11 June, 2015. 12:06
ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A PACK A day smoker has saved the lives of his bushwalking troop after the group became lost during a hike in the Nadgee Nature Reserve, near Eden on the NSW far south coast.
The party became disoriented and strayed off the Green Cape Track at around sundown last night.
Overnight temperatures in the area began to plummet once the sun went down, but they were saved by the only man who had a lighter.
Lauded this morning for his humdrum heroism, Ralph McQuinyst said that they’d all be dead if he didn’t start smoking again after his half-arsed attempt last year.
It’s understood by authorities that the group was saved by McQuinyst’s odious bush knowledge and filthy habit.
“It started getting real cold when the sun went down,” said the 24-year-old Brisbane solicitor.
“But my biggest concern was only having half a pack left for the next day,”
“Hiking is very stressful for people who don’t enjoy nature.”
In a rather predictable twist of fate, Mr McQuinyst was originally ostracised by the group for insisting on smoking during the hike. They soon began to warm up to him once he’d built a fire that evening.
Mr McQuinyst said that he never wanted to go on the “stupid fucking hike” in the first place, citing his experiences on school cadet camps as reason why he knew he didn’t enjoy nature.
“Yeah look. I did a shit load of hiking as a schoolboy and I hated every second of it,” he said.
“But it was a good excuse to have a few bungas with the boys in the bush,”
“Other than that, the 5am wake ups and walking up steep things really killed it for me.”
McQuinyst was effectively blackmailed in to going on the “eco-hike” by his civil partner Ashton Veganoff, after “getting heavily intoxicated and making a scene at his mother-in-law’s 49th birthday”.
“Ash said the hike was going to ‘save’ our relationship,” said Ralph.
“So we flew down to the arsehole of New South Wales for this thing, spent a fucking fortune and almost froze to death,”
“Never again. I’m going to give this eco-hike bullshit a terrible review on TripAdvisor.”
