Dangerous Dogs

I have been working in a construction site away from Head Office in Melbourne CBD for the last few days. It's located in a very isolated place in the industrial Western suburbs of Melbourne. The site compound has a number of site huts which are basically container styled temporary offices. The first thing I noticed after arriving here was that the compound is supposed to be guarded by this "dangerous dog" at night. During the day, this poor lonely, aging dog stays in his kennel, bored and nobody to play with being locked up in a small wired enclosure. I tried to get him to come out of its kennel and come towards me at the fence a few times. Every time I walked past to visit the toilets, kitchen or out for lunch, I would go near his kennel ,say hello to him and practise my canine language with him behind the fence. Conversation (only one way!) revolved around food, the weather, politics, etc. Ever so slowly, each time he came out closer and closer towards me, wondering what this strange human was crapping on about before turning back and hiding. He must have figured lunatics don't have intentions on stealing anything! Yesterday I threw a ball over the fence but he wasn't interested either. I guess he must have been a swimmer in its younger days!



But today, after three more visits, he finally came all the way to where I was standing behind the fence. One of my colleagues held her breath and looked in sheer horror as I reached through the wire fence and pat him on the head. She was convinced that I won't be typing next week with one of my hands missing. I'm not sure why but I felt like I've achieved something today. I waved goodbye to him before I left and hoped that he will enjoy his evening walks with the guard...

I reckon it was a good training exercise to help deal with dogs on my future trip overseas. *chuckle* I remember before departing for Nepal in 2006, the doctor gave me vaccinations for polio, Hepatitis A&B, typhoid and tetanus. I asked him for rabies vaccination as well which but he simply said, "Do yourself a favour: Stay well away from dogs and monkeys and save yourself $200."

I forgot everything he said once I got there. They were a lot of dogs (some strays ) in Kathmandu and on the trail. They weren't your purebred, clean, well looked after dogs back home. Rather, most of the ones I encountered were filthy, flea infested, smelly and wild. But for me, it is simply too hard not to pat every single dog I come across. It would be like walking past a friend without saying hello. So I was the only silly trekker running around patting dogs after all the western tourists gave them all a wide berth. I was also silly enough to pat monkeys, cats, ponies and yaks! LOL!! Hopefully the first dog that gets me won't be from my beloved Dobermann breed...

Walking Poles

I just bought a new hiking pole (left) to replace the Leki pole
I snapped in Tasmania back in the winter of 2007 (middle). I don't normally carry one except on long trips with steep descents or some trips in the snow. Also shown in this shot is a wooden one (right) a friend of mine found and later presented to me complete with artistic carvings. HAHA

Someone asked me about Overland Winter 2007 the other day. Here's Day 1's Diary Entry (explaining how I managed to snap my brand new Leki pole) for those who are interested:

3 August 2007 Friday

Preliminaries

Shortly after entering into the World Heritage listed Cradle Mountain Lake St. Clair National Park, I could see from inside the comfort of the minibus that it was dumping snow outside with a gusty wind. It seemed peculiar to be isolated from the appalling conditions outside, knowing very well that sooner or later we had to get out and brace for the weather.

We arrived at the parks office early in the afternoon where we got out into the horrible weather, bought our park passes and gas canisters and registered our trip intention. I minimized weight as much as possible by depositing all my coins into the donation box in the parks office.

The mini bus managed to negotiate through the continuing snow and dropped us off at the Cradle Mountain Visitor car park at Dove Lake. Two years ago I was greeted with the sight of the majestic Cradle Mountain casting a perfect reflection on the lake under a clear blue sky. This time, visibility was down to 20m in heavy snow and the temperature hovering near 0 degree.

It was decided that with worsening conditions and fading light, it would be suicidal to get to Waterfall Valley Hut via the exposed Marions Lookout. It would be near impossible to stand up there, let alone trek! We would instead take the more sheltered route via Lake Rodway to Scott Kilbert Memorial Hut.

Drama getting to Scott Kilvert

After putting on the full snow weather gear, we started our journey towards the first night’s hut. I got off to the worst possible start while going up the first gentle climb out of Dove Lake. It was not a hard climb on soft snow but I managed to lose my footing and fell backwards after only five minutes of walking. Instinctively, I used my walking pole to break the heavy fall. The brand new Leki pole bore the full load of my weight and my 25kg pack and it snapped at the weakest point near the tip. It was heart breaking at first to see my $90 pole rendered useless after 5 minutes. Keen not to litter, I had to carry the dreaded thing for the next 8 days! Later on, I cheered myself up by thinking I would prefer the pole snapping rather than any of my limbs!

I put the pole snapping incident behind me and concentrated on following the party. The pack was at its heaviest for the trip and fortunately the terrain was not too steep to make the walk too strenuous. The unrelenting snowfall slowed us down considerably and it got dark just after 5pm. I switched on my head torch and put all my faith on Bruce to be able to lead us to Scott Kilvert.

While we were dashing through the quickly disappearing trail in the dark, I kept a constant look at my watch. Time was ticking fast and I wondered whether the first night of this adventure will be spent in the tent.

Bruce ignored one of the signs at one point and relied on his experience in the area to guide us closer to the hut. The snowfall was continuing and visibility was getting worse by the minute. I had little time to think about anything else other than to keep focused and to stay alert on where I placed my feet.

Thankfully, Bruce finally managed to guide the team into Scott Kilvert shortly after 7pm.

Paul had arrived earlier than the rest of us and had started the coal heater. Unlike the other huts in the National Park, this hut has two floors connected by a flight of wooden stairs. The ground floor has the benches and seats with the fireplace. Upstairs is the sleeping area with enough room to fit about 15 people sleeping side by side.

The hut was bursting with activities in no time as all of us started arranging our gear and cooking our first dinner for the trip. It was quickly infused with the different fragrances as the dinners were heated. It was amazing that all these were done under torch light in a crowded hut.

Bruce went out and located the path to the pit toilet through the snow covered forest. It turned out he had to dig out the thick layer of snow that was blocking the door. Later at night when I visited the toilet, I thought it would be impossible for me to find such a tiny structure blanketed in snow in the dark.

I was very excited that night about the trip but I knew I had to get some sleep for tomorrow’s struggle in the snow.