The last time was in December. We had planned for months to do the three day walk through Sealer’s Cove, Refuge Cove and Little Waterloo Bay. We arrived on the first day late in the afternoon after spending the morning trying to find a missing kitty then get him into a box then to the Cattery.
The clouds were hanging low and when we arrived we could hear the distant growl of thunder. I looked at Beau. He was busy with my pack. He brought it over to me to place on my back. It started to spit. We had been planning the trip for so long and even bought and borrow gear, so we wanted to go. It was around 3pm when we started the 10km walk to Sealer’s Cove, where we would be spending the night.
The next afternoon we were back at the van. We had been rained out, Beau’s sleeping bag had acted as an extraordinary sponge and collected all the water it could. We had slept under one sleeping bag, opened up. My legs were covered in leeches. My Beau had an injury that looked like a broken ankle on which he had hobbled back with the aid of a stick for the last 3km, including walking straight through a creek in order to avoid balancing on stones. We had offered $100 to complete strangers to go up the track to where the injury happened to recover the 15 kilo pack (containing some borrowed treasured items). We got back cold, wet and tired but ecstatic that we made it back to the car. 40 minutes later the male of the strangers, who had refused our offer due to his bad back and partners pregnancy, walked out of the track entrance wearing the water laden pack. I kow-towed to them several times but they wouldn’t accept money. They said they could see that I wouldn’t be able to get it out on my own. The kindness of strangers.
We packed up the car and cancelled our weeks accomodation at Tidal River so that we could go home. We had warm showers and dried our gear. The ankle was badly strained and Beau went into Physio. A few days later we were working out when we could go back to do the walk properly….
