Crooked in Canada

Everybody has a story to tell about how they met their wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, husband and friends, and all of those friendships came about through chance meetings and sharing something in common.  Take for instance these two Aussies.Two blokes from Oz, total strangers to one another, met on New Year Eve’s day in Rathdowney, a small town near Mt. Maroon (catchy name, and quite appropriate for this story), Queensland. It wasn’t long before they found that they had hiking in common, and being near to Mt. Maroon they decided that they would like to see the first sunrise of the New Year from or near the top.  It’s a pretty cool plan, but I don’t think hiking up the side of a mountain in the dark with a dog is a good idea.

The 24-year-old man and his 30-year-old new friend and a bull mastiff named Diff set off on their trek at 1130pm New Year’s Eve, one of the men leaving a pregnant wife behind. The two bushwalkers and the dog were due back the next morning by 530am but that never happened. 

A search was launched.

It seems that while they were hiking up the mountain, the 65kg dog slipped down a cliff and fortunately for the dog, he landed on a ledge. Knowing that the dog would never be able to climb back up the cliff, the two men climbed down to retrieve the dog, but without any success. Of course, they ended up stranded on the ledge themselves without any means of communication (a cell phone would have sufficed) and they ended up spending the rest of the night cuddled up together to stay warm. 

Shortly after daybreak rescuers were on their way, along with a police canine unit joined them.  Queensland Police officer Kevin Kellor says that although it was Diff that got the pair into trouble on the mountain, it was that very dog that helped rescue them. 

Knowing that there was a dog with the missing men, the rescuers were able to get the police dog to bark to see if the missing dog would respond. It worked. Although the men were in an entirely different location on the mountain, the sound of Diff barking back alerted the rescuers to where the two men and the dog were.  A rescue helicopter was guided into the location and the now the two new friends have a story to tell. 

The dog by the way, spent an extra two days on the ledge, but was rescued by an experienced climber and his master on Thursday morning. The reason the dog wasn’t rescued at the same time as the two men was because of really bad weather. 

This story sounds like it could be an episode of Lassie or The Littlest Hobo.

David Gibson, one of the missing bushwalkers said it was a cold, wet night and it was very, very, very scary. He also said the men and the dog were not injured. 

Gibson is now facing a $1500 fine for taking his dog into a National Park, but I doubt he’ll incur one. I think he has already paid enough for his stupidity. We’ll see though.

I wonder what kind of adventure they are planning for next New Year’s Eve.