We got the hand winch from Glen’s mate back in Port, but never really checked to make sure it worked. He assured us it did, but never used it himself. He didn’t need to. He wasn’t, as he told us, a dickhead. We, apparently, were.

The handle, we concluded, wasn’t the correct diameter for the winch, and despite attempts to tie it on with wire, it didn’t work. Failing extraction with winch, I grabbed a shovel and tried to dig us out, but soon realized how pointless this endeavor was. To every shovel full of sand I removed, the river re-deposited an amount equal to, or great than, my excavation in a matter of moments. I gave up, and went to sit on the bank with the others.

“How about lunch?” I suggested.

“How are we gonna get out of here?” Glen said solemnly, and just a touch pissed off.

“We’ll be right. Remember, every bloke and their dog is up here doing this trip. And one of them is bound to pass here with a winch. That’s all we need really.”

“No Dom, that’s shit. We can’t rely on others to get us out.”

“Well Glen, that’s all we have. Unless you can think of anything?”

But I could already tell what he was thinking: “dickhead!”

Our wait, as it happens, wasn’t that long. A few hours maybe, I don’t know; we passed the time cooling off in the water and not talking. And before we knew it a Land Cruiser pulled up to the crossing.

“Are you okay?”

“No, not really. We’re stuck and could really use a pull.”

Sergio and his wife Barbara were on holiday form Milan, just concluding their 3 week trek in a rented 4wd, and were kindness itself. Barbara jumped out of the car and went to stand with Sue and Fiona on the relative safety of the sandbank, while Sergio, Glen and I stayed to dislodge the car.

We tied a rope to the back bumper of the Land Rover and Sergio positioned his car for the pull. We gave it a go, and managed to budged the Land Rover a few meters. But along the edge of the bank were some large rocks standing before the car and aquatic freedom, too large for the Land Rover to clear.

We gave our plan a rethink, and decided to pull it from the front, but with much the same result. We tried again from the back, stacking some rocks behind the rear wheels to give the Land Rover more clearance. But it always ended the same, the Land Cruiser struggling and spinning its wheels and the Landy floundering atop the rocks.

We abandoned the idea, and I climbed in with Sergio and Barbara to go get help.

“We’re going to Archer River," Sergio was saying, "you may be able to find somebody to pull you out there.”

I assured Glen and the girls I would return with help, and drove off on the 85 kilometer voyage to the roadhouse. Surely I would be able to find someone there with a winch.