Read Online Never Mind the Bullocks, Here's the Science by Karl Kruszelnicki - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Karl Kruszelnicki
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passed each day. They were drinking 25 litres each per day. Riding a motorbike in sand is like jogging, because you’re standing up all the time, so you work hard and get thirsty.
They ate army rations (one Day Pack each day, $25 each) because they were nutritionally well balanced, and because the rations were not dehydrated. If they ran low on water, they didn’t want to have to use it to rehydrate food.
They wore compasses on their arms, and mounted strip maps of the stock route on their handlebars. And their lives were saved because of the rule that they had made on a previous occasion while riding across the Simpson Desert.
They’d noticed that even though sometimes they were actually quite thirsty, they didn’t drink enough water. And so they made up a rule that they simply would not go to sleep unless they had urinated. You see, in most cases your body will let you urinate only if you are well hydrated (body fluid balance is actually a very complicated field of study, but this short sentence is a mostly correct summary).
It turned out to be a pretty rough trip. It was 43°C at Alice Springs, and it had to be hotter than that along the route. It was so hot that the valves in the engine stuck.
Early on, around the third and fourth days, they each got injured. Ken hit a termite mound with his right foot. (When a four-wheel drive vehicle travels the Canning Stock Route, it follows the wheel tracks, and only a few centimetres or so of mudguard actually projects outside the wheels. But on a motorbike, a lot of the motorbike and your feet project out on either side of the wheels.) Ken took his shoe off that night. His foot swelled up overnight, and he could hardly get his shoe back on the next morning. So he left his right shoe on for the rest of the trip. The next day, David broke three toes on his right foot, and he left his right shoe on for the next week.
A few days later, at the 11 am stop, they arrived at an empty well. They had each drunk 15 litres of water, and had only 5 litres each left. They didn’t stop, and pushed on to the next well which was quite close, only about 20 km away.
They soon began to experience heat exhaustion. David described it as the feeling you get when you drink five nips of rum really quickly. He was breathing very fast, felt dizzy, and was so uncoordinated that he kept falling over. But because they were so irrational from the dehydration caused by the heat exhaustion, they just kept on riding and falling over, and riding and falling over, sustaining more injuries with each fall, and laughing uproariously at the fun of it all. They arrived at the next well (which luckily had water) around midday.
‘We decided we deserved a rest after that, so we didn’t do the evening run.’ They lay down and rested, and drank. ‘When you’re buggered, you don’t feel like drinking, but you know you have to,’ David said. So they stuck to their rule and kept on drinking water. Gradually their heads became clearer, and they realised what terrible shape they were in, and how close they had been to death. But they still hadn’t urinated so they kept on drinking. And finally after sundown, around 8 pm, eight hours after they had started resting and drinking, they finally urinated and went to sleep.
When they woke up the next morning, they realised how dehydrated and delirious they had been. If they hadn’t drunk water until they had urinated, they could have easily died. They might have woken up the next morning still delirious and dehydrated (and not known it). They could easily have ridden and fallen and laughed until they died. Or they might have become even moredehydrated during the hot night, and not have woken up in the morning.
When I was talking to David up at the Three Ways Roadhouse, at first I couldn’t understand his rule of not going to bed until he urinated. But when I thought about it, I realised that it probably saved his life. David still rides motorbikes. But Ken sold his motorbike
They ate army rations (one Day Pack each day, $25 each) because they were nutritionally well balanced, and because the rations were not dehydrated. If they ran low on water, they didn’t want to have to use it to rehydrate food.
They wore compasses on their arms, and mounted strip maps of the stock route on their handlebars. And their lives were saved because of the rule that they had made on a previous occasion while riding across the Simpson Desert.
They’d noticed that even though sometimes they were actually quite thirsty, they didn’t drink enough water. And so they made up a rule that they simply would not go to sleep unless they had urinated. You see, in most cases your body will let you urinate only if you are well hydrated (body fluid balance is actually a very complicated field of study, but this short sentence is a mostly correct summary).
It turned out to be a pretty rough trip. It was 43°C at Alice Springs, and it had to be hotter than that along the route. It was so hot that the valves in the engine stuck.
Early on, around the third and fourth days, they each got injured. Ken hit a termite mound with his right foot. (When a four-wheel drive vehicle travels the Canning Stock Route, it follows the wheel tracks, and only a few centimetres or so of mudguard actually projects outside the wheels. But on a motorbike, a lot of the motorbike and your feet project out on either side of the wheels.) Ken took his shoe off that night. His foot swelled up overnight, and he could hardly get his shoe back on the next morning. So he left his right shoe on for the rest of the trip. The next day, David broke three toes on his right foot, and he left his right shoe on for the next week.
A few days later, at the 11 am stop, they arrived at an empty well. They had each drunk 15 litres of water, and had only 5 litres each left. They didn’t stop, and pushed on to the next well which was quite close, only about 20 km away.
They soon began to experience heat exhaustion. David described it as the feeling you get when you drink five nips of rum really quickly. He was breathing very fast, felt dizzy, and was so uncoordinated that he kept falling over. But because they were so irrational from the dehydration caused by the heat exhaustion, they just kept on riding and falling over, and riding and falling over, sustaining more injuries with each fall, and laughing uproariously at the fun of it all. They arrived at the next well (which luckily had water) around midday.
‘We decided we deserved a rest after that, so we didn’t do the evening run.’ They lay down and rested, and drank. ‘When you’re buggered, you don’t feel like drinking, but you know you have to,’ David said. So they stuck to their rule and kept on drinking water. Gradually their heads became clearer, and they realised what terrible shape they were in, and how close they had been to death. But they still hadn’t urinated so they kept on drinking. And finally after sundown, around 8 pm, eight hours after they had started resting and drinking, they finally urinated and went to sleep.
When they woke up the next morning, they realised how dehydrated and delirious they had been. If they hadn’t drunk water until they had urinated, they could have easily died. They might have woken up the next morning still delirious and dehydrated (and not known it). They could easily have ridden and fallen and laughed until they died. Or they might have become even moredehydrated during the hot night, and not have woken up in the morning.
When I was talking to David up at the Three Ways Roadhouse, at first I couldn’t understand his rule of not going to bed until he urinated. But when I thought about it, I realised that it probably saved his life. David still rides motorbikes. But Ken sold his motorbike
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