The highest temperatures in 5454 kilometers of running

Day: 155 Stage three / total expedition days 546

Sunrise:
05:54

Sunset:
18:36

As the crow flies:
24,8

Daily kilometers:
27

Temperature - Day (maximum):
44° degrees, in the sun approx. 64°

Temperature - Night:
19° degrees

Latitude:
23°48'18.7"

Longitude:
142°49'05.5"

Heat Camp – 10/18/2002

Immediately after setting off, we pass another natural waterhole. It lies in a small crater surrounded by rocks and craggy stones. Because the cattle can’t reach it, we don’t find any decomposing carcasses in the water. “Will we be able to water our boys here?” Tanja doubts, looking into the hole, which is at least 10 meters deep. “Impossible. We’d have to get at least 30 or 40 buckets of water out of there. That would take forever. Apart from that, it’s too dangerous to climb over the sharp rock. If all goes well, we’ll reach a borehole on Tonkoro Station tomorrow. We’ll water them there,’ I reply and lead the desert animals on.

ACHMEDS HISTORY FROM THE THIRST DISEASE

At 09:00 it is already abnormally hot. The agonizing thirst sets in early and can no longer be satisfied. “I hope we don’t get the terrible thirst disease,” Tanja chats to herself after sucking on her water bag. “You mean the thirst disease that the camel man Achmed once told us about in the Sinai desert in Egypt?” “Yes, exactly that.” “That would be really terrible. I hope we are spared it,” I reply, feeling my dry throat constrict and thinking of Achmed’s story in which a desert wanderer suffered from a constant lack of water. Like us, he could no longer quench his agonizing thirst and when he reached an oasis, he drank and drank until he almost burst. After emptying his stomach, which was overfilled with water, he still felt terribly thirsty and drank until he could take no more. “His stomach was so bloated from the amount of liquid that he threw up and collapsed exhausted,” Achmed told us as we sat around the campfire near an oasis in the evening. “And then what? Has he finally had enough?” I wanted to know. “No, as soon as he felt better, he dragged himself to the well to keep drinking. He couldn’t stop. He always had to drink water. We tried to stop him but he resisted until we let him keep drinking. Even the next day he always wanted to drink. He just couldn’t quench his thirst any more.” “Did he not recover at all?” I asked sympathetically. “No. Even years later, he still suffered from incessant thirst. I think something happened in his head during the desert crossing that was irreparable,” Achmed ends his terrifying story.

“Do you think Achmed’s story had a true background?” I break the silence. “Why would he have lied to us? I think there is such a thing,” Tanja replies with a serious face. “Camis udu!” I stop our freight train. “I really need a drink,” I say to Tanja as she looks at me questioningly as to why I stopped the camels so abruptly. “Good idea, we have to do something about the thirst disease in good time,” she laughs.

At 11:00 a.m. the thermometer rises above 40 degrees. Completely ignoring the increasing heat, we march at a speed of around 5.3 kilometers per hour along the apparently little-used Winton Jundah Road. Knowing that we have to cover at least 25 kilometers as the crow flies, we walk as if in a trance. Our bodies perform at their best. It feels like we are machines under high pressure. We ignore pains that become more and more apparent and try to push them to one side. There is only one thing left to do and that is to achieve the day’s goal of finding a shady spot and a few food trees for our boys. We incessantly breathe in the already familiar stench of decomposing flesh. The thought of not running towards the finish is an additional psychological burden and when the old fantasies of why come up, I feel the familiar anger rising.

Shortly before 13:00 it’s 44 degrees in the shade. In 5454 kilometers of running through Australia we reach the highest temperatures. We eat our hiking pancakes without much appetite. They have become rock hard in the heat of the brood, which is why we have to be careful not to bite our teeth out. “I’ve read that it can get up to 53 degrees in Australia. In contrast, the temperatures now are downright wintry,” I try to make a joke. Tanja only reacts with silence, which is why I let my eyes glide over the stony ground again.

WILL THEY LOSE ALL THEIR WEIGHT?

