1000HourDay.com [visit 2005 site]

Now that we've had a chance to rest, relax and even slightly recover here on the most westerly tip of Victoria Island, I've finally pulled out my trusty little Eee PC to fill you in on those last few kilometers. We are SO happy to be here.

So we woke yesterday with only 9km still to go. Having hauled late into the night, we'd only got to bed around 2:30 am and we were still mentally and physically shattered in the morning. It was still raining, the world around us still veiled in thick fog, and everything was even more wet than it was the day before. Still, the lure of the far side pushed all this from our minds as we prepared for what we so desperately hoped would be our last day of hauling. That's the thing, even being SO close, we knew we still couldn't take it for granted, and so we were forever having to stick on a 'hopefully' or a 'if we're lucky', 'maybe', 'might', onto the end of every potentially motivating thought or comment, and while this frustratingly ate away at us as it has done for weeks, it now also spurred us on. "We have to get there," we gritted our teeth, "and then it will be done. Then there will be no more ifs, and nothing, no matter what, will ever be able to take that away from us."

We wrung thick brown, putrid water from our socks, and squeezed on our hiking boots for the last time 'hopefully', folded up the sopping bundle that was our tent and sleeping bags and wrapped it in the blue tarp as usual and lashed it down to the top of the PAC, packed up our bear alarm and set off.

It was a good thing that we stopped when we did the night before, as negotiating the PAC down into the last steep river valley was a technical maneuver, and only as the fog slowly lifted were we able to orchestrate a practical, safe decent. Our spirits rose with the fog, and soon after the rain also cleared as we began power-hauling up the face of the last real hill, making excellent progress, despite our wheels now rasping and grating on the edges of the hard top, great flapping folds of kevlar slapping and catching on things as the covers gradually gave up the ghost. With about 7km to go, we watched three muskox come around the base of the hill and then start charging up the hill directly for us still hundreds of meters away. We stopped. "That's weird..." I commented, as they continued thundering towards us. We both unshackled, went and hid behind our cameras and waited. Typical, we thought, bet our PAC is going to be trampled and destroyed by a herd of rampaging muskox on the very last hill. It wouldn't have surprised us if they did, "or, if they fail," I laughed, "I bet a whole set of tornadoes will descend from the clouds and churn their way towards us as we dodge and scramble to touch that far side." However, with about 75m before impact, the big bull pimp muskox leading the charge of his two devout followers suddenly became aware of our presence and awkwardly slammed on the brakes, whirled around retreated a bit before swinging back to face us again, trying hard to maintain an air of nonchalance, without success. "How embarrassing." We both laughed and hauled onwards.

The top of our very last serious hill came easier than expected, and as we drew up to the crest, we could see the skyline falling further and further away behind it into an open expanse of... nothing. There were, for once, no more hills behind it, just that same grey blanket of cloud. At the very top, we could finally see down the other side, we both exulted at the view we have been imagining and dreaming of for, well four years, since we started in 2005. Dead ahead we could see in the distance, hazy as it was through wisps of fog, the west coast of Victoria Island, the funny wedge-shaped lake right on the shore, and slightly to the north of it, that little round lake... it was all down there, about 4km in front of us. We decided this was as good a place as any to have lunch, and just before we took our first bite, the fog dropped like a curtain all around us and visibility once again dropped to within one hundred meters. We just shook our heads, shook our fists in the air, and couldn't help but laugh at the comic injustice of it all.

Down we went, and onto the flat coastal plain. The fog shielded us from any useful landmarks to aim for, so anyone who was watching those final (wonky?) legs of green line appear on our live tracker map, that's our excuse and we're sticking to it. By this stage Victoria Island was clearly wracking it’s brains to try and come up with some final obstacles to fling at us, and we found ourselves hauling over some ludicrous spongy moss ledges, faced with tiny little rivers that were just the right width to swallow a PAC wheel yet infinitely deep, small lakes that would spring up on either side of us at once and force us through their sloppy, weedy bottleneck in-between, and little muddy cliffs that we had to walk around. Despite all the odds though, the km kept reducing, and we could still see nothing ahead. We had long imagined this final sprint across the coastal plain, the sparkling blue ocean ahead, clear blue skies, a nice gradual ramp to the coast. Ha ha. Sure. Whatever.

