By Warren Macdonald

Knees burning, the straps of a heavy pack cut into my shoulders at each downward step. Step forward, fire quads; brace, grinding impact as ankles roll; burn. Repeat…

There’s just so much water!

It’s day five of a hike on Tasmania’s infamous South Coast Track, and of the three of us that descended that day along the section of trail that bought the bay into view, a view complete with a yacht, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one that thought, “When I’m too old and to hike into a place like this; I’m coming in like that; on the water.”

It’s all about wilderness, about seeking out that connection that drives folks like us to suffer; and suffer we had. The suggested time to walk the South Coast Track is 14 days. We were pushing for ten so one of us could be back in time for a court appearance. No, you don’t get to know which one. So our packs were heavy, capital H heavy.

So it dawned on me as the view unfolded, that those folks had merely sailed in. Sat on their backsides likely, and just gone there; the same place that we’d just paid such a high price to experience.

“Yep, one day, that will be me”.

Little did I know that day would come sooner than I thought.

fighting for my life

Less than eighteen months (check) later, I would find myself fighting for my life on the side of North Queensland’s Hinchinbrook Island; trapped beneath a one-ton boulder.

I’d gone to the island for the same reason I went anywhere; chasing that feeling of exposure; of wildness. The feeling I call ‘the connection’.

To get a sense of Hinchinbrook, think Jurassic Park. Lush tropical rainforest covers a mountainous strip separated from the mainland by a narrow channel. With Saltwater crocodiles. Mt Bowen dominates, though its often shrouded in cloud as it seems to create its own weather system.

I’d gone to the island burnt out, a result of the hard partying lifestyle of a contract painter on the regions only five-star resort. I’d gone seeking solitude; seeking connection.

A chance meeting on the beach at Little Ramsay Bay at the end of the first day led to an invitation to climb Mt Bowen. Geert van Keulen, a Dutch backpacker, had been given some trail notes with a route description to make what we figured would be a day and a half scramble/bushwack. Most of the day to reach the summit; spend the night; back down by early afternoon the following day. At least, that was the plan.

I rose at dawn, swam for a few minutes in the warm salty water, and began racking up the last of the seven or eight thousand steps I’d take…

Towards the end of the day, we came to a headwall; 400ft of towering granite with no obvious weakness; at which point we’d begun to wonder if we were somehow off route. Not a big deal, we both thought. We’ll set up camp here for the night and find a way in the morning.

‘Here’ was a granite slab beside a trickling creek; thick jungle behind us with a 12-14ft rock wall on the opposite bank. We ate; drank chateau cardboard, before Geert slipped into his sleeping bag and I was about to get into mine. Before I did that though, I needed to take a leak.

Stepping softly across the moss covered rocks, I made my way across the creek. Years of hiking dictated I should move as far away from the creek as possible, and I figured I could climb up and over the rock wall to get far enough away. As I moved closer to the wall, I saw a crack.

“That should make this way easier,” I thought.

I got one hand in that crack, put my right foot against the wall, and pulled…

CRACK!

An almighty crack, and next thing I know… Nothing.

To this day I have no memory of being in the air or falling. Then another crack, and a world of pain.

Geert is out of his bag in an instant, running across the same creek to find me, pinned from the hips down under a refrigerator sized piece of rock…

So begins an experience nightmares are made of.

Trapped

Attempt after attempt to free me fails; from snapped branches to stacked rocks and wedgestones attempting to force some pressure off of my legs.

Nothing works. We’re both exhausted. Beaten.

Just when it seemed things couldn’t possibly be worse, I feel the first few drops of rain. The drops get bigger; the frequency increases, until eventually, a tropical downpour has both of us soaked to the bone but that’s not the problem.
The problem, is that I’m watching the creek rise, slowly at first, but eventually; over the course of an hour, what was a trickle has become a swollen flooded creek.

Where I’d fallen, my backside was barely touching the water. Now, an hour later, water swirled around my waist. “I am surely going to die.” There’s so much water.

I could see the high-water line on the rock wall; it was over my head. “Nooooooooooooo!”

I’m sure you’ve thought about drowning; I know I had. I’d been caught once under a ledge snorkelling, held under by a large swell. What seemed like a full minute was likely seconds, but it was enough to scare me. It was over in seconds though.
What was happening now happened in slow motion. The water would slowly rise, till it washed under my chin. I’d keep my mouth tightly closed and until it covered my nose, and then.

Then I’d be screwed. Nothing peaceful about that; just screwed.

Then, silence. As slowly as it had begun, the rain began to ease, then stopped. Slowly, ever so slowly, the water stopped rising, and eventually, subside. However, I still had a huge problem; I was still trapped.

The only way

It’s now clear what needs to happen; neither of us wants to voice it. Finally, I say to Geert, “You’re going to have to walk out mate, it’s the only way.”

The night is the longest of my life; the idea of sleep a joke as the cold permeates into my bones; the grinding, crushing pain coming in waves; increasing every time I move.

At first light, I watch as Geert packs up his things. We hug goodbye, and I urge him to take it easy on the descent. My life is in his hands.

Then the realization. “Is this connected enough for you? Are you happy now? Is that what you’ve been looking for?”

I end up waiting the best part of two days until finally, the sound of a chopper.