When the satellite navigation computer shows just under 25 kilometers, we walk over a depression in the ground that indicates that water once flowed here a long time ago. Even in this hollow, the bushes and former trees are submerged by the dragon’s breath. “Camis udu!” I shout, letting my gaze glide over the arid corruption. “We urgently need a place to stay,” I say powerlessly. “Yes,” answers Tanja. “Let’s look for trees in the creek,” I say, pulling the camels along. We pass a bent horse skeleton whose skin stretches over the bleached bones like a drum. A few dead cattle lie just 20 meters away. “I don’t know whether we should stay here or move on? I just can’t think straight anymore,” I say, completely exhausted and depressed to the bone, looking into the barren creek bed. “There’s absolutely nothing left here for our boys to eat. Even the mulga trees look like they’ve been spat at by a flamethrower. That simply can’t be true. If it goes on like this, our friends are going to lose all their weight. What are we supposed to do? What do you think? Stay or keep going in this monkey heat?” “That’s your decision Denis. I can’t help you there. How am I supposed to know if it’s getting better?” “Hm, hold on Sebastian. I’ll follow the creek bed for a few hundred meters. Who knows, maybe I’ll find some green trees and a bit of shade,” I decide.

Just a minute later, I stumble over a stone, absolutely exhausted. A hot, soon biting pain drives into my lower back and brings me to my knees. I slowly straighten up again and stand still for a moment. Then I take a few deep breaths and feel my back with my sweaty fingers. Please don’t have a total breakdown now. If I’ve pinched my spinal nerve here, we’re finished. We don’t even have water for a single extra day. Gosh, I wish I’d taken more water with me! But the camels are at the end too! Well, what counts more, camels or humans? it goes back and forth in my brain. I shake my head to focus my thoughts on the essentials. We urgently need a place to camp and that’s the only thing I can think about now. Limping, I trudge on through the drought-stricken creek bed. Suddenly I discover a large eucalyptus tree whose leaves still contain sap. It casts a little shadow on tufts of yellow-brown grass eaten away by cattle. Rock-hard cow pats show me that this place was once used by cows as a resting place. A few brickly bushes grow not far away. Since I know that this type of bush is one of our camels’ favorite dishes, my decision was made. I quickly take my whistle out of my pocket and let out a loud whistle to inform Tanja to lead the camels here.

“It doesn’t look too bad,” she says as we shower off the camels. “What do you mean it doesn’t even look that bad? I think the place is a paradisiacal oasis in the nightmare of miserable barrenness,” I reply, stretching my aching back. “Have you hurt yourself?” Tanja asks worriedly. “Yes, the hex shot me in the back earlier. I hope it goes away,’ I reply as I’m about to unload Sebastian.

An hour later, our companions are unloaded and feeding like mad on the bricklys. Sebastian even makes a mess of the completely dry mistletoe. “I wonder how he manages to eat that dry stuff?” I wonder aloud.

We quickly hung the protective foil in the eucalyptus tree, set up our chairs in its shade and sat down in them with a loud sigh. “How much longer do we need to get to Westerton Station?” Tanja wants to know. “If the Winton Jundah Road doesn’t surprise us with any twists and turns, it should be another two days. However, we can’t take any longer anyway because of our limited water supplies. According to the map, it’s no more than 50 kilometers,” I reply, downing my fourth cup of water.

At 16:00 the thermometer is still at 43° degrees. Our boys have long since stopped eating and are all huddled together in the shade of the dried up mulga trees. Rufus is panting like a steam engine. His eyes are a little swollen but he has emptied his large bowl of water to the last drop. At 17:00 it is still 41.5 degrees in the shade. We get up to treat Jafar’s ulcer with the green cream. He is suffering from severe pain. The poison of the mulga wood makes the wound look worse and worse, which is why we decide to give him the anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving medicine as well. Tanja uses our last apples for this, which are now rotting quickly in the heat.

At 18:00 we are suffering from heat of over 40° degrees. I move my aching body out of the shadows of the foil to light a fire. It doesn’t take long for the billy to boil and we can pour the water over our ready-made Reiter food. I devour two meals at once, ravenously hungry, whereupon I break out in a sweat and stick my wet body into the camping chair.

Before the sun goes down, Tanja and I break off a few thin trees so that the famished camels can get more into their empty bellies. We climb up the bony trunks, put a rope around a fork in the branch and pull on it together until it gives way with a loud crack. Edgar watches us curiously as we carry out our strenuous work. As soon as the edible object lies defenceless on the hot floor, it makes a grab for it.

Shortly after the glowing planet bids farewell to the day, temperatures drop to 32° degrees. We breathe a sigh of relief. Before we retire to the camp beds, Tanja adjusts my vertebrae in the familiar way. It crashes a few times. “Ah, that was good. I think you got it,’ I groan with relief and lie down on my beloved bed after a long and exhausting day.