by Matt Wright
‘What happened to you?’ asked Wolverine.
‘Just a close one,’ I said.
Everyone within earshot gave me a grim nod and went about his business. Don’t think that the boys didn’t care about my safety. All of us had forged a close bond. Working together in a job as specialised and as intensely dangerous as this one will do that. There’s just no point bragging about it. Everyone has had a close call. It comes with the territory.
Showing off or big noting creates a macho culture, which is something we actively discourage. I’m not saying we’re so hard and unfeeling that we don’t have a yarn at the end of each day, laughing and shaking our heads in disbelief at some of the crazy shit that can happen on a nest. But we aren’t cowboys with a point to prove. If someone tries to join our operation with that attitude they don’t last long. The Professor will fire that person before he or she is killed. This is not a job for tough guys or show ponies. It’s a job for professionals.
18
Flying on the Edge
I often get asked to describe the worst conditions I’ve flown through. It used to be a tough question to answer. After flying choppers for 15 years, you can imagine that I’ve seen some pretty shit weather. I used to tell people that in terms of the most challenging conditions, it was hard to separate flying in northern Canada and northern Australia. Both regions present different challenges.
During the Territory’s wet season, the weather changes fast. One minute you will be staring at a clear blue sky, the next a column of black thunderheads will be barreling over the top of you, bringing lightning, howling wind and hail. The weather changes just as rapidly in the northern parts of Canada. Being caught out in a white out and having to fly on instruments surrounded by peaks and cliff faces is about as scary as flying gets.
But there was one day a couple of years back that tested me as a pilot like never before. It happened in the late summer, when the monsoonal rains and storms are most severe. Seven of us had been out collecting eggs for three days straight. We had been camping in an open field not far from Port Keats, a small coastal township roughly 400 kilometres southwest of Darwin. We knew there was a bit of weather about. On the day we left, a category one cyclone was coming into Darwin. Once it made landfall, the cyclone was expected to track southwest along the coast, right towards where we were collecting. We planned the trip so that we would remain one day ahead of the cyclone. The thing about cyclones is that they are unpredictable.
Things came to a head on the last day of the trip. I spent the day attempting to check the progress of the storm on my phone without success. The remoteness of our location meant there was limited service. That meant we had to run with instinct. There was no sign of tumultuous weather. It was a pleasant, cool day with a bit of drizzling rain. So we pressed on. Unbeknown to us, the cyclone had changed direction. It had turned west into the open sea, built into a category two cyclone and was now charging towards us. It was moving fast, too.
For six hours, we collected on the Moyle in perfect egg-collecting conditions, oblivious to the violence heading our way. We pressed further west towards the coast, eventually arriving at Table Hill, a small rise at the edge of the Indian Ocean. This was our final pit stop for collecting before we could head back to Coolibah Crocodile Farm to pass on the eggs. From here, we had a perfect vantage point to check the storm’s progress. Far out to sea, spread across the horizon, was a line of black cloud. Things were about to get wild.
Here’s the thing about collecting crocodile eggs. It’s tough work. The people who do this job understand that you need to accept certain hardships. One of them is poor weather. If we cancelled a trip every time we ran into bad weather, no eggs would be harvested. Besides, if we pulled out now we’d have to return some other time. That was one headache we all wanted to avoid. So the boys suited up and got on with it.
One by one, the boys hooked onto a sling and I dropped them into the overgrown, croc-riddled jungle. The weather started to deteriorate quickly. The rain was coming in horizontal, spearing into the skin of each bloke on the sling like sharp needles. I had my head hanging out the window to check on the boys. The force of the wind and the rain was incredible. It felt like someone was working over my face with a pressure hose. But it was the sight of the boys on the sling being swung around like a wrecking ball that prompted me to call it off. The risks were now unacceptable.
I called the lads up on the radio and told them to hurry up and finish off their nests. The guys waiting back at the pad with the grounded choppers were happy to hear me over the radio. They had copped an absolute belting, too. I told them to have everything ready to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.
I started pulling the remaining lads out of the jungle when Chris Wilson started howling on the radio to come grab him. Willow is a big, powerful lad with a cool head and laidback demeanor. If Willow is howling, something is seriously wrong.
I raced back to where I’d dropped him off, peering down through the rain. It took me a while to spot him. Even though I was hovering at an altitude of 100 feet, the rain was so heavy I could barely see the ground. Eventually, I caught sight of him. Willow was stuck halfway up to his waist in mud alongside a large croc nest. The swamp was filling up fast. In a few minutes, Willow would be underwater. But that wasn’t the real danger. Lurking about three feet from where Willow stood was a large female crocodile.
Willow was frantically waving at me to lower the sling. I did my best to land the hook on top of him. I nearly had it in his hand, until a wind gust pushed it away. My heart was pumping through my chest, this was taking everything out of me and I couldn’t imagine how Willow was coping down in the devil’s lair. I took a deep breath and with every ounce of concentration I had, set my mind to the task at hand as the croc inched closer towards my mate.
