Good luck
Day: 07
Sunrise:
06:58
Sunset:
17:22
As the crow flies:
04,62
Daily kilometers:
5,50
Clackline-Camp – 18.05.2000
As in the last few days, we get up at 7 a.m. with the first rays of sunshine and start with the work already described. The exertions of the last few days are in our bones and each of us is already suffering from various aches and pains, so right after breakfast I examine Jo’s ankle. It has not swollen any further and her pain has not gotten any worse. The symptoms indicate a slight strain and allow us to start the day with confidence. Sebastian, Goola Badoola, Hardie and Jafar are loaded up at around 2 pm. While Tanja holds Sebastian, Jo and I are working on Istan’s saddle. He is our calmest camel so far and is very reliable under all living conditions. Istan has to carry the saddle with the overhanging steel baskets. One basket contains the kitchen box weighing around 50 kilos and a 10-liter water bag, while the other basket contains the shoes, tool bag and another 30-kilo food bag. To secure the heavy kitchen box in the basket, I have to strap it down with a lashing strap. I’m lying under the steel basket when Istan suddenly and unexpectedly jumps up. I don’t even have time to react and I’m glad that the heavy steel frame doesn’t hurt me. Jo, who has just bent over the saddle to hand me the strap, is literally thrown away and this time kicked in the other leg. I can’t see if she stumbles, because as soon as Istan has shot up to do wild leaps, she already has him on the nose leash to calm him down. I race around Istan like an Olympic sprinter to help her. “Easy, easy!” calls Tanja to calm the camels, who have of course all jumped up. We immediately try to put her down again, but Istan acts like a madman. Jo finally succeeds in persuading Istan to put him down. Only now do we both realize that a metal hook on Istan’s saddle has completely slashed the back padding of Jafar’s saddle. “Before all the straw falls out, we have to sew the padding,” says Jo, calm and collected as ever. She hands me the nose leash of Istan, who is extremely nervous for some unknown reason, looks for a needle and thread and immediately starts repairing it. To prevent the wildly snorting Istan from biting her in the head or neck, I keep him focused, because he is still tied to Jafar with all the connecting ropes. It’s difficult to describe in words what happens in the next few fractions of a second, but I’ll try to describe the situation as I experience it.
Suddenly Istan opens his big mouth, shows his long, sharp and terrifying teeth, roars terribly and my forearm disappears into his maw. Istan bites! But before he cuts my arm in two with his bite, I manage to tear it out of his throat with a powerful and, from my point of view, indescribable reaction. The teeth dig into my flesh while I’m still moving, but my arm is safe before they can really hurt me. In a huge burst of adrenaline, I hit him in the mouth almost at the same moment. Jo turns around and looks at me. I am shocked at myself. “Sorry Jo, I had to hit him. It was a reflex,’ I say. “You did a good job. I would have reacted the same way. He has to learn not to bite any of us. I hope he’s understood the lesson,” she replies. Jo turns her back on me again and continues her sewing. But as soon as she takes the first bite, Istan bites again. This time he tries to catch my left arm. Still under great tension, I pull him away and Istan’s mouth only gets hold of my shirt sleeve. “What’s wrong with him?” I ask myself in amazement and feel a merciless, almost impotent rage welling up inside me. “I think we’d better get him away from Jafar,” says Jo, to which I can only agree with her. As Jo leads him away and ties him to a tree, she sees a rider on a horse trotting along the Heritage Trail in the corner of her eye. She immediately runs to the stranger and explains that we have camels here. “All right,” she says and leads her horse in the opposite direction. Now we know why Istan reacted so crazily. He didn’t want to bite me out of malice, but probably thought that a monster in horse form wanted to eat him.
After Jo has sewn Jafar’s saddle, we load Istan again. He is still very nervous but this time it goes well. Tanja, Jo and I are completely exhausted before we even set off again. There’s no question that we can unload everything again and stay here, but for psychological reasons at least I want to get a few kilometers behind us. Before we continue, we have a hot instant soup and a muesli bar.
At 3 p.m. we set off, exhausted. The camels are running better today than yesterday, but are still much too fast. Jo still has to use all her strength to slow Sebastian down. 45 minutes later, the trail descends steeply for about 30 meters through a dried-up stream bed. On the ascent, Sebastian simply sits down and hits his callus on his knee on a sharp stone. It bleeds terribly but he doesn’t seem to notice. “The camels are tired,” says Jo, and a quarter of an hour later we find a campsite near the village of Clackline. We lead the camels in a circle and unload them with the last of our strength. As soon as all the equipment is scattered on the ground, we realize that we are far too close to the Heritage Trail. As tomorrow, Friday, is my interview day and we have planned another rest day on Saturday when friends can visit us, we don’t want to be spotted by passing cars. Tired, Jo and I lug all the equipment plus saddles about 50 meters further into the forest to a beautiful clearing by a stream, while Tanja tends the camels. As the sun goes down, we warm ourselves by the campfire and all go to bed early together.
