Am fine and home now. But yesterday (Thursday November 5th) was a day of adventure. A quick summary:
Forecast for Thurs and Fri was for lovely weather, so decided a quick trip to the Northern Grampians was the go. 280km each way, so should try and stay 2 nights at least.
Plan was to try Briggs Bluff again, a year after my ill-fated first attempt. So decided on
- Two nights at Mt Zero Log Cabins (MZLC)
- Thurs: warm-up walk. Re-do Hollow Mountain, in preparation for…
- Friday: big walk: Briggs Bluff
But I didn’t get a chance to even start Briggs Bluff this time. (last time I got, err, umm, lost during the attempt). So anyway:
- About halfway up Hollow Mountain I caught my leg on a tree or sharp rock. Didn’t hurt that much…
- … But a few mins later there’s red-stuff running down my leg.
- Cut was below the knee on the back of the leg
- I carry a small first-aid kit in the pack, so bandaged it up
- It wasn’t hurting, so I continued and got to the top
- Some photos now up at my Flickr page. Warning: some red-stuff shown, but not too bad.
- Got back down again and even did a bit of tourist things etc
- Back to MZLC about 4:30pm
Angela (the owner/manager there) was then kindly preparing some band-aids, new bandages and antiseptics, whilst I went off and washed my leg off.
When we both saw the cut we said “mmm, that’s gunna need stitches”. Was ~3cm long and when I moved my leg it looked like a fishes mouth opening and closing!
How lucky is this: Angela said there was a major hospital at Horsham, only about 25 mins away. So I went off there and they put in 4 stitches plus gave me a tetanus shot, some antibiotics and strong pain-killers etc. Back to MZLC about 9pm and very hungry!
No pain, slept okay. Didn’t touch pain-killers. However doctor had said no more walks for at least a week, so decided to abandon the trip and come home today; barely 24 hours after leaving.
Stitches out in a week. And I still haven’t got to Briggs Bluff.
Update: a very warm Saturday 7th November. I finally got to have a shower today. And see my first ever stitches (sutures, they called them) Please send congratulatory cards and telegrams to me c/- ….