With only ONE km to go, I put the GPS around my neck to guide us inwards, determinedly following the little arrow into the fog as the excitement, and tension, mounted. "We're almost there!!!" We kept repeating this, and various variations on the theme, as we flung ourselves into the harness with all the energy we had left. So close. So excited. We could now hear the ocean thundering on the shore, and smell the salt in the air. With just under 500m to go, just as we were about to pull out the video cameras to capture the last (foggy) minutes, in a superb display of poor sportsmanship, Victoria Island parted the heavens and unleashed pouring rain down upon us. We flung on our Gore-Tex® and resolutely marched onwards, with an ever widening grin spreading across our faces. "We're going to get there!".. pause.. "Hopefully". 250m.... 100m... the end was now drifting in and out of view through the billowing fog. But it looked a bit odd. We hauled onwards, the surf in our ears, a stupid smile on our faces, "50m!!" and then we stopped. "The ocean looks... rather a long way down... doesn't it.." I said quietly. It certainly did. We unclipped and walked tentatively forward, our disbelieving gaze following the edge of the ocean downwards as we advanced towards the edge of... a cliff. A 10m cliff. Right at our end point... stretching in both directions as far as we could see, a 10m drop, flattening out to a narrow, pebbly, rock-strewn coastline - our end point - below.

"Now COME ON!!!" Exasperated, we threw a mock tantrum, water beading and flinging off us as we vented our frustration, and then at last, we stood there, looking at each other in the rain, wet through, not wanting to move a muscle from our semi-hunched position else wet fabric would adhere to our clammy skin, and we, again, laughed at ourselves. What else could we do? =)

The three of us started this trip together, Clark and I, and the PAC, and all three of us were going to finish it. There was no question about it, the PAC, good ol' HMAS Nugget, was going to celebrate as we were, standing in the waves of the ocean. The trick was how to get it down there (and back up!).

There was an unlikely gulley running down to the shore nearby, a near 45 degree slope comprised solely of boulders. This would have to do. We unloaded some of the heavier items, set the video camera up, and began lowering the PAC down this boulder-avalanche-chute-of-death. The thing was, even if we broke all our legs, and tumbled downwards, even if we both had heart attacks, or if Victoria Island struck us both simultaneously with lightning (wouldn't put it past it), it didn't matter anymore, because no matter what, we were now assured of reaching the far side, even if we fell the last handful of meters. This sense of inescapable success kicked off our euphoric mood, and the PAC also seemed rather eager to get to the water, and in the end we were more kinda holding onto it rather than lowering it, as the wheels finally scrunched onto the pebbles and burst against an incoming wave.

We'd done it. We were standing in the water, on the most extreme westerly tip of Victoria Island after 70 days out here (128 days if you count the 58 in 2005, wow, that's more than a third of a year), not only with the PAC, but with all four wheels. We could not believe it. Those carbon/Kevlar composite rims - utterly unbelievable. We put those rims through HELL - far, far outside the design loads we specified to the guys at EMP Composites, slamming sideways into rocks down rapids, bouncing off huge boulders where the carts 500kgs lurched onto a single corner of a single rim and so on - and they got us here, all four of them. Beaten up and feeling sorry for themselves, but unbelievably, still in the same number of pieces. Damn fine work guys, and what an amazing material to work with. We would not have made it very far without these wheels.

It was pretty cool to think that three years ago in 2005 we were standing across the other side of this, the ninth largest island on the planet, about to try and walk across it at it's widest point, with virtually no idea of what we'd face. And now we were here... It's been a long held dream, and it's become our lives. All the many things we've learnt, seen, feared, overcome, enjoyed and experienced between these two coastlines since Clark was 21 and I was 22, has made us who we are - set our personality, taught us what to value, how to endure and enjoy, and has formed one hell of a friendship between Clark and I.

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We had to wait a while down the bottom of the cliff for the rain to ease enough to grab some photos of the 'belated' moment, and then we harnessed back up for the last time 'definitely' and grunted our way back up the boulder-avalanche-chute-of-death to the flat, grassy tundra top, where we set up camp, as the rain set in again.

We enjoyed a celebratory mug of coffee (our last coffee ration left!), and dug into various other rations at random, not that we were particularly hungry, but just because we could. It was awesome.

As the rain continued to rain on our parade, Clark had the ingenious idea to set up one of the little blue tarps as a shelter out from the side of the tent, propped up by our two paddles (The tent was just too wet and manky to crawl into without totally killing the mood). We ate a few blocks of chocolate (yes, as opposed to 'squares' of chocolate), and then after a brief wander along the shoreline we came back and enjoyed our final backcountry Cuisine 'Mexican Chicken' dehydrated meal that we had been saving for this moment. Oh..So..Good!!!

We endured the manky tent just long enough to check our email and absorb all the squillions of warming messages that you've all been sending us over the last few days, and then, feeling at last, content and secretly rather proud, we unwound the protective bubble-wrap from around our tiny little hotel-sized bottle of Grand Marnier liqueur that we lugged all this way, just as we did at the end point of our 2005 trip. And, just as it did back then, having not had a drink in SO long, and having next to no body-fat left (we shall remedy both of these issues in Vancouver), we both felt the effects of sharing this microscopic bottle. Good times. Good times. And still it rained. "Do your worst Vic Is!" We jeered merrily, "You're too late. We got there."

