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011 // Andy needed rescue on the K2K (Kanangra to Katoomba)
1.7k Plays3 months ago
My guest today has a long history of working and playing in some of the most rugged and remote parts of NSW. So, with a few days up his sleeve, a bit of research and the right kind of skills and experience behind him, he set off for another steep n’ deep trip through Kanangra Boyd National Park, bound for Katoomba on the traditional K2K route.
WARNING: The K2K route is described online as a classic 3 day trip in the southern Blue Mountains. This description was written before the fires and floods since 2019. It cannot be compared with other walks of a similar length such as the Six Foot Track, which is on well-defined management and fire trails. The K2K has always been a challenging walk that pushes the Australian Walking Track Grading System of 1-5, into an unofficial 6. That was then (before the fires) and now, it's an even more punishing route.
I've written about this route before with this rescue of Chini who shared her written story.
Heraclitus was a Greek philosopher, born around 500 BC. Now, I’m wondering if he was a bit of a bushwalker and a lover of nature, cos he’s the one who said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice. For it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”
He’s also the one credited with saying, “the only constant is change.”
Nowhere is this more evident than in nature: The turning of the seasons, the changes this brings in life cycles of plants and animals, erosion from weather, climate change, bushfires, my greying hair, you name it.
And for those of us who love being out on (or off) the track, it’s something that feels more obvious in recent years: there’s more people, more bushfires, weather events and landslides are changing the landscapes that we love to spend time in.
Learnings from this episode:
- Having a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) as a critical part of your packing.
- The importance of having a 'place to go' within yourself (eg. meditation, mindfulness, faith, etc) when faced with a crisis, helping you remain calm and make wise decisions.
- The value of having past experience in similar terrain you expect to encounter.
- Just because a track is marked online or on apps, doesn't meant it exists in the landscape. Other than the official land manager apps (eg: NPWS App) data can be out of date and user reviews or descriptions extremely subjective. Apps like AllTrails, etc should be used in conjunction with other research and navigation skills.
- If it's been a while between longer or hard walks, consider your overall health from other factors.
Helpful Links:
- Episode 6 - PLBs and other satellite communication devices // My interview with Linda Berriman from AMSA (the AU govt agency responsible for rescues in Australia)
- Creatine Kinase (CK) testing
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Rescued' Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Rescued is a podcast of conversations with rescuers and those who've been rescued. It's about the lessons we learn about ourselves, the places we go and why, without judgment or shame, to help us have better adventures, manage risk and deal with the unexpected.
Was Heraclitus a Nature Lover?
00:00:23
Speaker
Heraclitus was a Greek philosopher, born around 500 BC. Now, I'm wondering if he was a bit of a bushwalker and a lover of nature, because he's the one who said, no man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river, and he's not the same man. He's also the one credited with saying, the only constant is change.
00:00:51
Speaker
Nowhere is this more evident than in nature. The turning of the seasons, the changes this brings in life cycles of plants and animals, erosion from weather, climate change, bushfires, migrating hair, you name it.
00:01:07
Speaker
And for those of us who love being out on or off the track, it's something that feels a bit more obvious in recent years. It feels like there's more people, more bushfires, more weather events and landslides that are changing the landscapes we love to spend time in.
Andy’s Rescue Experience in New South Wales
00:01:27
Speaker
My guest today has a long history of working and playing in some of the most remote and rugged parts of New South Wales. So, with a few days up his sleeve, a bit of research and the right kind of skills and experience behind him, he set off for another steep and deep trip through Canangra Boyd National Park
00:01:47
Speaker
Bound for Catumba. And like Heraclitus foretold, everything changed. All right, Andy, it is so lovely to have you here on the podcast. And I'm so glad that you came to me with this story that you wanted to tell and wanted to share. And I'm so glad that you are here to tell that story today. Now, your story is quite a recent one. Like, quite often I have people
00:02:12
Speaker
who I'm chatting with, who've had experiences from whether it be a year ago or years, decades ago even. But your story we're going to talk about today happened quite recently. When did this story take place? It was Wednesday, 28th of February. I was airlifted out. I want to get to know you a little bit more first, and so we get an understanding of your background, your experience, and why you love wild places.
00:02:42
Speaker
Were you an outdoorsy kid or did you grow up in an outdoorsy family or what's that? My earliest memories, I was thinking about this in the last few days, just me and my mates, you grew up in a place called Brower, which is very bushy and wasn't as built up as it is today.
Andy's Childhood and Nature Connection
00:03:00
Speaker
So it was predominantly bush and we just spend
00:03:04
Speaker
Every available time you know looking for a wombat tunnels or just going bush like really off the beaten track always sort of getting lost but you know always sort of knowing where we are I was thinking today even a one of the good mates I had a fall down a waterfall and was airlifted out was this is probably going back to 1970 71 so it was a long time ago I've always been always had the bush around me and
00:03:31
Speaker
So there you are, you're growing up in Baroura, loving the bush, hanging out with your mates. Can you talk about how the bush and being out in those spaces of freedom and adventure, how that made you feel? Oh yeah, so I guess fearless, you know, wasn't worried about snakes or spiders or anything like that. It was just this, just felt home, felt like I was at home.
00:03:54
Speaker
From those childhood adventures and to now, a few decades down the track, did you continue your adventures and experience in wild places and out in nature?
00:04:12
Speaker
Probably teenage years dropped off a bit and then I actually worked near the northern beaches. So I surfed more when I was younger and I was actually working for a record company for quite a lot of years. But I guess as I got a bit older and just got a bit more looking at what I was doing with my life, I sort of
00:04:31
Speaker
was talking with an auntie who's a career guidance counselor and she said, oh look, you always love the outdoors. What have you ever thought about doing anything outdoorsy? So I actually decided to do a Bachelor of Natural Resources at University of New England in Armidale. Yeah, left my career and moved up there and started going to the coast, like, you know, love surfing. So I'd head down the coast, you know, a lot of weekends and it was about two and a half hour drive. And then I
00:04:59
Speaker
One day he just went to Walla Mombi Falls and made my way down to the river. And I just absolutely fell in love with the outdoors again and sort of ditch surfing. And then went crazy. Like Oxley Wild Rivers National Park, New England National Park, Werakimbi. This is wild country you're talking about.
