XPD Australia
Trekking near Mount Mulligan
Geoff Hunt (AR World Series Director) / 24.05.2010
The HQ at Dimbulah is virtually shut down now and has been moved forward to Tinaroo near the end of the course.The helicopter rescue yesterday was for blisters that had been super glued from day one and ended up infected. The other three members of team S.O.A.R are continuing.
We took a walk yesterday back along the trekking route from Mount Mulligan to experience a little of the terrain that the teams are going through. Taking our small rental car along a very dusty Australian bush road as far as possible.(well there are not any roads that are not dusty) We abandoned it at a ford and then continued deep into Branch Creek on foot. The road as such slowly disappeared into cattle tracks which cut across the small headlands as the river winds like a snake through the country.
It was hot and dry - we ended up 6 hours out - and as all the teams have found - longer than planned and ran out of food before getting back. Water in this part of the trek is not a problem because the Branch Creek which has good amount of water in it. Further into the country side the water is somewhat scarcer and over the small range of hills about two thirds through the trek the is none to be found.
The country is covered in eucalyptus, spread evenly across it. It is easy to walk on the tracks, and off them, but of course their is always the speargrass to deal with - we had gaiters and duct taped up feet to cover any little holes. The distance we went from the check point did not get us deep enough to get into the real speargrass country but the teams did not report a great problem with it either.
We encountered two teams. Orion appeared just as we stopped for lunch - tired, with Brent's pack being carried by Marcel,. Brent promptly sat down in the river to cool down. Marcel was timing them for a 15minute stop but by 10 minutes Brent was insisting that they go - and so they disappeared slowly down river. A very short while later Blackheart appeared - looking strong and eager to push on. I did stop Rob long enough to ask his route through the country - and saw from his map that he was direct line travelling as much as possible. They went up and over the small range of hills rather than try and find a way through the gap in them. "easy to go up, but a bit harder to come down', was his comment.See All Event Posts
