“Where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough…”
So I fell in the Snowy. I’ve always talked a big game about river safety, and I usually call it rather than crossing rivers if I’m at all worried. Most of the other racers had crossed successfully ahead of me, and in the history of the race (more than a decade) no one has fallen in, so I went for it. I was 500km in to a 1000km bikepacking race. I was feeling confident and loving the race.
The start of the crossing was fine, with big rocks, but progressively it got deeper and trickier as I headed across and slightly downstream. I had my bike on one shoulder, and my bags chained through a cargo strap on the other. The idea was to make it balanced and easier to lift my bike for an extended amount of time. When crossing a river you want the bike to stay above the water, as the current will build pressure against the bike and pull it away from you.
I was under the assumption that the river crossing would be fine, as all the riders ahead of me had crossed successfully, many of them in the dark on little sleep.
I slipped halfway through the crossing at a deeper point and went under, almost losing my bike as the current dragged me. I managed to get onto a rock in the middle of the river with the bike (well, more accurately, a little mound of rocks and dirt covered in reeds). After a few hours sitting in my bivvy bag attempting to problem solve how to get out, my legs started to tremble uncontrollably from cold and fatigue, and I couldn’t find a trustworthy solution to make it safe to go forward or back. I called for evacuation. In over 600 nights of bikepacking in all conditions I’ve never been close to needing evacuation before, but there were no other options left.
It turns out there were two SOS calls, as Simon, a rider who made it to the far bank, had called for help before I did. The rescue team and paramedics were so extremely lovely. I was winched out at around 11:30pm after being stuck since just before 8pm, with just grazes, and left the race. I made the news and I’ve been steering well clear of comments sections. I did everything I could in the circumstances of the race, and in the grand scheme of things it’s no different to the countless bigger dudes who have crashed and broken their collarbone doing backcountry mountain biking needing evacuation.
People have also been washed down rivers on many other bikepacking events, from Race to the Rock, Terra Australis, the Sounds to Sounds (at Omarama saddle), and the Tour Aotearoa (at Cowboy Paradise).
I’m not planning to post any deep analysis about what happened right now while the topic is still hot. Also because I’ll lose my entire mind thinking about it and what I could have done differently.
I had a great time in the race and I’ll admit crossings are always a weak point for someone like me. I’m 5”1 which means the water is really high on my body compared to the average rider, the bike needs to be lifted higher proportionately to my size, and it’s heavier because I need to use a rack to have my bags on an XS size bike. All those factors point to small people having a tougher time crossing rivers, and the only other time I’ve known someone to go under was another (very competent) 5ft racer on the Hunt 1000. It’s something that’s always frustrated me about my body.
I was airlifted to Bairnsdale (about 600km away) and cleared to leave the hospital at about 3:30am. The staff asked if anyone was coming to get me and I said “ha ha no - do you have any lost property? my only clothes are soaked”. They let me keep the hospital pyjamas.
Cue looking like the scene in 28 days later as I walk 30 minutes alone to the Bairnsdale train station wearing hospital pyjamas with a bright blue hospital trash bag full of my clothes. Two trains and two buses later I’m back home.
Things are going okay. Some lovely locals from Jindabyne went down and picked up my bike and gear yesterday. I’m planning to get back to my bike and finish the trip I had planned to do after the Cloudride. I’d been hoping to have some time away from Melbourne to figure out what the heck I’m doing in life, not accidentally teleport back here (helicopters really are amazing though).
The news did misgender me a little, but honestly, it’s probably good that the average opinionated comments section guy thinks I’m a man rather than a non-binary transgender menace.
People have remarked that I’m weirdly calm about all this, almost dying on a wee island in a river by myself, about being on the news, about possibly losing my beloved bike and gear, and all the associated shame with needing to be evacuated.
It’s not so much that it isn’t difficult, it’s that this doesn’t nudge the Overton window of difficult awful things in life for me. It’s not even in the top three. Or the top five. It might make top ten?
Outdoor adventure stuff appeals to recovering traumatised types because it unfolds in an environment you have some control over. Hunger, fatigue, cold, heat, difficult terrain. The land doesn’t have feelings or malicious intent, it just exists. The river, whilst drowning me, doesn’t have an opinion about faggotry. I am isolated by choice rather than by force.
Over the last 6 months I found and then was ghosted by a person I truly loved and felt safe with. Freaked out about feeling emotionally unsafe at home. Felt lonely. While ghosted I’ve lost the community I thought I’d have had here in Melbourne. Being trans, while wonderful, is precarious. In some ways, having 48 hours post being stuck on a rock where everyone suddenly cares, knowing I did everything I could have done to get out of a crisis, it isn’t so bad in perspective lol
to some degree I’m tired of being clapped for being tough though. it’s cool and useful to be tough. do I enjoy it? not really. Sometimes I wonder how many people we celebrate for being tough would prefer to be sat the fuck down and given permission to not be tough for a bit.
Now things are settling back to my less public life I’ll be catching the bus up to Cooma to go grab my bike, ride back to Canberra, debrief with a few folks there, then carry on with the original trip plans, heading up to see friends in Sydney before I make up my mind: stay in Melbourne, head somewhere else, or go to rural NZ to live with my friends (it would mean giving up on finding my queer trans other half, but it would be a good place to focus on my book).
“anxiety is the dizziness of choice” - I think it was Sartre who said that one
Ciao
Robbie