Wildlife Surveying and Love for National Parks
00:05:24
Speaker
Yeah, so I actually started working as different roles within the National Parks and Wildlife Service, but particularly for a lot of years I was doing wildlife surveys. So I was sort of looking all around, particularly Oxley Wild Rivers National Park, just looking for signs of spotted tail coil. So I'd literally, I must have done
00:05:46
Speaker
Just hundreds and hundreds of walks down like really hot birds with big packs of traps on my back and i just spend weeks out there just no one else around for weeks it was just absolutely brilliant so i did that until about the year two thousand so that was out there on my own you know just bush bashing.
00:06:06
Speaker
For people who may not be familiar with the kind of terrain that you're talking about there, I guess one of the interesting points about these national parks that you're talking about, and some of them are wilderness areas as well, declared wilderness areas,
00:06:23
Speaker
They're the kind of park that, if you look at the Toppo map, is these huge swathes of just green and not many tracks through it, and seriously steep ascents and descents. This is taking the Blue Mountains and some of those thousand-meter Canangra ascents, but
00:06:41
Speaker
upping them even more than this. So you've come with that kind of experience behind you. I got out my maps recently and was looking at some of the transects, just shaking my head, just thinking, I can't believe I walked all those. It was fantastic. It was about seven or eight years was just fantastic.
00:07:00
Speaker
I'm going to ask you again. When you were out on some of those work expeditions on wildlife surveys, you're camping by some creek somewhere. There's nobody else around. You've got a little campfire going. Where do you go in your head for places like that? Where does the memory sit for you?
00:07:20
Speaker
I remember sometimes I'd just be there and you just sit down and be quiet and all of a sudden all around you would just come alive. Like it was almost as if everything got got used to you and you just you just felt like you became part of you know just part of the environment. It was just yeah like I said I felt more at home there than I've ever felt you know in cities or anything like that. Pretty amazing.
00:07:45
Speaker
In terms of the differences between traveling solo and traveling with someone else into, like I said, epically gnarly places like you've described, it's kind of a different mindset when it comes to being, I guess, switched on for all of those risk management type things.
00:08:06
Speaker
Absolutely. To me, it was the wildness and the ruggedness was part and parcel of it. I know taking other people out there, they weren't really all that used to it. I had to be a little bit more mindful of where they were stepping and what they were touching different trees or whatever that you think, no, don't touch that. That's a stinging tree.
00:08:31
Speaker
And the other thing too, I guess, I was really good at it, you know, I was really fast, really fit. And so it was always a little bit, oh, you know, people, other people slow me down. It's been many decades since I felt like that.
00:08:50
Speaker
So that was back in around the 2000s, your son. Yeah. And did you stay working within that natural resources, national parks kind of? I worked for the Armidale district for I think about seven years.
00:09:05
Speaker
And that sort of took me all over the state, firefighting. So I'd actually been to Kananga a few times around the cow mung, sort of firefighting there, remote firefighting, and yeah, all over the state, up and down the Great Divide, you know, sometimes all summer bushfire seasons. So that was great for about seven years I did that, yeah.
Essential Wilderness Navigation Skills
00:09:30
Speaker
In terms of the skills that you acquired during those periods of time, in the knowledge of what it takes to visit and live and move through places like this real steep and deep country, what would be some of the skills that you had acquired?
00:09:48
Speaker
I think the big one is, as you're walking, if it looks like you come across something that's quite steep or quite down or up, have a look around. Don't just think that's the only way to go. You've got to take risks there. Quite often, particularly if it's a well-known area, people have walked it before, so don't just
00:10:10
Speaker
put yourself at risk too much, but have a look around and have that constant assessing where you are rather than just going off blind. I think constantly just checking in with where you are. Yeah. I think that's something that did me really good stead on the last walk rather than continuing going. I just went, I better check.
00:10:30
Speaker
But also just that having had experience of moving, living and working in these spaces, understanding your own physical conditions and limits, would you have been very aware of forecasts and temperatures and conditions and that kind of thing?
00:10:50
Speaker
Quite often I had a radio too so I could check in with the district office. Most of the time I was aware that I had contact if needed, even though PLB's didn't exist back then. People knew where I was.
00:11:09
Speaker
I check in with people at the end of the day or whatever, just always making sure that people knew where I was. And of course, the weather conditions, yeah, they probably wouldn't let me go out there if it was too wild because the gorge country can get pretty, you know, the rivers rise a bit like here, you know, the rivers rise very dramatically. So got to be very careful.
00:11:30
Speaker
Which brings us to the places we're going to talk about today, which is a really special place. I mean, it's very special to me, but I know it's special to a lot of people for many reasons, and that's Canangra. This is steep and deep country. What's the vertical ascents that we're talking in this? I believe Cloudmaker is about 1,200 meters, and you get down to the Coxes River, which is under 200.
00:11:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's a good thousand meter drop from CloudMaker. So, we're talking the Kanangreta-Katumba route, which a lot of people just, you know, we call it the K2K, not to be confused with the Kainjata-Koziosko down south. But this is, yeah, the K2K up in the Blue Mountains. 10 years ago, what did this look like?
00:12:16
Speaker
Well, I've only ever done the wild dog section, so I haven't actually done south of Cox's River. So I've been into the wild dogs quite a few times and, yeah, clear tracks. I mean, so even before the fires, when I went there, you'd always find up the ridges. You could easily get up the ridges. You could easily get onto the, you could walk around tracks along, I think it's the eastern side. So you've got, you had several options to walk along there.
00:12:45
Speaker
Yeah. Like never had a problem walking there. It's a very, very clear country. Single track, well defined foot pad kind of. Yeah. And well travel, you know, a lot of people using it. Well, you know, a good number of people using them. Yeah. Now stepping across the southern side of the Cox's River towards, we're stepping out of the Blue Mountains National Park and then into Kanangra Boyd National Park and Wilderness.
00:13:11
Speaker
What did you know about the tracks and where did you get that information? I've done the six-foot track so many times, and I just thought it takes a little bit more effort to get out to Canangra. I had a couple of months off this year, just a bit of stress leave. Before I started, my wife again said to me, why don't you go for a walk?
00:13:36
Speaker
And so I thought, oh, you know, I've done the six-foot track. I might have a look at K2K. And so, you know, I just got on the National Parks website and they were saying, yeah, it is overgrown. With the fires and the rain, it's overgrown. But they weren't saying avoid it. They were basically saying, just be prepared.
00:13:56
Speaker
And so I had a look around. I just had a look around for trip reports, any that I could find. There's quite often some good information on the web about current conditions. And I think the one that I landed on was probably about 10 months ago. And they said, yeah, it was overgrown, but they were making good time. So I thought, OK, it is overgrown.
