DAY 21 – CABRAMURRA TO COOMA – ANTARCTIC WEATHER, CHASED BY GIANT WOMBATS AND BEST INN EVER…

NIGHT FROM AN ANTARCTIC HELL INCLUDING BEING HUNTED BY GIANT WOMBATS.

The magic “Willy Maykit” moving dot you see that gives us critical knowledge of Willy’s whereabouts is due to a tracking device called the Spot Gen3.

Aside from satellite tracking, it has three communication buttons – SOS, Check-in and then an option to set a custom message based on your needs or type of adventure…

E.G. “Stopping to do #2’s now”

…or whatever other activity that takes a chunk of time.

It’s so emergency contacts/ dot watchers don’t worry if they see the dot suddenly stop for a while without any explanation.

Just after posting yesterday’s update, I got a spot tracker ‘custom message’ sent.

No details. Just the default…

” Spot Gen3 ll=-36.05740,148.24440 This is the default CUSTOM message. Please update.”

No phone reception to check why he pressed the ‘custom message’ button.

And because we didn’t think he’d need any more than the “SOS” and the “Check In” button (checking in for the night), we never actually changed the custom message settings.

Silly. Rookie mistake.

If you’re thinking of doing IPWR do not forget to do this.

Why did he push that button?

I’m not gonna sugar coat.

Complete panic mode.

Did he mean to press SOS instead?

Is he OK?

I knew the conditions were terrible and last we spoke he said the rain was that bad the drops felt like sharp bits of freezing hail doing their best to perforate his face.

I just had to wait.

The dot just sat there for about 30mins.

It even sank to the bottom of the dot watcher graph.

And my heart sank with it.

Finally, I could see it moving again – creeping closer to Cabramurra.

A nothing and “nobody here” place.

Freezing. Windy. Wet. Raining. Cold. Alone.

It’s not where he wanted to stay last night.

It means probably one more day in the saddle.

But who cares.

At least he had somewhere to shelter.

And he was safe.

Well – so long as the giant wombats he encountered did not consider him an easy meal.

True Story.

“The size of Ginny almost”.

(Our Bullmastiff)

While traversing up the great big mountain in the dark last night to Cabramurra,  wombats – very big hairy wombats – came onto the icey road out of nowhere.

So the scene – pouring with cold, thick rain, grinding uphill with a big hairy family keen to get a little too familiar with Mr Maykit.

About five of them all up that he could see.

Willy could hear their claws clawing into the bitumen while they chased his bike light to nowhere.

No pictorial evidence.

This may well have been a figment of his delirium.

Needing piccies for this I thought I’d do a lil research to see if he was exaggerating.

Giant wombats. Yeah right.

Turns out “giant” wombats are renowned in them there parts.

PROOF: REFERENCE HERE. 

Good news now is he made it to Cooma around 2pm and has the best hosts ever, Julie and Gareth, at the Kinross Inn, looking after him.

Rest time now.

Not a scary wombat in sight.

Let’s just see what tomorrow brings.

But I’m guesstimating a late Sunday/Monday arrival.

Bags packed. Sydney tomorrow.

Can. Not. Wait.

Whoooo.