"Sometimes it was as if his beauty created an invisible barrier between himself and the rest of the world, a window through which every admiring glance was somehow magnified, and viewed with a mixture of of gratitude and suspicion. Was it just his imagination, or did people look at him as if they were expecting to hate him, as if they were somehow torn between marvelling at his looks and resenting his good fortune at having been blessed with more than his fair share of them? And even when they were throwing themselves at him, was it him they really wanted, or just a taste of what it would be like to possess such rare physical gifts, preferably for a few hours and without sparing a thought for the person behind the perfectly formed image? It wasn't even as if he could rely on his looks for ever. He might only have been 23, but there were times when he feared that his days of being desired were rapidly running out."
Paul Burston.
I was the son of a pilot. Flying overhead, shrinking into seats, gazing silently out of windows, it was all part and parcel. Looking longingly down on remote, secret valleys no one could possibly find by foot, without roads, only donkey access, or in more recent cases, landing on remote Australian land strips, finding houses where we could live safely and unterrorised for the rest of our days. These places, other people's comfortable lives, the swooping of entry, outside eyes, this sort of remote but accessible comfort was what I had expected to find at Henry's.
When he told me of his house, I could see it glowing with all the polished rainforest woods of the area, the veranda on the side of the hill, the hippies up the road grinding their own bread and the perfect valley spread out below. So that it was impossible to imagine why the rest of the world didn't want to be here. There wasn't much room, he had warned me, so I imagined I would have to sleep on this very same veranda, and wake up to watch the mist clearing from the thick, rich green grass into the vivid greens of the lilli pillis. For a start, I got the location completely wrong. It wasn't 20 minutes out of Lismore at all; but what seemed like hours away, down towards Grafton.
I followed him and followed him; on that Casino Grafton road, notable for how flat and straight the road was; and how little was on it. Once past the first couple of settlements, imagine living there, my God you'd die of boredom, we drove and drove. Reluctant to let go of preconceptions, my spirits remained high. We'd become alone, as the years passed, but there was always company; and Henry was certainly that. Finally, 80 ks from the last signs of habitation, we pulled off the road, into that great brooding silence with nothing but the screech of the cicadas and the freakish gloom of the enveloping trees. There was no sign to mark the turnoff from the main highway; no sign of the friendly hippies up the road; indeed no sign of anything but the forest I had always driven through as fast as possible; afraid, if I stopped, that some forest evil would attack, and not just physically.
You couldn't come back from these sorts of landscapes. The evil that lived in them was unrelenting; unforgiving, cruel by it's very nature. This was a place I never even stopped for a quick piss by the side of the road, for fear of what would happen. And here I was, threading down the path, following Henry's clapped out car. At least it would be good to get to the house, I had assumed, even though he had warned me that the accommodation was basic.
THE BIGGER STORY:
I met Edmund Hillary's son once, on that ancient sadhu trek in the beautiful mountains north of Risshikesh; and there were intense conversations in that remote place; as we appeared equally delighted to meet someone who spoke English.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10486546
A mighty mountain of a man
It is a long-held mountaineering axiom that when you reach the summit you are only halfway there. Sir Edmund Percival Hillary, KBE, ONZ, KG, climber, humanitarian and national icon, reached the summit of Mt Everest on May 29, 1953, and spent the remainder of a remarkable life completing the climb.
As his biographer, Alexa Johnston, wrote, the 15 minutes that Hillary spent on the roof of the world became the defining moment of his life. He would never escape the effects of that particular dream coming true. Nor would he try to.
Hillary, with the understatement that marked his life and his greatness, would be the first to suggest he owed that moment to being in the right place at the right time.
He was never a technical mountaineer. His forte was formidable strength, energy, stamina and determination. His skills lay in forcing a route through snow and ice, skills forged mainly over a handful of years in the Mt Cook region on holidays snatched between the commitments of harvesting honey and often, of necessity, with a mountain guide as a climbing partner.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/the-first-man-on-everest-has-died-at-88/2008/01/11/1199988590405.html
Tributes flow for Edmund Hillary
John Henzell in Christchurch
January 12, 2008
ON A quiet and bitterly cold night in July 2003 Sir Edmund Hillary attended his own wake with a group of other climbers in the place where his mountaineering dream began.
The former New Zealand Alpine Club president Dave Bamford said the climbers knew Hillary's passing would become a global event, as it did yesterday after he died in Auckland City Hospital, aged 88. So they decided to hold their own remembrance ahead of time for the man who, with Tenzing Norgay, was the first to conquer Everest in 1953.
And if they were going to speak about Hillary's achievements, it seemed only fair that "the old bugger" was there to hear it. "Ed was quite matter-of-fact about it. He was very pragmatic."
Every mountaineering function involving Hillary in the past few years had been "one to savour and enjoy" rather than waiting for a respectful and crowded wake.
"Then it will be New Zealand and the world remembering
Ed, rather than a group of mountaineers who have a long history of time in the back country with him," Mr Bamford said.
And so it was yesterday. New Zealand's Prime Minister, Helen Clark, called Hillary "a quintessential Kiwi".
"Sir Ed described himself as an average New Zealander with modest abilities," Miss Clark said. "In reality, he was a colossus. He was a heroic figure who not only 'knocked off' Everest but lived a life of determination, humility, and generosity. He is the best-known New Zealander ever to have lived."
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