00:14:22
Speaker
again, nothing that I wouldn't have really worried about, similar to what I've done before. And so I just made the decision. I thought, oh, yeah, I'll go and I'll
Preparation and Early Progress on K2K Route
00:14:32
Speaker
give it a go. It just didn't seem anything like as bad as it was. And especially given your experience with off track, thick scrub walking in the past, steep and deep terrain, like all of that sounds like a great sort of resume to set yourself up for in a good way for something like in Canangra.
00:14:53
Speaker
Take me to the days leading up to your trip. What kind of preparation did you do? Well, on the day of the trip, I felt completely physically prepared to go out there. But I thought, the other thing to my wife, because I'm nearly 60 now, and my wife, she works at Scenic World, and she just gets a bit worried about me. She sort of says, oh, can you please take a PLB, please? Just for mine. Not for you, I'll take for mine.
00:15:20
Speaker
a piece of mine. So I thought, look, I live at Katoomba, drop my son off at Blackheath to school, and then I thought I'd just drop into the police station at Katoomba on the way home and get a PLB. And when I got there, unfortunately, they don't do them anymore at Katoomba police station.
00:15:39
Speaker
They said, no, sorry, you've got to go to Blackheath National Parks. And so I thought, oh, I've just come from Blackheath. So I just I nearly didn't go. I just thought, oh, do I need one? Anyway, I decided, oh, look, I better have one.
00:15:54
Speaker
So I went back to Blackheath to get one. And similarly, I filled in a trip report. I ticked all the boxes, had everything I needed. And so I came back to Katumba. Then my wife drove me out on the Monday night to Canangra. I did a couple of hours walking that night just to sort of go bush.
00:16:19
Speaker
Tuesday morning woke up, just sort of made my way around Cloudmaker. It was, yeah, it was a bit wet. It had no issues at all with the track. Dropped down off Cloudmaker to Dex's Creek. Easily made it down there and I think I went a couple of hours past that. Filled my water bottles up at Dex's Creek and went for another couple of kilometres. Can I ask you, what was the forecast?
00:16:45
Speaker
Well, it was interesting. The forecast wasn't rain. Yeah, right. Temperature wise. Pretty mild. So it was sort of like high twenties, mid to high twenties. Yeah, not full sun. Not by any means, no. The first two days were very sort of overcast. It just seemed to be a decent walk. I thought I was making really good time.
00:17:09
Speaker
Yeah, and this was past Dex Creek, so on the traditional K2K route, that's traditionally the first night's campsite, isn't it, at Dex's? Yeah. So I sort of kept going. I thought, oh, look, you know, this is good, you know, just and found a spot a couple of hours later just before you start sort of dropping down. I can't remember the names of the...
00:17:30
Speaker
Oh, Marilla Maroo. Yes, I think that sounds like it. Yeah. So I got to just before there. And I want to say it just seemed fine. Like there was there was never any root finding issues. There was not much. There was a lot of tall sort of straight waddle, I think it was, you know, just but that was, you know, you could sort of fight your way through it. And yeah, never really got off track at that point.
00:17:54
Speaker
and there was a foot pad that you were able to follow to that point, which is interesting because traditionally, the K2K, it used to have the ominous reputation of having the highest amount of PLB activations for any route in the state in New South Wales. Now, this is going back maybe a decade. It's usually that section between Dex's Creek getting to that top of Marilla Maroo, top of Strongleg that really messes with people's
00:18:24
Speaker
Navigation, but you got through that no problem at all. I got a Topo map and I think it was all trails or something. I followed their route down all these ridges and thought, what I'd do is I'd be walking along and I'd just constantly check.
00:18:45
Speaker
my orientation, and sometimes I think you'd be walking along and there was like an animal track or something that I'd sort of go, oh, hang on a bit, because I could feel I was sort of, instead of being on top of the ridge, I could feel like I was on the air, on the side. So I'm just getting all of ducked off, so I just correct or turn around. So take us to just before Strongling, and how were you feeling physically at the point at this time?
00:19:10
Speaker
I actually felt really good. It was like, you know, very, um, it was, it's a, it's a very much an up and down day that, you know, you have a cloud maker, but I sort of, you know, finished about six, 30, seven o'clock at nine felt good. Yeah. Just sort of felt like very, um, you know, set down, set, set up tent, had, you know, cook myself something to eat. And yeah, yeah, felt fine.
00:19:35
Speaker
Massive thanks for the support from the team at Patti Pallon, who since 1930 have been leaders in travel and outdoor adventure. In fact, did you know that Patti himself, a member of the Sydney Bushwalkers Club, was a volunteer in the original search and rescue arm of the Federation of Bushwalking Clubs in New South Wales? Huh, nice one Patti.
00:19:58
Speaker
End of day two, you're feeling great. You're out here, bit of scrub to push through, but nothing difficult. You're still on the correct route. What happened as day three dawned and started?
00:20:13
Speaker
Well, initially, it seemed OK.
Struggles with Dense Vegetation and Dehydration
00:20:16
Speaker
Again, it was a bit of a bush bash, but at least I was moving through. So it was just around Strongleg that it just started to get so thick. Strongleg, last year when the people did it, they talked about a trek over the top and they said,
00:20:37
Speaker
someone else had taken the track around the side. As I was going, I tried going over the top and it was just so overgrown and a lot of trees in there. I abandoned that. I thought, I'll try and find that other track. That was when it just got so hard. It took me a long time to get over that little hump. By the time I got to the end, wow, that was hard.
00:21:06
Speaker
So I'm trying to imagine it and put it into words of the physical strength that it takes to push through. Was it like a wall? Like you said earlier, that the vegetation was quite soft. You were able to push through it quite easily. But from this point at the top of Strongleg, it's sounding like the veg changed a lot and suddenly it was not just a
00:21:29
Speaker
and eat, like gentle push through, it was a full body experience. Very much so, yeah. And particularly, there was just nowhere to put your feet. That was the hard part, like rather than being having sort of, you know, a track or whatever, it was just very much you're sort of relying on, you know, stepping over logs or just, you know, really, really going through the scrub. It was just, yeah, it just got, it was just the exertion was,
00:21:57
Speaker
It was much greater exertion. Had you ever come across this type of dense edge in the past? Yeah. My son and I, at the end of 2022, the end of the lockdown in 2022, he and I decided to do the engineer's track. Oh, dear.