On my second attempt, I put the sling right between Willow and the big female at the very moment she was lunging at Willow’s head. The crocodile grabbed hold of the sling and immediately went into a death roll. As she wrapped herself up in the sling I saw an opportunity. I quickly pulled back on the collective and got her airborne for a few seconds, managing to drag her away from Willow. The croc untangled herself and landed in a pool of water scurrying away towards the ocean.
I whipped the sling back to Willow. He latched onto it like a magnet. I could hear him panting furiously through the radio. Once he was secure, I took him back to the staging area. Willow unclipped and I went back out to get the remaining blokes. Once I’d picked everyone up, I set the chopper down and gave the crew a quick rundown.
‘I think this cyclone is on its way to us,’ I said. ‘It should still be out to the northwest so we’ll be right to head northeast and southeast to get away.’
The plan was for Mick Jakobi and me to fly our choppers to Coolibah with the eggs. Meanwhile, Andy, our other chopper pilot, would take the boys back to Darwin. Everyone cracked on without hesitation. We loaded up the choppers with the crates and were airborne within minutes. Mick and I turned southeast, while Andy headed northeast. It was a relief to be leaving. At that stage, I was thinking the cyclone would make landfall at Table Hill. I couldn’t have been more mistaken.
We were heading towards over the Fitzmaurice River. From there we would track up across to Bradshaw and end up in the valley of Coolibah Station. I calculated a flight time of about an hour and half. Aside from a few bumps, I was expecting a smooth flight. It very quickly became clear that we had misjudged the storm’s location and direction.
The wind was picking up rather than dropping. Without warning, we were being hit with powerful updrafts followed by sudden downdrafts. It was unlike any turbulence I had experienced. The machine started rising and falling 100 feet at a time. The rain, meanwhile, was like a wall of water in front of us. The cyclone was actually south of our position and tracking northwards. We were on a collision course with it.
I was constantly on the throttle and collective to maintain rotor RPM. We slowed right
up and made it over the first ridgeline into Madjilini Valley where the going was a little better. But we still had 100 kilometres of Kimberley country in front of us. I called into Mick.
‘How you travelling?’ I said.
‘It’s getting a little rough, bud,’ he replied.
‘Roger that,’ I said. ‘You stay in the valley. I’m finding it hard to see you. I’ll stay high, you stay low.’
The wind became even more powerful as I climbed up the side of the escarpment. I could hear the machine moaning and groaning as I fed it more throttle to climb, doing my best to keep clear of the cliffs. As I reached the top of the escarpment a massive gust of wind smacked into me, causing the chopper to roll onto its side. I was squeezing the controls hard. My palms were sweaty and my knuckles white. It took every ounce of experience I possessed to keep that machine from spiralling out of control. My real worry was Mick, who had significantly fewer flying hours than me.
‘Mick!’ I called out again on the radio, ‘How you travelling?’
‘Getting smashed,’ he shouted.
‘Land if you get the chance,’ I called back.
‘I can’t, mate,’ he shouted. ‘There’s a wall of water coming down the valley in front of me and trees are getting airborne! It should be getting better soon though, right?’
I wished I could have said yes. I told him to hang in there. A couple of minutes later, Mick got back on the radio.
‘It’s getting a hell of a lot worse where I am,’ Mick said.
‘Tell me about it!’ I yelled back.
A second later, I was hit by a downburst. The machine was pushed down into a ravine. The turbines roared as I gave her everything to make sure I didn’t crash on the rocky bottom. Even though I was operating at full power, I couldn’t get any lift. I had no choice but to go with it.
I dived into the ravine towards the river. It felt like I was in a kayak going down a raging river of rapids without a paddle. I made it into the valley and found some relatively stable air. I was now flying in the same airspace as Mick in poor visibility. I gave him a call to find out his whereabouts. Mick’s sense of direction is questionable in even the most pristine conditions. For this reason, he was given the ironic nickname ‘Homing Pigeon’. Other than being somewhere in the valley, Mick had no idea of his exact location.
‘No worries, mate,’ I said. ‘I’ll get back up top and try again.’
I managed to get some altitude, tracking alongside a spur. I was hoping to catch an updraft, but everything felt like it was pushing me back down. The wind was so strong the rain was coming into the chopper sideways. My machine was showing 100 knots on my airspeed indicator even though I felt like I was stationary. I looked down on the ridgeline below and the trees were being uprooted and folding over sideways like they were blades of grass. I kept thinking about the croc eggs, hoping they weren’t getting too damaged from our rollercoaster ride.
Every little creek and watercourse below had turned into a raging river. Rocks, boulders and mud were sliding down the cliff faces. It was like the world was caving in. I maintained my course by using the ground as a visual. I was having a horrific time jumping from valley to valley across the top of the escarpment. Low cloud cover was becoming a problem too, whiting out the world and causing me to fly blind. I had to get this bird on the ground. I got back on the radio.
‘I’m going try and find a clear spot on this escarpment to land,’ I said.
‘Roger,’ Mick replied.
‘What are you gonna do?’
Mick is a big-talker. Usually you cannot shut him up. On that day he was reduced to one- or two-word answers.
‘Punching on,’ he said.
Keeping that chopper in the air was taking up every ounce of his concentration. For both of us, this was flying on the edge.
