Surviving the Kimberley
A CROC’S GONNA rip you straight off that raft, mate!” These were the not-so-encouraging words of a local in Wyndham, 2200km north-east of Perth, who farewelled me as I prepared my vessel for departure into the remote Kimberley.
It was nerve-racking setting off on this four-week solo expedition into the West Australian wilderness, to place myself in the same situation as two German aviators – Hans Bertram and Adolf Klausmann – who had been stranded in the Kimberley in 1932. I wanted to see if I could survive my way out of their historic predicament, with only the materials that had been available to them 85 years earlier.
After running out of fuel on their f light from Europe to Australia, these pioneering aviators made a raft using one of their seaplane floats and attempted to sail back to civilisation. After five weeks of hell – lost, with little food and water – they’d given up, but were rescued, on the brink of death, by local Balanggarra people.
I wondered if they might have had more success if they’d used two f loats, instead of one, and roped them together to make a catamaran. To
