So there I was, barricaded in a dunny hiding from crocodiles, an inglorious, unedifying, self-inflicted debacle.

Let me back up a bit.

It was my first night on the Thorsborne Trail on Hinchinbrook Island. Two speed-boatloads worth of human cargo tumbled out onto the boardwalk at the northern end of the trail, packs heavy but spirits high.

I was hiking solo but happy to have company. Our crusty skipper John had dispatched us with grim warnings about it being ‘only a matter of time’ until some gormless hiker was taken by a saltwater crocodile.

Don’t linger near the water, especially at night. Don’t camp on the beach. Don’t wade through streams that are more than knee deep. Don’t get caught out by the tides.

The first campground at Nina Bay was inviting and elevated, with riffling palm trees and soft white sand. My new companions began to make themselves at home. But I had a mission to finish the trail in 4 days and wanted to get a little further on, so after lunch I continued down the beach alone. I felt confident there would be others at the next campsite. After all, the trail was fully booked.

A couple of hours later I strolled into Little Ramsay Bay and was dismayed to find a deserted and much less appealing site next to a brackish inlet. The only signs of human occupation were a gallows to hang food and gear from and a toilet looking like a phone box on stilts. No palms, no platforms, no people. I paced up and down the stubby beach pondering my options – press on or go back to the comforts of Nina Bay?

As dusk approached, I realised my options had run out: there wasn’t time to retreat and the tide was coming in, effectively stranding me between the two tidal creeks that bordered Little Ramsay beach. So I set up my tent behind the trees at the edge of the beach, far away from the swamp and the dunny.

It was about then that I rued not collecting water earlier at a small but clear running stream. Now I was cut off and thirsty after a hot and humid day of hiking. I glanced at the dark, unmoving pond, rummaged upstream unsuccessfully and resigned myself to filtering briny soup from the edge.
In the growing dark, I perched on the toilet steps and made noodles (salty) and hot chocolate (also salty) before seeking the safety of my tent.

Or so I thought. Because now the sea seemed to be lapping at the tent flaps. I heard waves landing a few feet away and pictured crocodiles heaving themselves up the beach, smelling my thirst, sweat and fear in the dark, stalking my flimsy nylon coffin. The wind blew up so I couldn’t hear anything except the noises in my head. I lay there, sleepless and rigid with terror, convinced I was about to be barrel-rolled by a 14-footer and never seen again. Only a matter of time.

At some point late in the evening I just couldn’t take it anymore. I grabbed bedding, torch, phone and umbrella, unzipped the tent and scurried like a bush rat across the clearing to the dunny. Once there I made a cowboy camp on the grotty boards and propped the open umbrella in the doorway. It was a miserably wretched night: curled up in a toilet, feet in the shitter, head in the doorway, perspiring under a silk sheet to escape mosquitoes, hoping crocodiles can’t climb stairs and waiting for daylight. With an umbrella for defence.

Morning came, as it does. I was dehydrated, bleary-eyed, sticky with stale sunscreen and sand, and marooned on my dunny fortress until it was safe to depart. With the last of the water I made breakfast of briny porridge and estuarine coffee.

In my haste to pack up I threw my tent’s carbon fibre pole aside and left it behind. For the rest of the hike I pitched my dome tent with two sticks; a wrinkly makeshift reminder of my epic fail.

When I eventually saw yesterday’s companions huffing sociably along the beach after a good night’s rest (their water bottles full and their wine bottles empty) I nearly hugged them out of sheer relief. At the first crystal clear spring, I threw myself on the bank and drank deeply.

My tent pole was never seen again. I can only assume a crocodile took it.

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