Bushwalk Australia

Having made plans to get to Mt Franklin for a break but leaving the packing until the last minute because of my recent heart attack scare I think I may have stuffed up the tieing down on the trailers rack.
Cecile and I stopped to check the load the first kilometre and I tightened all the straps, this being SOP.
Stopped at Bannockburn roundabout service station to check the tyre pressures and again did a check on all the tie-down straps, SOP.
About 20 klicks after that there were road works and while stopped at the lollipop somebody behind us walked up to the car and tapping on the window told me that I was just about to lose a tent from the trailer. Damn!
OK so I got out to check and we are missing a tent and all the load restraint straps are loose. I'm a bit upset about this as the missing tent is brand new.never used and I got it from REI just before they stopped selling to Australia.
Anyway we continued on to Mt Franklin, had a good and very relaxing time although there was a very scary near miss with an extra large massively oversized agricultural vehicle on the way.
We did keep our eyes open on the way home via the same route "just in case" but traffic was moderately heavy so I needed to keep my eyes on the road and Cecile saw nothing.
Monday last I had to travel to Ballarat to get a power supply cord for my CPAP machine so I could use a 12V battery for power and I left quite early in the morning.
While I wasn't hopeful I did keep my eyes open and about a klick from the Bannockburn roundabout I saw a quick flash of orange next to a dark shadow and thought it might be the missing tent. Indicated and pulled over to the verge and walked back the 200 metres and OMGosh; there was our tent.
The storage/travel sack was full of small holes but the poles felt intact.
After I had bought the thing I desperately needed I drove home feeeling elated. After checking things out the only damage except for the need to make a new sack are some tiny pin holes in the fly and those can be repaired with Gorilla tape or similar.

In 45 years of driving this is the first time I have ever lost even part of a load and I still don't understand why the straps kept loosening as they are supposed to be certified for the use and they are polyester not nylon or polypropylene.
It's a happy ending and a massive save, I couldn't have afforded a replacement.
Thanx for reading if you got this far.
As for the near miss with the other vehicle? I'm really glad we were in the new Kia Sorrento with heaps of power and four wheel drive as the old Ford ute would have flipped and we would have been badly injured.
Damned thing jack-knifed across the full width of the road and I had to "hard right/ fast hard left" into the grass and dirt on the right hand side of the road and when I glanced at the speedo after getting back onto the bitumen I think it was reading 160kph, not too shabby from an 80 klick start and only about 10 seconds including the evasive manoeuvrers.
As it is the torque on the trailer as it whipped snapped a few welds and I am selling it on in its "As-Is" condition really cheaply. Already advertised and possibly already sold

How was the meet and greet?

Only Pedro turned up from the walkers but I did catch up the one of my daughters. First time since lockdown and that made it all worth while.
Soup was apparently excellent but perhaps my younger isn't too fussy with free food

That's a shame but it's been a funny year and everyone has lots to catch up on. Glad you got you tent back.