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Ahh, the beauty of hindsight... 19 May 2000

Before I start ... Here's the difference between Gadjah Mada University in Yogya and Sydney Uni back home. You can't walk five minutes from Sydney uni campus and see a flock of sheep surrounding a guy sleeping in his pedicab.

Okay, now the story.

After feeling sick for a few days, I decided to climb an active volcano with a bunch of friends. Certainly not the smartest thing to do, but I've done far more stupid things over here. It's called Mount Merapi, literally meaning Fiery Mountain. It erupted in 1994 and is supposedly due for another eruption presently. It's 2911m tall, thoroughly putting Mt Kosciusko to shame. And it sits in the background of the city of Yogya, calmly smoking away and subconsciously saying "Climb me, Climb me!!" So I did. My attitude was this: "If I have to crawl up with my teeth, I WILL get to the top".

Dosed up on Kratingdeing (a local energy drink - ed) and energy tablets we set out at 1130pm. It was steep from the word go and my pulse was pounding after just a few minutes. We started in the saddle between Mt Merapi and Mt Merbabu (the latter I climbed a few years ago) and as we ascended views over the valley were super. To the east there was the city of Solo, spectacularly lit up in the clear night. (Forgive me if I use the word spectacular too frequently.)

At first there was a road, then a path, then a vaguely discernible dirt trail, then just rocks. And all the while getting steeper and steeper. Very soon, my legs were feeling like jelly. But we battled on, and a few funny stories about friends' adventures helped us along the way. The final stretch to the summit was nothing less than torture. It was seriously a 1 in 1 slope on large, loose and slippery rocks. This, along with my recently discovered lack of balance, had my stumbling, whingeing and cursing my way up the slope. As we approached the crater, the rocks beneath us got warmer and warmer (central heating). There were steam vents not far from us and the smell of sulfur was thick in the air. We even saw a little bit of glowing red sulfur in the distance.

We arrived at the peak at 4:45am. On top it was freezing with a biting wind. (Needless to say there were a few Indonesians up there in shorts and thongs.) Had a bit of a nap before waking to a dull orange sunrise forming in the sky. It looked like being a really good sunrise. However, just as the sky was brightening up, a dense white cloud of thick sulfury mist blew up the side of the mountain. G-reat. The entire view was blotted out and visibility was about 10 metres. As the sulfur fumes started to get stifling, there was a general mood of disappointment. Yet just as suddenly, the cloud cleared briefly, revealing a pearler of an orange sky. Throughout the morning the mist was blowing over, every few minutes clearing then engulfing us again. This created a very eerie atmosphere on top and the extraordinary cloud formations in all directions made it even more surreal. What's more, seeing 7 or 8 other volcano peaks rising around us out of the clouds was phenomenal.

So what do you do at 6am on the top of a volcano? Crack open a pack of Tim tams, of course. That was followed by my mini-pack of Nutrigrain (with naturally chilled milk!) and a slice of Mum's fruitcake (Cheers Mum!). Quite the best breakfast I've ever eaten! At about 8am we started to head down and saw for the first time the ludicrously steep slope we had climbed up in the dark. Going up, gravity is the enemy, going down, gravity is still the enemy. Descending was just as hard and towards the end even harder then the trek up. The muscles in my legs were tightening up something fierce and my brain was crying out for sleep. That said, seeing a 40yr old lady jogging down the same path, wearing no shoes and carrying 10-15kg of carrots on her back is not terribly comforting. We got down at about 1130am.

So in a nutshell: Torture going up, freezing at the top and torture coming down. But in hindsight, FANTASTIC!!

Ciao for now

PS: Heard a cool techno song the other day. "I am a taxi driver, I like it very much, I do not have a licence, But I always find the clutch". Perhaps you have to have experienced Indonesian taxis to fully appreciate that one...