Dear Word,
We just got back from leave today after a most amazing six days Trekking to Mount Namadgi for 3 days. On the 2nd night we had an encounter with two wild dogs at a beautiful waterfall probably their drinking hole.
Check out the photos of our Trek to Namadgi (had to reduce the size of pics to send). We didn’t quite get there (got to the base) the boys were absolute legends sense of achievement was incredible and we are determined to get to the top next time.
The wild dog encounter happened on our second afternoon at about 5.45pm just as the Sun was going down. We had trekked about 5kms from our previous campsite on our homeward journey and found this majestic spot just above a brilliant waterfall (Nam 37, 38) and the boys just said: “This is it! We are camping here!” It was awesome – you guys would have loved it. So we set up camp.
The boys spent a bit of time exploring while I set up – they deserved a break. Darcy went to the creek just above the waterfall where there was a good place to sit and wash your hands and just relaxed. I couldn’t really see him from the campsite although he was only 20-30 mtres away but really didn’t have any concerns. I fixed dinner and we all went down and sat right next to the waterfall to eat.Wish I was there now.
We could not see our camp from this point and it was very noisy so we would not have heard anything back at the camp site (about 40 metres away). In summer I will just stand under the falls. We finished dinner and came back to the camp-site all of a sudden out to my left I heard loud rustling then what I thought was a Kangaroo sprinting past us about 20 metres away. We realised it was a massive Bulldog! All white with a large black patch on it’s back. It was huge but thankfully running so fast away from us. I yelled as loud as I could “Get get”.
A couple of seconds later I turned around and saw a huge German Shepard crossing the creek toward us from the exact spot where Darcy was sitting before. I moved towards it yelling again “Get get”. I was so surprised it was advancing after I yelled at the other dog and it retreated into the bush and as the Sun finally dropped and light faded all three of us were standing there a bit nervous about the night
We built a fire and shone torches into the bush for a while and I eventually got the boys to go to sleep and I stayed awake for a couple more hours we didn’t see or hear anything from the dogs again. A lot of things went through my mind. The Bulldog sprinting through the bush may have been drawing our attention away from the Shepard as it crossed the creek. Or they may have seen Darcy earlier near the creek by himself and wanted a bit of a taste of him (after all he was the smallest and most venerable in our pack). Or they just may have been inquisitive and wanted to say hello. Or they were pissed off because we had taken over their beautiful home next to the water fall. I wasn’t taking any risks and had an axe next to me all night – freaky but exciting! The boys have a great story to tell.