00:22:18
Speaker
the gross river. After about four days of that, I mean, it was it was tough going, gorgeous scenery, but a hard walk. And so anyway, after the fourth day, we were still about 10 K from Falcon Bridge. I sort of showed him, look, if anything happens to me, this is what a PLB is, you know, told him how to how to set it off and whatever, then put it back in our bag. And then about half an hour later, a chopper went overhead.
00:22:46
Speaker
A chopper came overhead and apparently the PLB malfunctioned. So we ended up getting chopped out of the Gross Valley. Even though you hadn't activated it. That's right. So we ended up getting a lift back to Blackheath National Parks. And the guy checked and yeah, it had malfunctioned.
00:23:07
Speaker
Yeah, okay. So that was my sort of, I thought, yeah, it is very thick country down there. So I sort of, I had, I was used to this from Strongleg that it was particularly similar country.
00:23:21
Speaker
And do you have a concept or do you know how fast you were going in terms of speed, like meters per, like hundreds of meters per hour or? Yes. So I know that the next day I did, it took me two hours to do half a kilometer. Wow. Yeah. It was, it was just insane as I got close to the Cox's river. But I would have left
00:23:46
Speaker
probably about seven o'clock in the morning and I was going to late 30 at night. And I probably only did about 5K. So it was probably half a K an hour, if that. And it's only when you reflect on what's normal walking pace for you. So do you know what your average on a, just say a flat single track you'd normally do? Probably about 10 minutes a K.
00:24:15
Speaker
Yeah, so this is significantly. Very much. The thing that I remembered after the grocery is just the cramping, the body. It's such a huge exertion.
00:24:32
Speaker
falling over all the time and trying to correct and just trying to get back onto track and everything. I felt just my whole body cramping. I was really aware that I had water, but I was trying to preserve it.
00:24:48
Speaker
Is this in the gross or is this back on strongly? This is on strongly. On the K2K. Were you physically feeling, this is day three now, physically at what point during the day did you start to, in terms of your body health, feel a bit unwell or a bit different?
00:25:08
Speaker
Oh, look, I think all I was thinking in my head was, you know, especially when I saw the river, I'd say, I've just got to get to the river. Like I just, I sort of felt confident I'd make the river. That in my head was like, you know, as long as I can get to the river, I can see it. So I know where to go. But it was just, it just was so hard to
00:25:29
Speaker
to get from where I was to the river. No track at all by this stage. There was very, very little obvious places where I'd say, oh, I'm on the track. There were places where you did, but then before you knew it, you'd just say going, oh, it's gone again.
00:25:47
Speaker
You said you picked up water at Dex Creek, which was day two. Had you picked up water anywhere else along the way? No, there was no water sources that day. It was very dry, actually. It did rain that night, so I had little pots that I'd sort of set up and was getting little bits of water from that, but hardly anything really. So I probably got within about, I think I was about 200 metres above the river.
00:26:15
Speaker
And about, like I said, I think it was only about half a K to a K distance, but it was just about 8.30 at night. And I'd sort of, I fell over, just tripped or whatever. And I just went, oh, that's nice. So I thought, I think I'll just stay here.
00:26:33
Speaker
again. Yeah, so I sort of, like, it was just a, you know, not too steep. Just, just, nowhere to put a tent up, but I just, you know, wrapped myself in, in a tent or, you know, wet weather gear. It started raining. But it was, yeah, it wasn't unpleasant. It was sort of, you know, got a bit of sleep that night. But in my head, I just, I was just thinking, look, I've just got to get to the river, you know. And so I, I set out about 6 o'clock the next morning. Yeah.
00:27:02
Speaker
So before we go to six o'clock the next morning, which is the start of day four, how much water? And the reason I keep asking about the water is because it's sort of going to contribute to how this story progresses. So back at Dexter's Creek on day two, how many liters did you pick up?
00:27:20
Speaker
I had about three and a half liters and then a five, so about four liters. Four liters, okay. Yeah. Yeah. And we've talked about the forecast wasn't out of the ordinary. Now we're on the morning of day four. You've wrapped yourself in your gear overnight, not unpleasant as you say, a few hours sleep. What happens next?
00:27:42
Speaker
Again, just got to get to the river. Initially, I thought I was doing decent timing. It seemed like I'd found a bit of a track and was certainly getting down. I could see the Cox's River junction. I thought, that's where I got to go.
00:28:01
Speaker
I think it was that rotten nothing is called water vine and it's just such a thing when you think it just was everywhere and then close and close to the river was just so much so many logs had fallen over it was just it was exhausting just fighting through that just took so long.
00:28:20
Speaker
Because if it's the vine I'm picturing too, I actually call it wall vine because it ends up being like a wall. And it's so intertwined and creates its own little knots through everything else around it that
00:28:35
Speaker
Unless you had a machete, secateurs, there's just, you cannot physically push your body through this stuff. It's impenetrable. You get your head through and then your backpack gets caught in it and then you've got on the ground by then there's a bit of hardened birds, you have a bit of the wild
00:28:52
Speaker
Which wasn't too bad, but it just, it was just, by that stage it felt, you know, I think I was really exhausted. Like, very soon realised this is really hard. Like, this is, I'm just, I'm really struggling. So what I'd actually decided I was going to do then, I thought, because I look in front of me and it was the yellow pup, you know, the walk out, I thought,
00:29:15
Speaker
So that's the other side of the river you're looking across at, yeah. Yeah. So what I decided, because I had to actually be out that night because my son Ben was graduating at the Police Academy in Goulburn. And I was really keen to get there. So what I sort of thought I'd do then, instead of going up, was I had a look on the map and the river was quite low. So I was going to make my way up the Coxes.
00:29:41
Speaker
to at least get to maybe the suspension bridge or whatever. So I decided by then I probably won't continue on the K to K because I was really keen to get to the graduation. So that was what was going on in my head. I'll just go to the river, have something to drink, and then I'll make my way up the coxes. And were you dry by this stage? Had you run out of water?
00:30:03
Speaker
Just I think I just ran out. Yeah. So I think I was just expecting there's plenty of water there. So I'll just have a big drink at the river. Yeah. So it's it's this morning of day four, you got yourself vertical again, you still above the river, but you've just got to get down to it. And then but you've got a new plan, a plan beat it to to move out from here. So what happened between there and making that decision of you
00:30:32
Speaker
a different exit plan and getting to the river.
