|
|
Just clambered into our PAC tent, 7:20 pm, at the end of Day 33. There was a moment today when this moment could have been rather different - somewhat colder and less homely - but we'll get to that later. We managed a spirited 7.68km today (as-the-pack-rolls, shown on our modified bike computer we call the PAC-o-meter). To our great joy, just managed to reach the start of an esker (An Esker is where a river used to flow underneath a glacier, and now the glacier has long since melted, all you're left with is a raised gravel riverbed that makes for good hauling.), which we have long been staring at longingly on our map. Reaching this esker means we have crossed the last contour-line on our topo map, meaning there can't be any serious hills left between us and the Kuujjua anymore! Not only that, but the first little stream that flows into the Kuujjua is now only 6.4km away! After that, logic and gravity tell us that it must all be down hill! That means we have survived the mountains and got up onto the plateau, with one, two, three, yes, four tires! Who'd have thunk it?! (OK, we're not quite at the Kuujjua yet, but we've done the hard bit now.).
So this morning we were faced with scaling another snow-clad mountain side, which as we hauled towards it, shrank in scale down to a mere hill-side, and then, just a 15-min snow slope. Love it when that happens out here - all sense of scale is totally out the window. Nut break at the top and then sloshed onwards through this world of mud. Clocked up a few more uneventful km, and then had our second nut break at which time we put another bandage / tourniquet on one of our ragged tire covers, and set off once more, now heading down a steep valley towards a forked river crossing. We unharnessed and walked to the back of the PAC and helped ease it down the hill for a second or so, before I suddenly froze. "Clark! Where's our tent?" We both stared in horror at the vacant place in the middle of our PAC where our tent lives by day, folded up with poles still inside just the hoop ends folded inwards overlapping each other into a neat parcel, tied down inside a tarp, with our sleeping bags, thermarests etc all inside it. It wasn't there. We turned around and gazed back behind us across the endless rolling expanse of nothing. It wasn't anywhere to be seen. The wind has been blowing like stink here today, and somehow while hauling, it must have undone itself and been bodily blown (and/or perhaps bounced off over a bump?) onto the ground, somewhere between, well, last nights camp, and where we now stood, rooted to the ground in dismay. I don't need to explain how serious it could be to find ourselves out here without a tent or sleeping bags, and we at once slung a shotgun over our shoulder, grabbed the GPS, put in a waypoint marking where our PAC was now so we could find them again, grabbed spare set of batteries for the GPS, a satellite phone, EPIRB, camera, video camera, and a square of chocolate, and started walking back the way we'd come.
for once, we appreciated the mud. Our footsteps were not hard to trace, and after passing our nut-break #2 spot and still no sign of it, our mind was racing, and the idiocy of it was well and truely rammed home. How could we not have noticed it was gone? Fools! we kept walking. Over more hills. Then Clark spotted it - the big blue tarp-wrapped package, 1.5m x 1.5m sitting like an abandoned airdrop. We let out a whoop of relief and sloshed over to it, and began the arduous job of heaving this enormous 'sail' back the 1 km to our PACs in the howling wind. Replacing it back onto the hard-top, we lashed it down extra securely and promised ourselves that nothing like this would ever happen again. It remains a mystery how it managed to escape, and the bent tent pole implies the back wheels must have actually driven right over it as it fell off too. Ridiculous. Foiled yet again Victoria Island!
After thoroughly reprimanding ourselves and double checking everything else was still securely lashed down, we continued our lowering decent into the river valley, stopping at the bank of what turned out to be a rather fast flowing body of water. We bit the bullet and pushed into the flow, leaping aboard when floating and punting and paddling like mad against the wind in an effort to get across while being whisked downstream. First attempt wasn't as successful as we'd have liked, and we leapt back out, blown back against our original bank. We tried again, and this time dug with all our might into our paddles and inched our way across, leaping out and hauling free the instant the wheels bottomed-out on the far side. If only it was the Kuujjua and all we needed to do was try and stay in the river rather than cross it! On the bright side, seems our newly narrowed PAC (much more hydronamic, well, maybe not heaps), seems stable and, well, works just as well as before we put it on the diet.
So, another successful and to another successful day. Getting closer!
Hey - we have just uploaded the second of our Photo Caption Competitions! Take a peek at the 'Competitions' page on our site, and think of a good / humorous caption to the photo and submit it to us. We're looking forward to some more laughs and to giving away a years subscription to the Australian Geographic Magazine to the best one - we'll likely leave the competition running for about 9 or 10 days. Go for it! Don’t forget we still have three other comps running, the art, music and video-clip compositions!
  
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!
|
