Day
Seven……………….Mountain Rescue!
This morning it was hard for me to leave
the Maui Mother Ship. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go running, I just didn’t
want to go straight the way. Did my body know it was a Saturday Morning and
perhaps just wanted the lie in? I wanted to just laze around sip my coffee and
snuggle under the doona for a little longer, and when it started to rain, I
really just wanted to do all that stuff!
I decided to take the Black Diamond pack,
as it was a little larger and as the weather didn’t know what it wanted to do,
I thought it might be safe to pack my rain gear, as well as some warmer base
layers, as we were now official in the Alpine Country and the wind was chilly.
I plodded down the dirt road waving to
Vickie as I do every morning looking for the turn off to the Australia Alpine
Walking Track. The Garmin beeped and beeped for the turn off, but it was
nowhere to be found. After about 10mins of checking out all the trees for a
track mark, there it was the yellow triangles that mark the route for this
trail. But, there was something not right. It just went in to solid bush no
trail to be had. I followed the map on the Garmin for a while, but it was no
good, it was a real bush bash and I had no idea where I was really going. As I studied
the map, I could see that the track ran parallel with the road I ran down from
last night’s camp and doubled back on itself. So, I decided to go back to the
road run back to the camp and join the Australia Alps Walking Track from a
track that was opposite our camp! The same distance just a long way of doing
it!
Views from Australian Alpine Walking Track
Once on the right track the running was
great, no hard or long climbs, just an undulated trail winding its way through
the beauty of the alpine region. I was knocking off some K’s and putting a lot
of distance away. If the trail stayed like this I could keep this pace up and
finish the day a little early for a change.
I stopped for a sandwich at a cross roads
at about 1pm with only 8km to go I could be done and dusted by 2pm. I left the
main trail and headed down Middle Spur Track. It was one of those tracks that
clearly hadn’t been used for a while and I had to watch my step as I ran
through shrubs that had covered parts of it……and then more parts of it and
then. Before I knew it I had no idea where the track was, but new if I was
following the track on my Garmin then at least I was heading in the right
direction.
After a while I could see that I had been
going around in a circle, as my Garmin struggled to get a signal through the
mass of growth. So which way was a supposed to be going? I tried getting a
signal without much luck and decided that I would head down the side of the
spur as that is where I thought I should be going and it would take me to a
river which is always a better place to be if you’re a little lost.
I made it half way down the spur through
the rich bush growth, tripping, Sliding falling and bashing myself up, before
the steep downhill became a 100m cliff face! I had no way of getting down from
here, but it gave me a view of the river and the road below where I needed to
be. But how the hell was I going to get down from here?
More tripping, bashing and getting
whipped and cut by shrubs and bushes, I couldn’t see a thing for thick bush. I
thought of those Sunday afternoon documentaries where people go missing when
taking a hiking trip, and as much as I want to get a lot of media attention for
Run BNT, I didn’t want it in the form of a helicopter evacuation on Day Seven
of a 5.5 month run!
Calm Richard, think about this, I just
needed to follow that little line on my mapping device, 3 hours of bush
bashing, bleeding from cuts and slashes I made the river. For three hours today
I covered less than 3km, doubling back on myself and in fear that I might just
have to push that big red button on my Spot Tracker GPS safety device! That
really was the worst thing that could happen, I would just have to sit tight in
the bush for a few hours before, and hopefully somebody came to the rescue. It
was funny that I decided to take the big pack with a few extras this morning,
luckily I didn’t need to use them, but it goes to show just how easy it is to
get yourself in a pickle in this part of Australia!
I ran through the river up on to the road
and gave out a big YES, then turned around and gave the mountain a big V sign,
as if to say, “is that all you’ve got”
Just a 4km run up the dirt road to get to
the finishing and the meeting point for the day. I met a couple of four-wheel
drivers on the way back, looks like Vickie had been worried and was getting
everybody to look out for me.
Over dinner tonight I found that she had
a bit of a day herself, but I leave it up to hear to tell you about that one!
Day seven, nearly became Day Mountain
Rescue, but finished as Day Seven Happy to be back in the Maui, with another
story to tell the grandkids!