00:30:36
Speaker
Right. Well, again, just I had a look on the map and it just seemed that to get to the Cox's River Junction was just I had it just looked like bush. I thought I'm just going to go to the Kananga or Broke. I'm just going to get to the water. So I sort of was fighting through stuff. I just thought that's that's going to be my my quickest way to water rather than trying to have to. You know, it just didn't make sense to to keep trying to go through the bush. So what happened when you got to
Reaching the River and Facing Health Crisis
00:31:05
Speaker
the river?
00:31:05
Speaker
Okay, so I just got out my pump and my water pump and pumped myself a litre of water. Yeah. I'm chucked in some electrolytes. Yeah, cool. So one of those, like a Caddodin or something, one of those... Yeah, that's exactly what it was. Yeah, Caddodin, yeah. Yeah, water filter, because you wouldn't want to drink the Cox's untreated. It's pretty, yeah, it's not great. So you pumped the water.
00:31:27
Speaker
I'm the leader of water, put some electrolytes in, had a drink, thought, oh, that's it, I'm fine. Yeah, great. Had another leader. Yeah, happy days. Yeah, yeah, and I thought, oh, I've made it. This is, that's good. And then probably about 10, 15 minutes, I just, by then I was just covered in dirt and grime and everything, so I don't have to swim. So when you're swimming in the river, yeah. Oh, and what time was this, by the way? Probably would have been about 8.30, 9 o'clock in the morning.
00:31:56
Speaker
Got it. Beautiful time for a morning bath. It was. It was fantastic. But then all of a sudden I just started feeling really unwell and just the water that I drank pretty much just passed it all and went, oh, that's not good. And then started vomiting. And then so I just went and sat down and
00:32:17
Speaker
And then just my whole body just, I thought it was cramping, particularly in my back and my back was just going through these really painful spasms. And I was trying to stretch it out and I just wouldn't go away. And so I lay down and just pretty much lost all of the strength in my body just seemed to go. And I'm just sort of lying there going, what is going on? Like this is, I don't know what's going on.
00:32:45
Speaker
And had you ever felt this way before? No. So this was just like, like I say, I thought it was just a cramp, but it was my kidneys that had gone into failure. I hadn't realized that. I just thought it was just really bad cramps. Really bad cramps. So we don't know at that stage that it's your kidneys that are playing up. And so you're lying there on the side of the Cox's River. You had a swim, but your guts have just
00:33:14
Speaker
let go of all the water you've just drunk in your electrolytes, which seems the logical thing to have done in terms of getting that water back on board. What did you do next? What happened? How much pain can you describe in terms of, say, out of 10? If 10 is the worst pain you've ever had, what was this pain level like?
00:33:33
Speaker
It was probably about six or seven, but it was just constant. I thought if it's a cramp, I can stretch it out, but it wouldn't go away. That movement was triggering other cramps. It was just like that. It turns out, I think it's called CK count, which is a creatine count. I think it's supposed to be fairly
00:33:59
Speaker
under a hundred, I think it had gone up to 6,000 or something when I got to hospital. So it was an enormous, just my body had just sort of started really rebelling, against all the hard work I'd done to it. I just got to the point, like I say, I'd set off the PLB on the gross river and I really didn't want to do it again. I just thought, oh, you know, having done it once before, I thought, oh, I can't. Even though once before, to be fair, you didn't set it off, it was malfunction.
00:34:28
Speaker
I imagine it's the same guys. Anyway, but I just realized I couldn't move. It was a hard decision. I really didn't want to do it. I had to. I just realized I couldn't actually get out.
00:34:44
Speaker
Yeah, because you've got the cramps. You lost all energy. Was there other symptoms happening as well? What else was going on in your body? So actually my eyes were, and the night before it had started, my eyes just really dried up and I was sitting like mad and I couldn't really see all that well.
00:35:07
Speaker
I then tried to wet and that made it worse. I think all my tear ducts had dried up. That was really painful. Pretty much when I set off the PLB, by then it was actually getting quite hot. I think about up to 42 that day. There was no shade or anything, so I pretty much just planted myself in the river.
00:35:29
Speaker
waiting for the chopper. I just didn't even try and move by then. I just lost all my strength completely. Yeah. Can you remember what was going through your head at the time? Because you were thinking about your son's graduation that night. But what else was happening for you? I think because I've never been in that situation before to be completely helpless. It was just grief was probably what I was going through. It's just like this is really
00:35:59
Speaker
This is horrible that I can't keep going. It's actually quite emotional. Even being able to describe it as grief, because it's almost like the perfect storm of lots of emotions and physical preparation and your whole life's journey of adventure and your love of these wild places. It's all in your family. You're thinking of Ben that night.
00:36:22
Speaker
I think you go to worst case scenario. I certainly think of other, as I've gotten older, I've had to give up other sports. I used to play heaps of rugby league and it was sad to give that up. I used to love jogging. I used to do marathons and I've had to give that up.
00:36:42
Speaker
You know, and I love that. And I thought, oh, don't tell me I've got to give this. It was just in my head, I'm thinking, now I've got to give this up. And I really love this, you know, and it's, and so it's sort of, I think that had a lot to do with it, just that sense of, oh, I don't want to give this up. I love this. I'd hate to have to give this up, boys.
00:37:00
Speaker
You'd pushed the button, you'd made that really tough call and you've explained why that call was so tough for you. What happened next? How long did it take for something to happen? Again, you just don't know what, you press the button and then it's like, well, what now? I literally just lay in the river with my eyes closed so I couldn't open my eyes, couldn't really hear anything.
00:37:30
Speaker
I think it was about 90 minutes before the pole air chopper arrived. It seemed to go fairly quick. It wasn't unpleasant. The water was lovely. It was a beautiful area.
00:37:45
Speaker
Again, I thought, well, there's nothing I can do now. Hopefully someone will come. It's a horrible feeling. It just goes through your head. I wonder if they got the pin. I wonder if anyone's got this. In a sense, you're just sitting there wondering, I hope someone comes.
00:38:07
Speaker
Yeah. It is that thing with PLB devices and there's different types and there's new technology that's coming now. I remember back to an episode with Linda Berryman from AMSA on the podcast here where she said that now
00:38:28
Speaker
PLBs, the new ones actually show a different change of color in the light. I think it is when it's actually been received. So you have some sense of knowing because there is that what if, what if, if like your experience at the Grosse River malfunctioned before, what if this one hasn't worked as well?
