren’t for the quality of this rock she’d have put this in the latter category.

The rock wasn’t particularly stable and Cat managed to chip a bunch of pieces off the cliff as she walked her way down. At one point a ledge almost a metre long broke off beneath Cat’s foot and went crashing into the bushes below. Cat felt pretty safe though. The tree she’d tied the rope around at the top had been solid.

“Don’t bring the whole mountain down.” Kass teased from the top.

“Oh yeah, we’ll see how well you do on this stuff. At least you’re not the one at the bottom who’s going to get shit knocked down on you.”

“I’ll wait until you’re out of the way until I come down.” Kass yelled back. Getting hit by falling rocks was a real worry. Neither of them was wearing a helmet and it wouldn’t do any good for Cat to get knocked unconscious.

Eventually Cat reached the tree she’d pointed to from the top. It still looked a fair way down but not unclimbable. She perched herself, comfortably on the tree, with one leg hanging either side. She gave it a slight bounce to check its sturdiness before untangling herself from the rope. She tied the towel she’d used as an extra layer onto the end of the rope then placed two fingers in her mouth and whistled up at Kass.

Kass, who had briefly been enjoying the view, glanced down and, after checking Cat was fine, started pulling the rope back up. One it was up she tied one of their bags into the end and lowered it over the edge.

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“Heads!” she yelled down.

Cat gave her a thumbs up.

Kass shifted her position at the top so she wasn’t lowering the bag directly above Cat. That way any loose rocks knocked down were less likely to hit her. It was only once the rope was almost all out that she brought it back over to its original angle. She gave it a gentle swing so Cat could easily grab it.

“You got a preference for which side I drop this on?” Cat asked.

Kass shook her head. “There’s nothing breakable in there.”

“Not the rest of the Brandy?”

“It’s in the middle, I think, and there’s only about a mouthful left.”

Cat held it as low as she could then aimed it at what looked like a softer patch of ground. It fell, hit the earth, bounced, then rolled down the hill a bit. Cat turned and shouted back up at Kass. “Next one.”

Kass did the same thing with the other bag and Cat managed to toss it so it neatly landed next to the first bag.

“Your turn,” Cat yelled back up as she started the last of the down climb without the rope.

“I’ll wait till you’re out of the way first.” Kass yelled back.

Cat didn’t reply other than a short nod which was too small for Kass to catch. She focused most of her attention on placing her feet and hands. The last 10 metres proved harder than they had originally looked due to the crumbly nature of the rock. Cat was forced to double check every hold to be sure it wasn’t going to just break away from the wall. She used some scrubs where she could since most of them proved more sturdy than the rock itself. Eventfully she leapt the last half a metre to the ground and grabbed another tree to steady herself. She found she was still on a hill but one with a much nicer incline. She made her way down to the bags then realized they’d forgotten something.

She walked back up to the base and saw Kass wrapping the rope around herself, ready to make her way down.

“Hey Kass.” she yelled up.

“Huh.” Kass paused mid lean and looked down.

“I was just thinking, how are we going to find this spot again? From down here it’s not quite so easy. Do you want to leave a marker at the top or something?”

Kass paused then decided since it needed some thinking over, it would be better if she got back on the ledge. She pulled herself back up then took a look to her left and right along the top of the cliff. She was looking for anything that stood out. A moment later she leaned back out over the cliff. “I’ve got a bag liner that’s bright orange. If you take my stuff out of it then we can use that, and then hope we don’t end up having to swim across the river because I don’t have a second one.”

Cat returned to bags and opened Kass’s bag. Kass had put the bright orange plastic liner in first and then all of her stuff inside of that with the intention of keeping things dry. Cat pulled the whole thing out and then shifted everything inside it into the main part of Kass’s bag. Eventually she was left with just the empty liner. She climbed back up the cliff with it and held it up for Kass to see. Kass nodded.

Cat rolled it up tight then frowned as she considered the best way to get back up to the bottom of the rope. “Hey, shall I rip it in half? We could make a trail down here as well?”

