I take over the leadership of the caravan
Day: 27
Sunrise:
07:04
Sunset:
17:16
As the crow flies:
16,6
Daily kilometers:
22
Amery-Camp – 07.06.2000
Today is my first day on which Jo hands over the leadership of our caravan to me. Even if it is more strenuous than simply running ahead, I feel an inner joy. It’s a bit like sitting behind the wheel and driving the car yourself. Before that, I was just the passenger.
As always, Sebastian hurries ahead with quick steps. I also have a hard time slowing him down in his euphoric stride. Jafar is limping again, which worries me a lot. We give him his medicine again during the lunch break. I can only hope that his injury is not worse than we suspect. Sebastian’s knee pops a little every now and then, but he is making progress. It doesn’t seem to bother him because his speed is unchecked. We feel like we’re jogging through Australia.
After a few kilometers, my knee joint starts to hurt. Many years ago, I played American football in the first national league, but after just under a year I injured my knee. Since then I’ve had three operations and now I’m walking around with an artificial cruciate ligament and several screws in my left knee. As always, I can only hope that it holds out. Sometimes I feel quite battered by my old sports injuries, but somehow I keep going.
As always, we take a break at around 13:00. As soon as I set the camels down, three women come towards us. After a brief conversation, it turns out that they are from the daily newspaper in the town of Dowerin, which lies ahead of us. The friendly ladies ask us about our journey so far. Unfortunately, their camera is not working, so Jo offers them access to our website. A little later, they say goodbye to us. Now we have time to enjoy our well-earned lunch. Each of us gets a ready-made soup, a few slices of bread that we still have from Goomalling and an apple. As a special treat, we can reach into the cookie tin. Tanja, who is responsible for the division and logistics of the food, makes sure that I don’t simply plunder the box. “Denis, now there’s no more! You’re eating your ration for tomorrow again,’ she warns me, whereupon I feel caught out once again and pull my hand out of the can in a flash.
On the rest of the march, I get caught up in my thoughts and take one step in front of the other. The pain in my overused knee joints has somehow become dull and is no longer as sharp as it was in the morning. I try to ignore them as much as possible and hope that my body will get used to the rhythm of running over the next few weeks. Time flies by and before I know it we reach our camp site near Amery after 22 kilometers.
After we have herded the camels and set up our tents, I set up our Flying Doctor radio for the first time. We want to get in touch with Tom. In the future, this radio will connect us with the outside world. We need the radio for emergencies. It is also important for us when we need supplies. Jo and Tom form the supply team for the next few months. They then need to know where we are and bring us our food for this time. On an expedition that lasts three years, we obviously can’t load everything onto the camels. We could go to a village in the outback every two to three months to stock up on food, but everything you need to live there, far away from the big cities, is extremely expensive. So we decided to go down this route. Later, when we are too far away from Jo and Tom, they will send us the food bags to a station (farm) that we will then head for, and the first radio connection with Tom works fine. We agree that tomorrow evening he will pick up Jo, who is longing for her husband, a hot shower, her bed and her electric blanket.