00:38:49
Speaker
I was feeling very alone by then, you know, there was just no one around. It was just... And where do you go in your head at times like that? Oh, 100%, you know, my faith kicked in. You know, it really did. I just...
00:39:05
Speaker
What's the point of faith if you don't get to use it? And I just saw, well, worst case scenario, I'll be OK. Faith said that if this is the end, then it's the beginning of something beautiful. So that gave me a lot of peace, actually, an immense amount of peace. And if this is all going to be over, then that's OK.
00:39:27
Speaker
Yeah, I sort of, of course, you know, you think about family and friends and everything, but the bottom line was I thought, oh, this is out of my hands.
00:39:38
Speaker
Do you have a personal story about an incident or time during an outdoor trip when something didn't quite go to plan? Maybe you got lost, injured, let down by some gear or something else. Look, honestly, it can happen to any of us at any time, regardless of how experienced we are. And it's by sharing these stories that we can all learn and help avoid them in the future.
00:40:02
Speaker
If that's you, I'd love to hear from you. So please drop me an email to rescued at lotsafreshair.com. That's L-O-T-S-A, freshair.com. So 90 minutes or so passes. What do you hear or see? Because you said your eyes were not quite working properly and what happened?
Rescue and Hospital Recovery
00:40:25
Speaker
I sort of, I could see, I could see the chopper, but I just couldn't keep my eyes open. So I knew the chopper had come, but I just couldn't, like, I think I just, you know, waved or something, you know, but I, I couldn't really do much with the chopper. I think by then, I was just going, Oh, good, there's someone here. I'm in their hands. I just, I couldn't, I couldn't sort of really communicate all that much with them.
00:40:53
Speaker
Yeah, I'm in their hands. I love that sense that as soon as you call for help in any situation in the bush, you push a button or you call on a phone or whatever it is, the weight of having a responsibility in decision-making being just on your shoulders is suddenly lifted.
00:41:14
Speaker
There's this whole cloud of experts who come and just lift you up and sustain you through and pass you through this amazing system that we have and we're so lucky to have in Australia. So we're back here on the Coxes River. Polys landed. Who's there? Do you have memories? How is your memory of this?
00:41:41
Speaker
one of the pilot guys came, and I was talking to him, and I think I mentioned my son, I needed to get to my son's graduation or something, and he said, oh, the chopper pilot was actually, he'd flown out of Wollongong to go to Golden to the graduation, and when he got the pin to come out. So he said, oh, he's actually going to the graduation. I went, oh, far else, small world, isn't it? And then I was talking to the,
00:42:08
Speaker
The officer, he was a lovely guy. He sort of had a big, it was like a foil reflector or something because he was keeping the sun off me. And I was just talking to him and he said, oh, where's your son getting stationed? And I said, I'll read Fern. And he said, I was at Newtown for many years. And that's when I looked and I said, that's where I know you're from. I'd actually gotten to know this policeman when he was working at Newtown and I was at Newtown Mission.
00:42:39
Speaker
So there was, again, a lovely, just a really lovely connection in the middle of nowhere with these, you know, one guy was going to my son's graduation, one I already had met before when I was at Newtown. So that was just really encouraging.
00:42:55
Speaker
And so you're having a bit of a reunion here on the river. So this is poly and not aeromedical coming to help you. So in terms of first aid or assessments physically for what was happening to you, was there much of that able to take place at that point?
00:43:17
Speaker
No, they were just keeping me cool. I had tried to drink some water, but I just wasn't able to drink water. And they called a toll. They called the paramedic chopper. And that landed just a bit further downstream. And probably about another hour, I think it was, before they were able to walk upstream to me and sort of assess me and then put me in the harness.
00:43:44
Speaker
Then the toll chopper took me to Katoomba. Right. What was the paramedic when they arrived, their assessment of you physically? They mentioned that I wasn't able to drink and so I wasn't able to retain water so they worried that I was severely dehydrated.
00:44:07
Speaker
They couldn't really do any other assessment. They did say they had a doctor in the chopper. So pretty much get me in the chopper and then the doctor would do an assessment while I was up there. But they pretty much were treating me for severe dehydration. And what was that treatment? Were they able to get drips in? No. It was just basically just keeping me cool, trying to get the sun off me. They couldn't do much with that. Yeah. Yeah. So pack and send, hey? Yeah, yeah.
00:44:36
Speaker
You arrive at Katoomba Hospital. What happens there? Okay. So, I mean, first of all, I got to say that it was funny. I got to Scenic World and my wife and her boss were on the veranda and they said, oh, there's a toll chopper. That usually means it's a hiker. And my auntie's out there. I hope it's not him. And two minutes later, I called her and she said, it's you, isn't it?
00:45:03
Speaker
She came over to see me at, I think it was the KCC car park where the... Yeah, the oval where quite often the helicopters land. She goes, what have you done? What have you done? And by then they were pretty much just saying, dehydration.
00:45:20
Speaker
So when I got into the ambulance, they put a drip in me or just the cannula. But then I got to hospital, they put the drip in me and then they did a blood test and they pretty much came back immediately and said, you're not going anywhere. You have no kidney function. You've gone into acute renal failure and we need to get you up into a ward immediately. Wow.
00:45:46
Speaker
It's only I can't go to the graduation. I'd actually, by then, really gone into shock. Yeah, I just want my shaking heaps and just quite, quite delirious by then. Yeah, I sort of, I think it all just hit me.
00:45:59
Speaker
when I got to hospital. Acute renal failure. Did they explain what that means in terms of the body? Basically, just dried up. The kidneys had my right kidney. When they did a CT scan, they noticed that it was just crystallized kidney stones, which I'm getting checked out next month, a urologist, to see how they've gone. Hopefully, a lot of them have flushed away. Pretty much my whole body, or a lot of my body,
00:46:29
Speaker
the levels of whatever it was that should have been high were almost non-existent, and the levels that should have been really low were through the roof. From what I understand, that constant rehydration would somehow kickstart them. I think the doctor in the toll chopper had said to me, you may have gone through kidney failure, but they can actually restart it quite easily.
00:46:55
Speaker
Yeah, so he had sort of warned me that that was okay. So it actually seemed to be quite, the kidneys did seem to restart themselves quite readily. Yeah. And that goes to the experience you're having with your eyes and the tear ducts. Like you said, everything had just dried up. Yeah. So how long was the period of time do you think between when you finished the water that you had on board and you got to the river and were able to take in those
00:47:24
Speaker
Apart from ... I think I had a liquid breakfast or something that I'd ... an up-and-go or something that night, and just the little tiny pots of water that I was able to get off from the tent and whatever. Probably half a litre that night before I'd gotten to the river. Yeah, so that was the night ...