Kass nodded so Cat unwound it and roughly tore the thing up smaller. She placed one large piece under a nearby rock then rolled up the rest and stuck it between her teeth. Carefully she began the climb back up the crumbly rock face. Going up proved much easier than going down, as was often the case. Once Cat reached the tree and hanging rope she climbed back over it into the same perching position she’d adopted earlier. She then opened up the roll of orange plastic and tore a small hole in it with her teeth. She slipped the rope through then tied a large knot below it so it wouldn’t slip out. Once that was complete she whistled back up to Kass.

Kass found a small but sturdy branch and pushed the plastic sheet on to the branch. She pushed it far enough through that hopefully it wouldn’t blow off in a strong wind. She worried about animals and birds picking it off but there wasn’t much more she could do to prevent that. She made a few more holes and physically tied a very spindly branch around and through the hole. That should make it much harder to remove at least.

Once she was done she checked back over the ledge and found Cat had already climbed her way back down to the forest floor.

“Okay, I’m coming down.” Kass yelled out.

Cat yelled “Okay,” back at her.

Kass took one last look out at the view and mentally noted which way they should be headed.

When she finally reached the forest floor again she suggested that they stop for lunch since their bags were currently off their backs. Cat agreed and so they sat and ate in silence, just listening to the chirping of the forest birds.

Once they were done with lunch Cat fixed a couple of orange markers around. They kept it to a small number though as they wanted to be able to collect them all back up when they returned rather than leaving them in the bush. As they got further away from the cliff they made different, less permanent markers. Occasional marks on the trees would help as well as small piles of rocks stacked up.

Kass got a compass out and had them walking in pretty much a straight line. That way it would be easier to return to the same spot. They hiked for hours and jogged for some sections. Cat still led initially but Kass pulled her up about direction selection enough times that occasionally she just let Kass take the lead before eventually overtaking again. The scenery was pretty consistent and the bush bashing hard work.

Cat was out in front once again when she suddenly stopped and held up a hand. “Shh, do you hear that?”

Kass focused on the forest sounds. She could hear something in the distance.

“Is that people?” she whispered

Cat gave a nod and kept looking towards the sounds. They seemed to be getting closer. They could hear rustling now. They waited silently. Eventually they could pick out two distinct voices, a male and a female.

Cat’s hand hovered at her hip out of habit. Kass narrowed her eyes at the gesture but she didn’t say anything.

“I think we should be going more south,” a woman’s voice could be heard saying.

“No way,” a man replied. “I’ve been here before, this is the right way. We want to avoid the brambles by sticking further up until we get closer to the rocks.”

The couple approached and eventually came into view. Cat and Kass were standing so quietly and still that the woman jumped a little when she saw.

“Crikey!” the woman exclaimed when she first noticed them. She placed her palm on her chest. “I wasn’t expecting to find other people out here.”

The man’s eyes widened but he didn’t say anything otherwise.

“Hello,” Kass said with a soft smile.

“Hiya.”

“Hello.”

They replied back with smiles of their own.

Cat gave them a short nod but she eyed them warily.

“Where are you two headed?” the woman asked.

“Back to the main car park, start of Poison Pass track,” Kass replied. “How about you?”

“Oh, Alana and I are off to do some rock climbing up at the cliffs.” the man replied. He turned to the side so they could see a couple of cams hanging off the back of his bag.

Cat frowned. “At the big cliffs?”

“They seemed really crumbly when we were there,” Kass explained.

“Yeah, there’s better rock further towards the sea.” Alana told them.

“Bit of limestone,” the guy added with a grin.

“Ah, well, good luck.” Kass told them.

“You too,” Alana replied with a smile.

Once they were gone Kass turned to Cat. “What was that?” she asked.

“What was what?”

“You’re not even carrying and you’re posed like you’re ready to shoot somebody. They were just a couple of hikers.”

Cat shrugged. “I never trust anyone, least of all people who hike for fun.”

“We’re hiking for fun,” Kass replied, not sure if Cat was just teasing.

“Exactly.” The edge of Cat’s mouth twitched upwards slightly but she spun and started walking again before Kass could see her smile.