Lets re-adjust the scores now:

Victoria Island: 0 Clark & Chris: 1


Just before going to sleep, we gave our man in Holman a call to see if he had any news about if we were ever likely to get a pickup or if we'd be stuck here forever (as was seeming increasingly the case), and to our delight, he had some good news for us. "Call Pat" Kenneth said, "He has the biggest boat in Holman. He will come and get you." I did just that, and the conversation unfolded like a dream. "Oh yes, sure. No problems. Yes." "The weather's a bit bad at the moment... but it's improving tonight (such good news) ... won't take long to get to you in my boat... I have a GPS and sat phone... two people and 300kgs of gear? That's no problem... Fine. Ok then. Call me whenever you like for weather updates, and as soon as we can, we'll come and get you. How was the trip?"

Even the clammy insides of our sleeping bags couldn’t dampen our spirits last night as we sank into an exhausted, thoroughly contented, sleep.

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We woke this morning at an arbitrary time, and have been eating an arbitrary amount of food from then on, waiting for the weather to clear. It's still fog and raining on and off, but it seems to, on the whole, at last be clearing. Our PAC, with it's little side-tarp looks every bit like a little mobile coffee cart / hot food stall, and we've been using it as such. We've emptied the tent to let it air and dry, and I just awoke from a 'tundra-nap', sleeping bag directly on the ground feeling snug, dry, and enjoying the wind on my face. Clark is deep asleep out there now, and I’ve nipped in here to write the update. Ever since we got here, and finished our various reaching-the-end jobs, both of us have just collapsed. Our bodies, it seems, have been far more drained than we realised. Rest assured we have the bear alarm up, and are not becoming complacent.

We've added up the 'PAC-o-meter' as-the-pac-rolls daily distances, and we did indeed travel almost exactly 700km on this trip, added to the torturous 300-ish km in 2005 brings us to the total of about 1,000km.

Just one final thing we really want to say before we wrap this thing up... Getting all the messages and emails from all of you, every night without fail, has been such an important part of the trip for us, and being able to share some of the experience has been fantastic. Thank you so much to everyone who has sent us messages of support/humor/news/comments/questions/whatever, we really appreciate it. Being able to do all this emailing and updates and photos etc from here in the middle of the arctic has been no small achievement, made possible solely by our awesome little lightweight, Victoria-island-proof comms setup: Our flawless little 'Eee PC' from ASUS, running the brilliant satellite email program 'xGate' from Global Marine Networks, connected up to an Iridium 9505A Satellite Phone from Landwide Satellite Solutions. That's all you need - the ultimate in go-anywhere internet. THANK YOU so much to those three sponsors! Go and click on their weblinks, buy things from them, and make them happy. The other 'awesome' techy element of the trip was of course our real-time tracking system - just a little waterproof box we lashed to the side of the PAC - which has turned this journey literally into a spectator sport, with people clicking and zooming in to watch our little green marker line inch pathetically slowly across the island. This tracker too, was loaned to us from 'Global Marine Networks'.

As you all know, the only way Clark and I could ever afford a trip like this is through 100% sponsorship, and as sponsor dollars come primarily from marketing budgets, I'm sure you will all have noticed our little brand-name plugs from time to time, and while it can give a little bit of a corporate or tacky feel to some sentences, I appreciate your patience with it and us for squeezing them in, it's all part of the game. Thank you. So once again for old times sake: Go to iiNet for your internet, accessed of course wirelessly through your ASUS Eee PC, make sure your wet weather gear and boots are made from the world's most waterproof, breathable and windproof fabric (that'd be GORE-TEX®), and while you're heading into town to buy them (and all your other outdoor gear) at Paddy Pallin, read through an issue of Australian Geographic, making sure you don't arrive too late, by checking the time on your official timepiece of the iiNet 1000 Hour Day Expedition, your Citizen EcoDrive Technology Aqualand watch. Ok? And of course thanks to all our other sponsors, friends and family - anyone and everyone who helped us live our dream.

Thanks guys.

We'll let you know if/when we get to Holman.

Meanwhile, you guys get back to work, and we'll get back to eating and sleeping, and looking for a place where a boat can come ashore. =)
Cheers.

Chris & Clark, over and out.

P.S. Make sure if you haven’t already, that you add your email addr to our subscriber list, so we can let you know when we finish the book and doco etc =)

Our live expedition updates are written on our tiny ASUS Eee PC 900 laptops, and sent via Iridium 9505A satellite phones from Landwide Satellite Solutions, using email compression software xGate from Global mareine Networks! Thanks guys - it's the perfect set up!