Thx everyone for the weekend.
It will be truly one I will NEVER forget.
We left Friday night about 8 o’clock.
Firstly, my boost gremlin came back half way there.
Only when revs got high enough like 3000rpm would I get some boost but would only peak at 5 psi.
Second, I must have missed big river turn off and didn’t see gps change route.
And told me to turn at a track.
This changed our night.
Got to the bottom of the gully and a giant tree across the road with multiple big branches strewn across the road.
Did a u turn to get out.
But without low down boost, I couldn’t climb an anthill.
With only 1.6km left on this track and 2.7km to camp, I did another u-turn and went back to the tree. To see if there was any way over.
No chain saw. No axe.
Spent the next hour trying to move as much as we can by hand and by winch.
But the big tree trunk would only spring back and couldn’t move the main body of the tree off the road.
This is now midnight cold and heavy drizzle.
I managed to build some tree branch bridges on both sides of the giant tree trunk.
Did a double line pull over the tree, with no boost and no help from the car.
Now we’re over the tree and it’s now 1 AM.
Now to get out of the gully.
Got to the first climb with some momentum and got about 3/4 up and that was it.
No the winching started and again no boost pressure winch was doing all the work.
Winch to the next hump.
Drive up a more and winch to the next hump.
And again and again and again and again.
Winching 8-9 times till we got all the way out and got to camp at 2:30am.
We set up swags and camp had a drink and dinner at 4am.
All that was day one.
With all the fuss that was happening
I failed to SMS Natalie (my wife) that I had made it safe and at the camp site.
Next morning we all got up, had brekkie and hit the tracks about 10am.
No body had reception at camp.
When we got to the top of our first climb, everyone’s phones started beeping with multiple missed calls and message.
Nick was first to get notifications from Natalie to call her urgently, so he did.
He jumps out of the car and comes running to me and Mark ( as I was in his car) and says Natalie is on the phone hurry up come to the phone.
From 2:30 in the morning Natalie has been calling everyone’s number that I gave her.
I had the police trying to contact everyone there.
The police were forming a search party for me and the SES were called to come and find me.
All from the Benalla police precinct which was the only one with officers taking calls.
We’ll it turns out a Heart was found for my transplant.
And the police and SES were out to find me , while Benalla police trying to organise the copper chopper or ambulance chopper to come and get me to take me to the Alfred hospital. But by 10:30 the heart was passed onto the next person, so Natalie had called off the search. She was so good with everything she had tried. But at the same time so worked up having constant panic attacks and super high anxiety which she cannot cope with.
Which has now put a very very somber mood to everyone there.
Which I had total support from all that were there, in which I was thankful.
Thank god Mudski has a motor mouth and constantly trying to have a conversation with me. Cos I wasn’t in a really good way.
We kept going through the tracks and the waterfall at Enoch point and back to camp.
6 hrs and 70km later.
Towards to end of the last hard bit of the tracks , I watched Mudski take it out of 4Low and come to the realisation that I had not been in 4 Low the entire night before.
With low range I may have got more revs earlier to achieve some boost to climb the hills.
Hindsight’s a bitch.
Hayden then cooked me a delicious dinner
With a gourmet Venison leg and loin fillets for all to try with portobello mushrooms and garlic and onions.
The venison was caught the week before.
To finish off, thank you to Nick for all he had done and our hours of conversation regarding our dud hearts.
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