00:47:45
Speaker
Three. Three, yeah. Half a litre and night three. And then you got to the river at 8.30 the next morning. Yeah, yeah. But I remember, you know, it was quite, it was obvious that I was, you know, when I couldn't tell I was sweating because it was quite wet, you know, the foliage was quite wet. But I regularly had to take my shirt off and I think, gee, is that sweat or just water off the trees? But I probably was a lot, a lot of it must have been sweat.
00:48:13
Speaker
And how many days did you spend in hospital? It was four or five. I was out on the Sunday night. Yeah. And I'm curious, how long until you were able to pee? Well, they put a catheter up and they sort of, my bladder was, you know, they blow your bladder up. And so pretty much immediately I was weighing, but it was probably a good four days before that catheter came out. So
00:48:40
Speaker
But that was actually not too bad. I'd had kidney stones 20 years ago, and that was horrible the first week. But this one, I was like, oh, that wasn't too bad. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was. What's happened with your body and also with your mind since then? So now, what, six weeks down the track? What's the recovery physically and otherwise?
Recovery Challenges and Media Reflection
00:49:04
Speaker
Well, physically, I mean, I just
00:49:07
Speaker
wasn't getting better. All my joints in my hands, my knees, my ankles, the bottom of my feet, my hips, my shoulders, all of my joints were just really aching. And I found if I'd been sitting for a while and tried to stand up, I could hardly walk. And I didn't know what was going on. It was just like agony. And I finally,
00:49:35
Speaker
after being told many times to go and see a GP, I finally did. They said it's a form of gout because of the sense of just that residual uric acid that's collected in normal joints. They've got me on a dose of cortisone.
00:49:57
Speaker
And that's worked wonderfully. So the last week I've been on that, so I'm feeling much more human now, much better now. Yeah. And are there any long term side effects that you've been told to expect?
00:50:13
Speaker
Well, I go to the urologist next month just to see if there are any kidney stones were either dissolved or dislodged or how my kidneys are gone. So hopefully, I'm hoping that all that fluid drain, you know, drain them out. Yeah, I certainly aren't able to walk anything like, I mean, it's only five weeks, but I'm not able to do anything like
00:50:37
Speaker
you know, I wasn't allowed to do anything for the first two weeks. And now I'm pretty much just street walking, just to, you know, do short street walks for an hour or so. It's sort of taken to do the two bridges walk at, at Imi Plains, whatever it's called, the River Walk. That's a, that's a nice flat walk. We try and do that as whenever we're down there.
00:50:57
Speaker
Not even maybe a little bit of the braid side, a little bit of bush walk up in black heave. I was thinking that today, actually. I should try that tomorrow.
00:51:10
Speaker
got a nice loop down the braid side and up Pope's Glen. It's just a, yeah. Something that I'm very conscious of when it comes to people having had experiences which find their way into the media is that the story that you tell and your story is placed in the hands of other people.
00:51:35
Speaker
who then become this secondhand teller of that story. Talk to me about that experience because I remember seeing it pop up onto Facebook that there was a rescue, a helicopter rescue from dehydration.
00:51:50
Speaker
at the K2K. I think that's the only things that I remember seeing at the time. But it went a bit further than that for you, didn't it? Well, when I got back, I just thought I'll let people know because there was no information when I went to do it. And so I thought I'll just give people an update on conditions. And purely because I thought I didn't want people to be in the same boat. And so that's all I was really doing. Just the National Parks had said it was
00:52:18
Speaker
was a bit overgrown, but just to be prepared. And I sort of said, well, I thought I was, but I ended up in the condition that I was in. So just to warn people that were considering doing it, that it's pretty tough. I think there were thousands of people that eventually read it and shared it. So I was glad for that. I'm glad that it sort of...
00:52:39
Speaker
I wasn't really that concerned what people thought. I quite often, when I'm watching a show alone, I don't know if you know the show alone, but I'll quite often be having a go at them going, ah, you should have done that. You should have done that. So I can imagine people will like that with me. It's easy when you sort of just
00:52:58
Speaker
looking on to have an opinion. But for me, I felt that I'd done all the prep I needed. It was just the one time out of many thousands of walks that I've ever done that it just went wrong. I wasn't that concerned what people thought. I just thought, yeah, I can imagine people will have an opinion about it. But for me, this is really important to let people know.
00:53:24
Speaker
So you put your story out there in your words in Facebook, which was great. And then a couple of media outlets picked that up. How did you feel about the way that your story was interpreted or shared from their point of view?
00:53:40
Speaker
One of them said that I got lost, and I was like, don't think I got lost. I never said I was lost. People latched onto that. What was he doing out in the bush if he got lost? I let it go. I just thought, it is what it is. One of them, I was just uncomfortable with their, I guess, politicization of what it is. It became about government agencies and ineptitude and all that.
00:54:09
Speaker
I've still got a lot of friends work for National Parks and I used to. I didn't want to go there. I actually said to them, I don't feel that's not my agenda is to bash the National Parks workers. That was a bit uncomfortable too.
00:54:28
Speaker
And also, I guess there's a sense of feeling like your agency's taken away, or someone's speaking on your behalf. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Isn't actually how you feel. That's right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I guess that's what happens, though, isn't it, when you enter that media sort of, you're one of many stories. And yeah, so it was what it was. They did warn me that, you know, they said, are you aware that, you know,
00:54:54
Speaker
you may get some negative feedback. So of course I'm aware. Anytime I've sort of ever had an opinion about something, someone will have a different opinion. So it is what it is, yeah. Because you were the benefit of that review, the 10-month earlier report that someone had put up. And now this is your report of current conditions.
00:55:15
Speaker
When I got on top of CloudMaker, there were some very colorful comments of people who were just, you know, worst conditions ever, you know. Yeah, so that's a couple of people who had abandoned their walk when I got to CloudMaker. I got, oh, OK, so they didn't make it. So I think by then I was sort of half regretting. I thought, oh,
00:55:38
Speaker
I should have driven to Cananga and then I could have gone. But there were just certain points. I thought if I'd had the car at Cananga, I would have really would have been good to have turned around. But anyway, yeah.
