My brother, Josh, and I saw lots of exciting and spectacular sights along the way from Sydney to Melbourne in Australia, but one of the sights that also started out pretty badly was our adventure on Baw Baw Mountain. Josh had seen this mountain in his research, and we both wanted to go. It was a ski resort, but during summer there were some nice hiking trails.

The mountain was about 45 minutes out of our way, but we decided it would be worth it, so we put the destination into the navigator and headed over. Once we got to the mountain, the directions took us onto an unpaved road.

Throughout our lives, Josh and I have been to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado many times, and Josh usually drives in them. It’s not ideal, but he can make it work. But neither of us are used to unpaved mountain roads. Also, the road was narrow. On one side of the road was the cliff and on the other side was a drop. It wasn’t super steep, but it was enough to make us a bit nervous. Especially because the drop was on the left side of the road, the side of the road that we were supposed to be driving on. But the road was so narrow that we didn’t know how things would go if we met another car. Josh drove carefully, trying not to imagine what would happen if a car came speeding around one of the many turns. We couldn’t hug the edge, and we didn’t want to with that unguarded drop right there.

Josh labored up that road for 45 minutes? An hour? Two hours? It felt like forever. We never did meet another car, but that also made us nervous. Why were we going to a nice tourist destination without meeting a single other car? I like going to places that aren’t too crowded, but it’s nice to know that we aren’t the only ones going in that direction.

“Do you think it’s open?” I asked.

“I have no idea.” Josh answered. He was focusing more on the road than on what I was saying.

As we drove, I tried to enjoy the beauty of the mountain. Trees covered the mountain, and bright red and blue birds darted by on the trees. When I described the birds to someone later, they told us that it was a Crimson Rosella, and I loved them. They had bright red bodies with blue tails and wings.

I pointed the birds out to Josh, and he all but ignored me. I spent a lot of time praying for safety on that drive.

We finally made it to the parking lot of the ski resort, and it was almost completely deserted. We grabbed our bags, put on some sunscreen and headed out to find a map and try to figure out what was going on.

We finally saw a few people who seemed to be workers, but they ignored us and we ignored them. We found a map, and Josh pointed out the trail that he had read about and we started off in that direction. Things were starting to seem nicer. The trail was clearly marked, and we were on a mountain, and it hadn’t rained, so we should be safe from leeches.

The path went through some short trees that were mostly bare on bottom with clumps of green leaves at the top. They provided adequate shade, and the weather wasn’t too hot. However, before we had gotten very far into the hike, we started to notice bugs buzzing around us. At first, I thought they were flies, but then we realized that they were quite large, and I started to feel like maybe they were bees.

For the next hour, these insects kept buzzing in circles around us, and Josh and I were both a bit unsettled. We’d both been stung by bees before, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. And since these bugs were huge, we were a bit nervous that their bites would cause some serious problems. We tried (rather unsuccessfully) to ignore the buzzing and enjoy the scenery, but every once in a while, the bugs would hit an arm or a hand and remind us with their presence. Not that we could ever forget with the constant, loud buzzing.

We had brought lunch, but we didn’t want to stop and give the bees a chance to land on us. We were also afraid that since our sandwiches had honey on them, that would be irresistible and attract even more bees. So we kept walking, mainly looking for a way off of that miserable mountain. We came to a crossroads with the trails, checked the map, and chose the one that should take us back to the entrance.

We walked and walked, and I wondered why this trail was taking so long. It looked like it should have been a direct shot back, but we were meandering through more and more forests, and there was nothing resembling civilization anywhere around us.

Also, this entire time, we did not run into a single other person. I enjoy a bit of privacy on my hikes, but not seeing any other people usually makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong or perhaps there is a problem that I didn’t know about.

I tried to enjoy the beautiful scenery, but the buzzing kept me moving and stopped me from taking pictures. We passed a lovely picnic table with a beautiful view looking out over the trees on the surrounding hills. I thought about the sandwich in my bag and wished that we could stop and eat. By this time it was well past our usual lunch time, and in addition to being a bit tired, completely put out by these bugs, I was also hungry. But we kept walking.

Finally, we came to a picnic table with a group of folks sitting around it.

“Hello!” We greeted each other.

“Come on over and sit down! Would you like some snacks?” One of the men asked.

“It’s nice to meet you, but we’d better keep moving.” Josh said as we paused on the trail. “We have a bunch of bees following us, and I don’t think you want us to get any closer.”

“Bees? That seems unlikely, are you sure they aren’t flies?”

“Well, I guess we aren’t really sure, but they’ve been flying around us for the past hour or two,” I said.

“If they’re flying around you, then they are most certainly flies because bees don’t do that.”

“Yeah, and there are quite a few flies around here.” Another lady added.

We stayed and chatted for a few minutes, and I felt my anxiety about the flies/bees disappearing in the company of these friendly Australians. We found out that they had retired and enjoyed going on hikes together. Currently they were hiking for a couple of days through these mountains and just happened to be passing this trail for now.

We all decided to keep going, and they put away their tea and snacks. Since we were going in the same direction, we walked together for a while until their path split off in another direction and they pointed us in the direction that we needed to go.

I was still surprised that this short trail was taking so long. Then we found another map that showed where we were. Rather than being nearly to the entrance to the hiking trail like we thought, we were on the far side of the mountain. We had already done most of a loop around the far side of the mountain, We still had a bit less than half of it to go though.

“No wonder this has been taking so long!” I said.

“Yeah, we must have gone in the opposite direction at the crossroads.”

We plotted the remainder of our course, opting to take a couple of short cuts on the trail so that we could get back sooner. However, by now the flies weren’t quite as annoying, and since we knew that they were just flies, my anxiety was considerably lower. Our talk with our new friends had done quite a lot to lift our spirits, and even though we still had a bit to go, I was kind of glad. It was fun to finally be able to enjoy the hike.

I got out my sandwich and ate while we walked. Fortunately, I was not overwhelmed by a swarm of angry bees.

Josh and I enjoyed the rest of our hike although we did still get a bit turned around on our way back. But we knew we were probably headed in the right direction by that point, and we were also enjoying the mountain now. The path took us down the ski slope which was now a beautiful green meadow with lots of daisies.

The hike was not quite what we had anticipated, but isn’t that what most of life is like? I’m glad that we were finally able to enjoy Baw Baw mountain even with all of its flies and confusing trails!