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T here ' s
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My First Attempt At River Crossings
TRAVERSE 47
e were riding the Kim-
berley, the north-west of
Australia; remote, rugged,
tropical. I knew there
would be river crossings
and we’d already ridden
through a few shallow, narrow ones
but now we were faced with a real riv-
er crossing. My first!
I sat astride my BMW F800GS look-
ing at the track disappear into the wa-
ter. It looked deep, the rock laden bot-
tom looked like a rider’s nightmare;
the large and rounded rocks looked
like they were waiting patiently to
cause a rider to slip and drown their
bike. I stared at them, they stared
back, mocking me. In the distance I
heard a voice, something about a mid-
dle gear, steady throttle, feather the
clutch … blah blah, blah blah, blah
blah …
I was shitting myself, I’d never
crossed a river like this before; front
wheel deep, that’s twenty-one bloody
inches, it was wide, rocky and with a
kink in the middle of it. I was shitting
myself!
I’d turned around to get a run up
and had dropped the bike, a passing
4x4 had stopped to help pick it up. I
heard that voice again.
“What the hell are you doing?”, the
voice asked. “Blah blah, blah blah,