00:55:50
Speaker
I was committed to it by then, yeah. I'm glad you're laughing, Andy. Yeah, I know. You have to know. Are there things that you've learned about yourself through this experience? Yeah.
Future of Adventure and Gratitude for Rescuers
00:56:03
Speaker
Look, I just think it's that sort of sadness as we get older, the things that we just love, the things that are
00:56:12
Speaker
I don't know how to define this, but it just seems that's who I am, you know, that, that I love that, that sort of wildness. And I've got some, some good friends up here that have been similarly a bit older now, but they, some of the walks they've gone on, you just think, you know,
00:56:31
Speaker
That's really, I think it's great in one way. I think I've really lived a good life. You know, I've got some great memories, but there does come a point, I think, when they just become memories, you know, and I'm hoping that's not the case. I'm hoping, because I'd love to be that 80-year-old or that, you know, the setogenarian who's doing, you know, thousands of kilometers. I'd love to think that that's still possible. But I think if there's an adjustment, I'm not a
00:56:55
Speaker
I'm not a teenager anymore. You just have to adjust accordingly. Is there anything in hindsight now? We're saying hindsight can be a tough judge sometimes. The whole point of this podcast is to
00:57:14
Speaker
to be able to reflect on things and think, would I do something different and to not have any shame attached to any of the experiences? Because they can happen to any of us, no matter how experienced we are. You're clearly really experienced in very similar terrain. You weren't going out there without a clue. You had lots of clues. Is there anything you would have done differently now
00:57:38
Speaker
Yeah, I'd say I'm ignoring my hiker amnesia. So if you know what I mean, like, as time goes on, you think, Oh, wasn't that bad? You know, that sort of, I'm learning that. Yes, it was, you know, like it was really take seriously that it was a, could have ended up much worse.
00:57:55
Speaker
It's enclosing your fabulous wife, who we've chatted a bit about, and Ben too. How do they reflect, and your other members of the family, how do they reflect on your experience and what was their perspective of it? I think Melissa, my wife, has been quite defensive of me because I think she knows, she
00:58:18
Speaker
has heard a lot of the negative feedback and so she's quick to jump to my defense and say, you know, look, this guy knows what he's doing. Back off.
00:58:30
Speaker
My kids, I think it was hard seeing dad like that. I think they found it very confronting to see dad in hospital, having done something he really loves, and coming out the other side poorly. The dad's not Superman, and I think that was hard for them, too. Yeah. So if I was to say to you, hey, Andy, I'm thinking of going and doing the K2K next weekend, what would you say to me? Don't do it.
00:58:59
Speaker
At the moment, it's just so non-existent. And I think that's so sad. I think these iconic trails that are just so beautiful, like they're really generations have just got such fond memories of them. And I think it's really sad that they're not currently available to people to walk. In a sense, that's sad that such beautiful areas are generally closed off now to people.
00:59:25
Speaker
Even to people that in a sense would know what they were, you know, felt like they would be able to navigate that. I feel like it's just really sad that these areas are currently sort of not available to use. What I've always found interesting about the K2K is it has always been a grade five plus five to six on the walking track, Australian walking track grading system.
00:59:47
Speaker
It's never been an official track. It's been more of a route, and you need navigation skills, which you've got. You need to have a really good experience and really good fitness, really good preparation to be able to do it. It's always been that top 5% of people really who it's within their capability, but now it's outside that by the sounds of things.
01:00:12
Speaker
Yeah, it'd be interesting to see what happens in the coming year, I guess, and how the bush continues to have its way. Particularly with different sort of land practices with the indigenous people, maybe it might have been much clearer at one point, but with that not happening anymore, I think it's just this is the new sort of reality for a lot of the bushes that it just gets completely dense, much denser and just doesn't even burn.
01:00:40
Speaker
Well, Andy, thank you so much for your generous generosity of story and your generosity of heart. As I always say, these things can and they do happen to all of us. And you know, you've given us
01:00:54
Speaker
so many things that we can learn from your experience, not just about this particular route, but in terms of the preparation, making sure you have everything you need, including the experience, and having some sense of where you go.
01:01:12
Speaker
in your mind when your body starts giving up, where we find strength and resilience from, and carrying a PLB, the absolute value of carrying that PLB. Well, I was actually contacted by a company that makes PLBs in Sydney, and I'm probably their poster boy now, so I've got my own PLB now.
01:01:35
Speaker
Excellent. You don't have to go and get one from our national parks. Hopefully it won't malfunction. It won't malfunction, and may you never have to push the button, but know it's there if you need to. I've just got to say, we are so fortunate in this country that the
01:01:52
Speaker
The rescue services are astounding human beings and they love what they're doing. And I think that's what I went when it happened. I think that they were so, in a sense, not that they were grateful to come out, but that's what their experience is, that's what they love. And they felt, yeah, I just was very grateful that there's so many people that are so equipped to help people in their need.
01:02:19
Speaker
So true. And they don't judge either. No. They don't judge. Hey, I don't think we should either. Yeah. Thanks again, Andy. And I look forward to bumping into you out there on the tracks, as opposed to out there in the wall of scrub and seeing a big smile on your face when you're well into your 80s. That sounds good. Sounds awesome. Thank you so much for asking me to share too. I really appreciate it.
01:02:48
Speaker
If you've enjoyed this powerful story, or one of the many others from my super generous guests, you can help more people connect and hear these valuable lessons simply by leaving a five star review. And why not even click that little bitty share button on your podcast app and help your outdoorsy mates find it too. The rescued podcast is produced on the unceded lands of the Gondunga people of the Blue Mountains of New South Wales.
01:03:16
Speaker
I pay my respects to the elders past and present and acknowledge their enduring connection to and care for country. Special thanks to our sponsors Patti Pallen. This has been a lots of fresh air production.
01:03:30
Speaker
Just a little PS here, everyone. I've caught up with Andy and got some updates on how he went with those doctor's appointments. And he's got a couple of small kidney stones that are just giving him a little bit of an ache, but they look like they shouldn't be a problem for him long term, which is great.
01:03:46
Speaker
And even better than that, here's the really good news. He is about to head over to the U.S. with his wife and his 20-year-old. Yes, Ben from the Police Academy graduation ceremony and 13-year-old son. And the four of them are going to walk the 270 kilometer Tahoe Rim Trail. All the best, Andy and the family from me here at The Rescue Podcast and lots of freshair.com, of course. I hope it's everything you want it to be with amazing memories that will live forever.