We woke up to rain
in the morning, so we did everything we could including packing our bags and
eating breakfast before we got out of the tent.
We decided to take a load of stuff to the trailer while we were waiting
for our water delivery, and put everything, including our packs, inside the
trailer so they wouldn't get wet. When
we opened it up we found a giant huntsman spider - by far the biggest I've seen
since moving to Australia.
Once the bags were
all in, I just went for a quick bathroom break while Ryan went to pack up the
tent, and then we went back to wait by the trailer for our water so we could
start the day. Oh, how wrong we were.
It turns out that
while we had stepped away, our stealth trailer driver had delivered the
water. Finding the trailer unlocked, he
locked it when he left. When we
returned, we realized that the key to the trailer was actually in my pack,
which was inside. We had no idea the
driver had been back, so we assumed the trailer automatically locked when you
shut it. Boy did we feel stupid! Literally the only things we had were my
waterproof camera and our duffle bag with our tent stuff in in. Thinking that our driver was due any minute
to drop off water, we just waited near the trailer for 45 minutes.
You might think that
was stupid, but in Australia, especially remote Australia, no one is ever on
time. Finally we decided to give our
tour company a call to see if they could help us out. Unfortunately we didn't have any phones, so
we went and found a Dutch guy who let me use the internet to find the phone
number, and then call. I left them a
detailed message about what was happening, but sure enough they called the
Dutch guy back an hour later so he came running to find us. By then it was 10:30, we were exhausted and
soaking wet, so we decided that if no one got to us by 11:00 then we wouldn't
do the hike that day. It was only a 5
hour hike (including a solid 2 hours uphill and 2 hours downhill, all inland),
and we didn't like the idea of not finishing the entire hike, but turns out
that it was a good decision. We also
found out later that since it is the worst/most boring section of the hike,
Parks Victoria is actually redirecting it and making it better, so we don't
regret it.
The original plan
had been to meet a driver at the end of the hike that evening where they would
take us to stay at a wilderness retreat for the night. Instead, they picked us up and just took us
there earlier in the day. We were
grateful for a hot shower and a kettle to boil water, and we unpacked our gear
and let it dry by the heater. We thought
that it was going to be an open animal sanctuary, but turns out it was more
like a run-down zoo. Overall it was
disappointing, but we did get to see wombats for the first time in
Australia! They gave us carrots to feed
them, so although we didn't get to see them in the wild, it was definitely
fun. There was also a parrot that
talked, but it sounded exactly like a radio station! I guess it doesn't get much human company to
mimic. The other cool animal were the
giant bats.
We spent the rainy
afternoon playing cards, reading, and cooking our delicious laksa dinner on the
hot plate in the room. We also
reorganized all of our stuff so it would be easier to manage for the last two
days of our hike. We worked out our sore
muscles, and then slept in a real bed by 9pm.
The only downside was that I was up all night blowing my nose because I
was seriously allergic to something in the room...unless I'm allergic to
wombats!
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