Hinchinbrook Is: the 1st ascent of The Thumb, 1953

One of the last sought-after unclimbed summits in Australia in 1952 lay just off the north Queensland coast on Hinchinbrook Island—the Thumb, a granite monolith high on a ridge of the Mt Bowen massif. In August that year, John Bechervaise led a team of schoolboys to the island on an Australian Geographical Society-sponsored trip, reaching 100 metres below the summit. In January 1953, a team from the University of Queensland Bushwalking Club stepped off the train at Ingham with the prize firmly fixed in their eye—Jon Stephenson, John Comino, Geoff Broadbent, Dave Stewart and Ian McLeod (pictured). Taking advantage of the track cut by the Bechervaise expedition, they made fast time and were soon confronted by the last great problem—climbing the cliff leading to the top of the Thumb. John Comino recalls:

I was going to take a flying leap at it but they said, “No! No! Don’t be silly”, or something. And dissuaded me from jumping across. It was about [1.5 metres] away and dropped away to nothing but I reckon I could have taken a running jump…woomph!…and stuck. I suppose that would have been foolish but I was quite confident I could do it, so I expected I would have. They dissuaded me from doing that. So we went around to the left…We must have had a rope because I helped the others up. It was a very open chimney, if that. A bit of muck had to scraped away and some vegetation. I ended up standing on Steve’s [Jon Stephenson’s] shoulders and getting the rubbish scraped away. It was fairly easy but required a little bit of gymnastics.

Once above the first difficult section of the cliff, Comino recalls they could see the summit looming above them in the sweltering tropical sky:

From here there proved to be an easy climb, without packs, to the top of the Thumb, and a cairn was built and capped with a three inch diameter quartz crystal we found lower down the ridge and brought up for just such an occasion. A magnificent view to the south stretched before us, down to Zoe Bay, flanked by its lush green low lying jungle, dissected by clear streams, and bordered by drowned mountain ranges.

And a feeling of exultation on top? ‘Nuh!’ Comino admitted, ‘we just wanted to drink some water!’ Within a few days, they got their wish with the arrival of the ‘wet’ and found themselves wading through swollen creeks as they made their way back to the ferry pick-up point, looking over their shoulders for floating logs with sets of eyes in them.

Picture: John Comino collection.