Last Saturday morning, on the last day of May, I picked up a present that I’ve been waiting months for. It was like an early Christmas. Yes! I shouted with glee. The cart was finally complete. Within a week of supplying the wheels (built by Ultimate Ride) and 2.25m long aircraft-grade aluminium-alloy shafts (from Adventure Airsports in Torquay) to Ross Engineering, out came a shiny 23 kg cart.
The first field test with 80 kg on top produced a puncture in one of the unlined tyres. They have since been lined with burr-proof materials, ready for the next challenge. On the first cart walk I noticed how the weight really needs to be well forward of the wheels so that the front of the cart does not rise up. At any rate, hauling the 100 kg weight uphill was okay. Now to test it with an extra 50 kg up sand dunes.
While waiting for the cart to be made I have continued the big hill walking. A couple of weekends back I led a group up Mt Giles, the third highest peak in the Territory.
There are still a few potential sponsors I am waiting to hear back from (PowerWater, Tiger Airways). Their lack of involvement does not hamper preparations one bit, but it does add to the financial burden of running the expedition.
The website will be updated very soon (http://www.michaelgiacometti.com.au/) to include more details of the expedition and the water conservation aims. I will let you know when it has been updated – should be sometime next week.
So, with less than three weeks to go before the expedition departs, things are go go go. The remaining days will be filled with food preparation and packaging, media releases and interviews with radio and print media, checking the website content before it goes ‘live’, finalising equipment and sponsorships, and really testing the cart out.
Come and see me training in the dry Todd River bed. I’ll be the crazy guy pretending to be a mule, hauling a heavily-laden cart to nowhere.
Yours truly,
Michael Giacometti
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