Distance: a few km?
Music: The Be Good Tanyas – Waiting Around to Die
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.William Earnest Henley – Invictus
The helicopter hovers a foot off the ground, disgorges two blokes with trauma bags, then files off again to circle. They do some cursory checks, note that I’m cogent and walking, grab my bag, and brief me on getting into a hovering chopper. I also get a nice compliment on how light my pack is. I don’t mention that part of that is because I’m wearing almost all my clothes as well as my rain gear.
Ambo 1: “Were gonna take you to Royal Hobart and get your head checked”
Dramatic beat.
Ambo 2: “I don’t think you phrased that right. We’re not taking him for a psych evaluation”
Ambo 1: “Yeah, I meant medically. I reckon anybody who’s hiking up here probably has their head screwed on right”
I’m warned that I might want to cover my ears. The chopper returns, hovers just off the ground, and we get in. I sit on a stretcher.
After a half hour helicopter ride (the amazing novelty of which was unfortunately lost on me) with some awesome and friendly guys and gals in jump suits, I arrive at Hobart hospital. The pilots mention that the head lamp (a suggestion of the guy from Ambulance Tas) made it really easy to spot me. After a brief reaction check, I sit in the waiting room with my hiking pack until 3am.
Perhaps they were worried I had a concussion and this was their way of making sure I didn’t fall asleep. It’s fine. I have infinite patience for our fantastic hospital system. I manage to catch a scrap of sleep sitting up once they move me to a bay.
Finally the doc checks me over and gives me a CT scan. Then she cleans me up and gives me two dissolving sutures with steristrips on top. I ask if steristrips alone would have done the trick, since I have them in my first aid kit and would have used them. She said no; it would have kept opening and bleeding. Something about an artery. This kinda checks out; in the waiting room a couple of small facial movements had fresh blood running down my face. Without physical therapy I might never wink lasciviously again.
She also wants me to rest the knee for two days. Fine.
I’m already looking at maps and transport options. Plus there’s a hole in my tarp I need to fix.
I finally get out of hospital around 9:30am and wander, blinking, into the streets of Hobart. I stop in at Paddy Palin for some repair tape, the chemist for some ibuprofen and voltarin to ease the inflammation in my knee, then wander up the hill to the home of my wonderful cousin Toby and his lovely finance Maria. They fix me a plate and let me use their shower (perhaps more for their benefit than mine).
On the balcony I unpack my hastily crammed bag, then sort, check and repack it all. The tarp hole I clean with alcohol swabs, then apply a patch to each side. These are designed for use with silicone impregnated fabrics, but I have my doubts about how well they’ll work. I’ll carry a tube of SilNet just in case I need to do a field repair.
I am distinctly aware that I’m trying to make plans on an hour or two of sleep, after a big day’s exertion, with a head wound. I’m not at all confident in my decision making capabilities.
Choosing to trust the advice of others, I’m going to give myself today and tomorrow to rest. Wednesday I’ll make my way back up to Derwent Bridge, and resume from there. I’ll walk east of Lake King William, with roughly 90km to Richea Ck carpark at the start of the Rasselas track into Lake Rhona. This should be a bit of rough fire trail, about 5km of the Lyell Highway, and mostly minor roads and dirt roads through forestry areas. That will give me a fairly gentle ramp back into the hike, and I should end up not terribly far behind on my somewhat forgiving schedule.
I go for a little walk later in the afternoon. Hobart is lousy with outdoor shops, and I don’t mind a browse. I feel like my knee benefits a little from walking without stress or strain. I pick up two more days of hiking food from woolies. There is no Aldi in Tasmania.
Hobart is a great city. A generous dose of Sydney or Adelaide sandstone heritage, a twist of Canberra modern public spaces, a shake of Queenstown NZs adventure culture, a pinch of dropout hippie, and for some reason that escapes me, from the back of the cupboard, a fistful of expired-in-2006 but still vibrant alternative punk and goth spice.
Tuesday 17th:
A good night of sleep has done me wonders. I’m itching to get back out, but the wise course of action is to give my knee and head a full day of proper rest.
Everybody has been really nice and reassuring that I made the right call. It helps a lot with the self-doubt. Pushing the button is a hard call to make when it’s not something obvious like a broken leg or snakebite. Or you broke your leg and then a snake bit it. But as Jonathon in the comments pointed out, a helicopter ride uses far fewer resources than a search and rescue operation deep in the Tassie wilds.
My understanding is that the service has discretion as to whether to bill or not. If one arrives, I’ll deal with it then. The potential cost cannot be part of the equation when making the decision, and I’m not going to let worrying about it cloud the rest of my time here.
I book an Overland Track Transport bus from Launceston to Lake St Clair for tomorrow, and the intercity 6:00am bus from Hobart to meet it. When you fall off a dead horse, you just gotta get back on there and keep whipping it until it goes.
I’m not back in civilisation. Not really. My body is cleaned and resting, and surrounded by the noise and the trappings, but my mind is in the bush, planning the next day, and the next. Counting out days of food and dividing by distance and elevation. I don’t check the news. I don’t check the socials.
I’m not feeling hugely confident in the repair patches I put on yesterday. I go for a short walk and get some supplies. The knee is going well, but twinges on the downhills. I might have been underestimating how bad it was while I was out there.
I pull one of the repair patches off concerningly easily. I cannibalise the matching stuff sack and cut two patches of my own, then squirt a little SilNet silicone into a jar and water it down with white spirits, mix with a paint brush (disposable) and apply.
The thinner consistency helps it go on, and should also help it cure a little faster. It’s 32° in Hobart today, and that should help too. I wait for the first side to dry before repeating on the other side.
I’m packed. I’m ready. I think my body is as mended as it needs to be. I’ve got an early bus to catch.
It’s time to get back out there. This sheep isn’t gonna fuck itself, as they say.