I’m winched up on a wire cable and flown straight to Cairns Base Hospital, where a team of doctors and nurses run all kinds of tests on my legs before a surgeon, Dr. Bill Clarke, says to me softly, “Warren, you realize your legs have been badly damaged, don’t you?”

“Yes” I reply.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but we’re going to have to amputate them”…

So begins my new life.

five months later

Cut to a scene five months later at a waterhole five kilometres from the trailhead. I’m stretched out naked on a rock, sunning myself like a lizard, having just had my first swim outside of a swimming pool. If I can do this already, if I can ‘hike’ like this, I wonder. Could I possibly climb a mountain?

In the beginning, when I was first in that hospital, feeling that connection again outside seemed like it might have been lost forever. But it ate away at me. It was part of who I was. It was who I was; and I couldn’t let it go that easily.

An image of Cradle Mountain in Tasmania flashed in my mind, partly I think because I’d climbed it twice before; and I knew. I knew the only way to answer the question, if there was any way I could reclaim that part of my life, that the answer lay in Tasmania, and it lay on top of (or part way up) Cradle Mountain.

I set about planning, and training, then planning and training some more, until on a crisp February morning, surrounded by a small group of friends and family, after two days of wheeling and then scooting and then climbing; I reached the summit of Cradle Mountain.

And I knew. I knew I wasn’t done.

climbs and summits

That feeling of connection coursed through my like electricity, and I wanted more. So began a series of climbs and summits. Federation Peak in Tasmania’s south west; Mt Kilimanjaro, El Capital; The Weeping Wall in the Canadian Rockies.

Life was great, and I eventually reached the point where I could honestly say, given the choice, that I wouldn’t not go back.

That I wouldn’t trade my current reality for anything.

Then the problems started. First in my shoulders; I’d worn them out. Elbows, wrists; hands; all started to go.

A love hate relationship with my prosthetics turned into a hate relationship as I began to realize it made no sense to use them in everyday life when they slowed me down so much, so it became more and more difficult to just slip back into them when I wanted to do something outside.

None of that mattered though when it came to water. In or on water, I had close to the same mobility as

Fast forward to January 2018

It was Instagram that led me reaching out and connecting with Jason from Trak Kayaks in mid-2017. Everywhere I looked, there it was; this skin on frame kayak that answered a pivotal question for me when it came to kayaking: what kind of boats will they have when I get there and will my foam blocks fit?

The foam I’d had shaped years before by Chris Ryan at Endless Adventure in the Kooteneys. I’d signed up for his white water course and the first point of order was to get me locked down, albeit not permanently, into the boat so I could have some kind of control using (what was left of) my thighs. But of course, every boat’s different and I found myself often frustrated when using a rental.

But this TRAK Kayak packed up into a large ‘golf club type bag’ that you can simply take with you!

Realising I could customize it just for me opened up a whole new world of possibilities; and not just me. I’m part of a larger community of amputees, paraplegics, quadriplegics; folks with all manner of challenges that are not content sitting on the sidelines of life just because regular equipment or circumstance doesn’t quite work for them. The market for adaptive sports and equipment is growing, and it wasn’t lost on me that I could help figure out how to get more people like me out on the water, not just out on the water, but out into the world.

I dream of seeing folks in wheelchairs towing their kayaks behind their chairs through airports; along with their handcycles; their paraglider wings; their dive gear.

That dream turned into reality as I landed in Loretto on Mexico’s Baja peninsular in March 2018. Six of us, all with varying degrees of experience from total newbie to fairly seasoned, would spend a week exploring the islands off of the coast with three guides; Hans our trip leader from Vancouver Island, Yuri and Eder – our two local guides.

Now, the Baja trip could easily be an entire article, but I want to leave you with me three takeaways.

1. Just go

My system for giving me something to brace against in my boat was still very much in development when I arrived in Loretto. I managed to break it on the first day before we got on the water. With some Mexican ingenuity and much appreciated help from local outfitters Sea Kayak Baja, we got it working again, and continued working on it throughout the trip. The lesson: get it good enough, then go. Waiting around until everything is 100% and perfect typically means you’ll never go.

2. Shattering perceptions

The Trak kayak challenges people perceptions of what a kayak should be. Most people are shocked when I explain to them that, “Yes, there is a kayak in this bag.”

I get a similar reaction when I pull up onto a beach where other kayakers have already landed, pull my skirt and pop up onto the deck. People just don’t expect to see someone with no legs out in a remote place; pushing the limits of their mobility. I like to think that it shatters people perceptions of not just what’s possible, but what is.

Why wouldn’t I be out there; it’s just adapting isn’t it? The equipment; the people; the mindset.

3. We learn from each other

I certainly learned a lot about courage from Terri, who’d never kayaked on the ocean before; barely even sat in a kayak before our trip. Watching her go from terrified on the first day, to a calm and competent paddler over the course of the trip was a great lesson in supporting someone through what at times I’m sure was a terrifying journey. We were all there for her, for each other, and grew together through the experience.

I learnt a lot from Mike, a 70 something New Yorker who probably had more experience than all of us. I watched how he managed his energy; how he could keep his steady pace going all day.

Watching Mike reminded me how I might come full circle; how I’d come full circle from that hot afternoon on the South Coast track all those years before, and how I might travel as I get older; how I might get to feel that sense of connection as my mobility options decrease. How one doors closes and another opens.

There’s so much water…