S&R News

Karen rang me this morning to tell me I was on the Channel 9 Today News - the front of me!

Click here to see the video and another here that shows better the kind of terrain we were looking in (I just happen to be in that one too - same shot as before).

There's a shot of firefighters walking towards the camera - I'm the third person in the line, wearing a red beanie.

Form an orderly queue and I'll get around to autographs after I've had my breakfast!

Karen had admonished me for smirking in the shot. Apart from needing to keep cheery while performing what is a fairly grim task, physically as well as emotionally, the cameraman had just popped up out of nowhere and it was a bit surreal.

We'd been bashing through pretty close bush as I said last night and then grouped up by the cliff. Seemingly out of nowhere came a reporter with his notebook in an immaculate long black wool coat and with a cameraman at his shoulder. He got the policeman, Matt, to do a few things then they went away. Next thing I know we're tramping through waist-chest high brush and there's suddenly the cameraman in front of us on the trail. I'd just shouted "have you got a teleporter on you?" when that shot was done.

S&R Day 2

Look what I nearly got a ride in today!

Again I was able to turn out for the search and rescue at Wentworth Falls/Katoomba. More hurry up and wait, more even than yesterday.

We came within a whisker of getting a helicopter ride. We were going to be deployed on the top of Mount Solitary and were all briefed on getting in and out of a helicopter either while it was hovering or via winch (!?). But then the mist rolled in and stayed and plans changed and only 4 with Remote Area Firefighting Team (RAFT) and winch training and the NPWS crew were able to go. The remaining RFS were split in to a couple of teams. One team was sent down the Golden Stairs and along the bottom of the cliff below Narrow Neck and my team were deployed to search Castle Head at the top. (Phew! - I think doing the Golden Stairs would be like climbing the Wallace Monument 2 or 3 times). My team included people from Faulco (Karen & Dan's brigade) some of whom I'd met before, two from Woodford and two from Glenbrook-Lapstone, including Steve who did the VF training with Jamie, Robbie and I.

As we did yesterday, we did line searches - spreading out from the track in a line. The terrain was less steep than yesterday but the bush was much more dense and more than once I was on my hands and knees burrowing through bushes and found myself stuck on top of a bush once or twice too! We bashed through the bush following a walking track off the main (dirt) road unable to see very far ahead. After about 30-45 mins of this we came to the cliff edge - and what a spectacular view! A bit of a walk further along and we were at Castle Head and the view was just stunning - it was all misty when we first got there but within 5 minutes or so the mist cleared and it was just glorious. It's a shame to be there under such circumstances, but I wouldn't have missed it for anything - this really is a blessed part of the world.


No sign of our boy again. At one point the team on Mount Solitary thought they might have found something - some scuff marks and some broken branches near the cliff edge. The police helicopter was deployed to have a look along the base of the cliff but they didn't see anything.

I was on the ABC news tonight. At one bit in the story on the search there is a policeman giving a briefing - there is the back of a blonde head - that's me!!! Tried to find it on the internet but all I found was some British news video. The media was everywhere today. We had a reporter and his cameraman appear at the cliff with us - then they kept popping up everywhere. We were hacking though the undergrowth and they sauntered along the track. It was a bit intrusive at times though and they just assume you don't mind having your picture taken.

RFS Search and Rescue mission

Today I played hookey from school to assist in an RFS search and rescue effort.

A young 19 year old Englishman left the Katoomba Youth Hostel last Friday morning saying he was going for a bushwalk. He hasn't been seen since. He has been out in the cold and rain for 6 nights now.

Answering a pager message last night, we gathered at our shed at 8 this morning and went up to the old Queen Victoria Hospital on Kings Tableland Road, Wentworth Falls for a briefing with other RFS brigades, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the State Emergency Service and the Police who were in charge of the operation. We stood around for ages waiting to be deployed - Karen must've sent me a Hurry Up and Wait on Facebook - then off we went down into the Kedumba Valley.

Once at the walking track we had to get ourselves in position to do a line search - we were separated into two groups and spread out in a line on each side of the walking track. It was slow progress at times, over rocky ground and bush bashing through some fairly thick brush. By lunchtime we were down at the bottom of the valley at the creek - it was very beautiful down there (see the Flickr slideshow):



Sadly, neither we nor the police dogs found the boy and so we had to climb back out for the night. Getting out was a bit arduous but we finally make it - after many "it's only five more minutes" - and crews being needed tomorrow, I've said I'll go again (if I can move tomorrow morning!)

I can't imagine how the boy's parents will be feeling. He's only a couple of years older than our two.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Brit Backpacker Missing In Australian Bush (news.sky.com)
• British backpacker missing in Australian wilderness (telegraph.co.uk)

Sad day

My friend Joanne died yesterday morning.

Joanne had been diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer about 18 months ago and I was one of a group of friends pitching in to help her since. She hasn't been well for the last 4 or 5 months and has spent the last month in the Palliative Care Unit at Springwood Hospital. On Wednesday, after being in considerable pain and after speaking with the Palliative Care specialist, she had her pain medication increased a fair bit knowing it would make her very sleepy and that she would be unlikely to wake again. When I arrived at the hospital on Wednesday early evening she was still awake, lucid and forthright as she has been all through. She told me she was not afraid and asked if I was going to stay until the end. Joanne's daughter Claire, her niece Catherine, another friend Jo and I stayed all night, one or other of us staying with her and holding her hand until she finally passed away just after 10 yesterday morning. Jo and I then laid her out for her family to come and say their last goodbyes.

Joanne was one of the women I met when we first came up to the mountains and I joined a New Mums group. Claire is only a few days older than James and Robert. She was both the first of the group to have a second baby and the first to go back to work. She was frighteningly clever and was an Actuary, a job she had to give up last year. We didn't see a lot of each other after she went back to work. Ian used to travel on the same train for a while so he saw her then more than I but she sought me out again when she became sick and knew she would need chemotherapy because she knew I'd been through the same experience. Unfortunately she was not as lucky as I and soon found she wouldn't have much longer to live.

Joanne leaves 4 children in the care of her former husband.

In April last year we went on a holiday to Queensland with Joanne and her kids and had a great time.