Day 66..........Some Days I Could Scream
Could anymore go wrong? That’s was the question I had for the
day.
It all started when the alarm didn’t go off for whatever
reason leaving me a little late to get started for the day and Vickie running
around frantic making breakfast and coffee. We had spent the night in Malcolm
country or rather the Barrington Tops National Park.
It was cold and damp as I started jogging up the track, I
turned to wave Vickie goodbye and noticed the next drama of the day, a flat
tyre on the Mothership.
Looks like running was further going to be delayed, as I
worked this one out. It took a while with a few hiccups, but we did eventually
get back on track literally.
Finally ready to go I was running a little quicker than
normal trying to make up for some lost time both with the alarm and tyre
combination.
5km in and Vickie is parked up the road, she should have
gone for the day, after all she had a big drive to get around the far side of
the Drovers Gap where I would be going through today.
I approached the van to find her on the phone; she had got
reception just in that point and was calling a few people back. I carried on with
my pace wanting to knock at least the first 10km for the day.
Vickie caught me up before I was about to turn off the
management track and be alone for the day. That’s when we had drama number
three. Why do all these things come in threes?
She had just got off the phone to Nick Jacomas the BNT
Chairman, who had just finished a meeting with some private land owners, the same
owners that own part of the Drovers Gap where I was heading. He and George from
Parks NSW had been trying to come to an agreement for the continuation of the
BNT passing through a 500m section of their land. The answer today was no! So,
I had to call it a day and get in the van, just in time as I was just about to
head off road for the day.
So the plan for the day now was to head into the nearby town
of Gloucester, get the spare tyre fixed, head to the laundry and catch up on
emails etc. Then the following day head to the end point of today’s run to pick
up the trail and go on as normal…….until, yep, drama number four, there goes my
in threes theory!
Flat tyre number two. Now this wasn’t going to be as easy as
just changing the wheel as we had used the spare already. So, the first bit of luck
of the day was that we had phone reception so we called a local tyre joint in
town and within 15mins they were sorting our little mess out.
Following the tyre truck back into town to pay I thought that
surely drama number five was going to be the bill for two tyres and a call out
services charge. Nope, it was more than reasonable.
I noticed a FoodWorks store over the road, and me and Vickie
decided that we would try our luck and see if they would like to join the other
sponsors, and help us out with some shopping.
This is where the day completely changed……………….
Innes the owner had been expecting us, he was already on board,
he was just waiting on a call from us to say when we were going to be in town.
If it wasn’t for the private access decision and the flat tyres, we wouldn’t even
be in town!
In brief Innes and his wonderful team at his FoodWorks store
couldn’t have help out more. Our arranged sponsored amount was wavered, he said
that we should make sure we were loaded up on everything no matter what the
cost and make sure we had some treats too.He had the local paper called for an interview the following day and Vickie sorted out the local radio.
He then asked us out for dinner with his family at the local watering hole on him and then to top it all off donated $1000 to SANE Australia.
What was a bad day was turned around completely and we had a great following day in town.
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