I drowned the drone but the moose is fine.

Bears, moose, and a very steep detour

I’ve just returned from Australia after resetting my visa, and I have to say the first stretch of hiking was spectacular. And terrifying. Sometimes both at the same time, which I’m starting to think is just the vibe up here.

The wildlife has been the highlight, no contest. Bears. Moose. Animals I have genuinely never encountered in my regular Australian-life, suddenly very much in my vicinity. Spectacular and scary all at once, which is a sentence I also apply to my bank balance, but that’s a different blog (Thank you Entangled members you have no idea!!).

The moose was the one I was especially careful about. This one had a baby which meant I was on a very steep slope, staring down a protective mother, doing the mental maths on exactly how much trouble I was in. The answer was: reroute. 

One thing people are desperate to tell you here is that moose are more dangerous than bears. If you google it, honestly, the jury is out and my care factor hasn’t been quite high enough to hassle the experts… except in hindsight at exactly this moment. 

Typically… moose (including ones with babies) haven’t been interested in me at all. 

But since all the “experts” have been in my ear, I climbed all the way down an unstable snow covered slope to find a safe enough distance, get past them without becoming a moose-related statistic, and then climb back up to an adjacent rail.

Reader, I was nearly killed by the mountain, not the moose. 

In snow so deep I kept getting stuck by “post holing”, my sounds of annoyance had even the moose looking over the edge of the cliff-like-slope at me (that actually happened)… while musing over the peculiarities of humans (80% confident that happened). 

It took me an hour to cover a distance I could have covered in 2 minutes on flat ground.

Wombat, for the record, had opinions about this. Loud happy I-love-adventure ones.

When the aim was to “sneak around” the moose… I had serious thoughts about adoption options. 

My feet, and the abuse I’ve put them through 

If the moose was the drama, my feet were the slow-burn misery arc.

The shoes didn’t fit right. That’s it. That’s the whole story. Except it isn’t, because “shoes don’t fit right” when you’re walking 30,000km translates to: blisters, pain, a truly unreasonable amount of footage of me complaining directly into a camera, mostly about the lack of winter boot designs for the female foot. Which if you haven’t heard me harp on about, is significantly different to a male foot. Anatomically different. 

Before you ask: yes. I use sock liners, wool, tape, nylon, spacers. All the things. Someone will have a suggestion. Trust me. Check in the comments. And I know you’re trying to help, but I have soft skin. The only thing saving my feet is time. They toughen and then I’m good to go… a shoe that fits is also good. 

I have since grown thick skin. Literally. And invested in neoprene socks to cut the friction. We move forward. Slightly uncomfortably, but forward because 20min of mystery = numb feet and no pain.

As a side note: if you’ve ever wondered what it looks like when a person films herself complaining about blisters in the Canadian wilderness, I can tell you it looks exactly as undignified as you’d imagine. Bear Grylls never does this. This is probably why Bear Grylls has sponsors.

I’m also unwilling to drink my own pee so let’s move on to other ideas on how to make me disgustingly wealthy. 

The drone (a tragedy in several acts)

I was given a drone. A generous gift. And honestly the best one for my purposes (DJI Neo 2). It’s a beautiful piece of technology that I promptly drowned in a lake.

Here’s what happened. I was resting by a really beautiful lake area, decided to get some footage, thought I’d try one of those fancy cinematic moves where the drone pulls away from the subject and swings around dramatically. Very professional. Very “I know what I’m doing.”

The drone turned. Looked at me. And then slowly, calmly, lowered itself over a large body of water… and turned off.

I have tested it. It flies. I don’t fully understand why or how, because I am not an engineer, but I am choosing not to question it and simply to accept I’m a genius and move on.

MacGyver himself would be proud. Or confused. Possibly both. #MacGyver #mychildhoodcrush #haventmovedon

If you want to follow along properly, bears, moose, drowned drones and all, join Entangled. It's my inner circle and it's where a genuine community lives.  Or if you just want to shout me a warm-up-coffee or a self-pity-hot-chocolate to keep me moving: same link.

Lucy + Wombat 👩‍🌾🐶