I managed to get above the escarpment and found a small clearing hemmed in among a crop of big old gum trees. I took the chopper in slowly, ready at any minute to throttle up and pull out in case of an unexpected wind gust. I was only about 10 feet off the ground and looking good when a bolt of lightning forked down in front of me and struck a huge tree. The trunk disintegrated, sending splinters of wood flying everywhere. I pulled back from my planned landing and told Mick I was tracking further north to get out of the low cloud.
I kept pushing on, looking for a break in the weather. I knew it couldn’t be too far off now. Mick and I kept in touch as much for comfort and encouragement as to ensure we didn’t collide. Finally, Mother Nature calmed down. The sky opened up and I set a direct course to Coolibah Crocodile Farm. Mick called in to report that he’d made it through as well.
To say I was a relieved is an understatement. We were both lucky to get out. The weather had managed to separate us by 60 kilometres. It just shows how powerful those storms can be. When we finally landed at the croc farm we were met by an astonished Bluey. He couldn’t believe we’d decided to fly through a cyclone. Had we known what we were flying into, we never would have done it.
When I fly back over the land now and see all the trees still strewn across the ground, it makes me appreciate the durability of the choppers we fly. I’m also reminded of just how important it is to keep a cool head and stay focused when the shit hits the fan.
19
Getting Down to Business
The nearly forgotten dream of starting a TV program came back to life during my first stint in Canada. The phone started ringing at three o’clock in the morning. I wasn’t impressed. I had to be up in a couple of hours for work. I let it ring out. Whoever it was could wait. Then the phone started up again. I reached over and checked the call identification on the screen. It was an Australian number. I thought it was probably one of my mates back home ringing me pissed, so I let it go through to voicemail. The third time the phone rung I answered. I figured there could be an emergency.
‘Hello,’ I croaked.
‘Matt,’ said a chirpy voice at the end of the line. ‘Nick Fordham here. I run a management company in Sydney.’
‘Mate, it’s three o’clock in the morning where I am. Can this wait until I’m a bit more human?’
‘I want to talk to you about your show reels.’
That got my attention. Turned out Nick had heard about my early attempts to put a show together and was interested.
‘I’m not home for a few months,’ I said. ‘Let’s talk then.’
Nick was not the sort of guy to take no for an answer. He kept me on the phone for half an hour. He saw huge potential in the basic premise of a show but wanted to share a few ideas to make it bigger.
‘If we can execute it in the right way, this thing will have global appeal.’
‘Sounds good, Nick,’ I said. ‘Let’s keep in touch.’
I’ll admit to having more than a few doubts. Those three years I spent toiling away in front of and behind the camera had amounted to basically nothing. I later discovered that when it comes to television, most ideas never see the light of day. Hard work is not in itself enough to ensure success in television. A lot of it boils down to good timing and a bit of luck.
Nick was incredibly persistent. He rang me up on a weekly basis, setting down ideas, laying out plans and offering to represent me. It was hard to fault his dedication. He certainly managed to rekindle my enthusiasm for a show. But I was never going to go into business with someone I had never met. I needed to put him through his paces, see just how keen he was to get this show up and running. I had just the thing in mind.
Egg-collecting season was on the horizon again and I was heading back to Australia soon. I thought there would be no better way to start our partnership and show Nick what I’m about than collecting crocodile eggs together.
‘Clear your calendar in late December,’ I said to Nick. ‘We’re going egg collecting.’
Nick came up to Darwin a couple of days after Christmas. He had suggested we get some footage to show the networks. I got my mate Mark Priest to come along too. Mark is a top cameraman and
good bloke. His passion is underwater filming and he has shot world-class footage of great white sharks that was picked up by Discovery Channel. He was exactly the right bloke for the job.
With two choppers, we all headed out to the Arafura Swamp. If ever there was a way of working out whether Nick was fair dinkum, it was sticking him on a nest in Arafura. Nick also thought he’d try his hand at a bit of camera work and borrowed a camera from his brother Ben, who worked at Channel 9.
Both Nick and Mark filmed from the choppers while Gecko slung me onto a few nests. We cleared a couple of nests without any problems. Then it was Nick’s turn. I trained him up on how to clip on and clip off from the sling. This proved to be a real struggle for a city slicker like Nick. We were in fits of laughter as he fumbled his way through the equipment.
After a good old laugh, we got busy. We cleared a couple of nests together. They were easy ones – little water and basically nowhere for a croc to mount an ambush. To ensure nothing went wrong, I went in first to secure the nest. I’d then radio up and give Nick the all clear. Once he’d gotten the hang of it, we went looking for cracking nests with some cranky females to get some proper footage. This is where the real fun started.
The idea was to use Nick as a decoy. Once I had been dropped in close to the nest, Gecko slung Nick over and dangled his feet right above a crocodile. The sight of a man hovering above caused the croc to launch seven feet out of the water. Nick gave a new meaning to screaming for dear life. The poor bloke was packing it. I wished to God I had a camera to film the entertainment. While Nick was distracting the croc, I was able to approach the nest freely with a screen door. Once I was in position, Gecko dropped Nick in behind me. But if Nick thought his misery was over he had another thing coming.
