Interim – Sky-high

21- 22 October 2024

You could always tell by the sound. 

Long, long ago, in a state far, far away, my childhood home was located pretty close to a private airport where my grandfather was a member of the local Experimental Aircraft Association chapter. My grandfather and his son were both pilots, and my uncle’s son would eventually become a pilot, too. The entire extended family went to watch a lot of balloon launches, visiting war planes and air shows when I was kid.

But my favourite airfield-related activity was watching the skydivers at the local airport. I never really gave a stuff about any of the planes! 

The sound of the plane that dropped the skydivers was different to the other planes that we would hear flying near our house. So we’d often head out into the backyard to spot the skydiving plane when we heard it flying.

You could also tell by the sound of the engine cut when the skydivers were about to tumble out of the plane. If you had good eyesight, you could actually see the people as small dots coming out of the plane after that engine cut. Then you could watch as the chutes opened and they sailed back to earth below.

So from about the age of eight, I always wanted to skydive. The hot air balloons didn’t excite me – I’ve always hated loud noise, and balloons are NOISY. The airplane really was too noisy for me, too, but I thought it would be worth enduring for the fun of jumping out of the plane and the quiet after the chute opened.

Then, once I went off to uni at age 18, I discovered these sports called hang gliding and paragliding. Ohhhh, that was much more my style. Much quieter! Then, as I studied the 1964 Wilderness Act as part of my degree, I read that hang gliders were not allowed in wilderness areas, but paragliding was an acceptable activity. From then on, I wanted to paraglide instead of skydive.

But the opportunity was never there… until we moved to Albury in 2004 which is only about 1.5 hours from arguably the best paragliding site in Australia. But we struggled to pay rent in that period so there was absolutely no spare cash for fun stuff. Then, once I had a teeny bit of money, any spare cash went to saving for the big bike tours in 2010, 2013 and 2014. Then I got sick in 2017. Then the pandemic happened. 

And then, finally, what started as a desire to drop through the sky with a parachute at age 8 became a reality at age 48.

With spare time up my sleeve before my contract starts, I’ve been making the most of that free time. I still go and strength train three days a week at the gym, but the other four days have been filled with camping, hiking and exploring each week. This week the weather looked absolutely perfect to hike Mt Feathertop, Victoria’s second-highest peak. And that just happens to be near Bright, where the paragliding is based. 

So I booked a flight. 

I met the owner’s partner and their son at the landing field and then we took off in their ute up the narrow dirt tracks that lead to the Mystic launch site. They were kindred spirits that were into hiking, backpacking, bikepacking and mountain biking, so we had a great conversation about gear and places to ride as we drove to the top. 

Once up there, I signed my life away, they got the gear ready and I messed around with the helmet until it fit my head okay. They got me into the harness, got me attached to the pilot and then we stood there and waited. And waited some more. We were waiting for the wind to drop and to watch the other pilots already in the air to see where the thermals might be. 

The instruction was to start walking toward the edge of the launch platform when told to go, and then to start to run when the pilot says, RUN. Keep running and keep your feet moving until we are into the air. 

It sounded simple, but in reality, when the pilot turned to lift the canopy, that turned me also, and for a moment I was on my knees before the pilot wrenched us back around and I commenced running. It wasn’t particularly graceful, but we got in the air without any issues.

It is not quite warm enough to create the really good thermals that can send the pilots up to 2200 metres and allow flights of around 30 minutes. Plus there is cloud building and that tends to shut down the thermals, too. So we never got to go super high and could only stay aloft for about 10-15 minutes.

But wow, was it fun!! I’m ready to go again in mid-summer when they get those good thermals! 

The pilot did a great job of getting us into a couple good pockets and giving us some really nice tight turns. I grinned from ear-to-ear the entire time. It is definitely not for anyone afraid of heights, or anyone prone to motion sickness, or anyone who overthinks risk. 

Otherwise, if you can run and support your own weight, then it’s an amazing experience. I loved the rush of the air past my helmet and that feeling of lift that sends your stomach down and your body up, as you hit the pockets of rising air. 

For landing, the pilot said to scoot forward in the seat and dangle my legs, ready to run it out if needed. We skimmed along above the ground for a bit, the pilot ran a few feet and then really, all I had to do was stand up. The landing was a lot easier than the take-off. Fantastic stuff – if I had a spare $10,000 and a more conventional life, I think you’d see me investing in gear and  learning that sport!

Mt Feathertop – 1922 metres – 23 kms

The day before I took the flight, I crawled out of the tent at 5am in the pitch dark, brushed my teeth and took off from the only decently-priced caravan park in Bright. 

The drive up the Great Alpine Road is not exactly for the faint-hearted. It climbs from 600 metres at Harrietville to 1800 metres at Mt Hotham over about 23 kilometres. It is a pretty narrow road with very steep drop-offs and no guard rail on the outside edge in many places. Trucks and coaches use the road and there are 10 kms where if two trucks meet, they cannot both make any of the curves at the same time. 

It’s the type of road where the outside edge is uneven and wavy, because it is in the process of slumping down and off the mountain. The reason there are no guardrails in places is simply because there’s no place to put them. Even some of the reflector posts lean outward because there is so little room. I’ve ridden down this road on the bike and been up it in the car a few times. That outside edge is no joke for about 12 kilometres. 

So I’m not sure if it is scarier to drive in the daytime when you can see how far down it is over that edge… or at night when it is just an abyss. At least at 5.30 am, when it is still an abyss of darkness, you can drive a bit toward the middle, instead of on the wavy slumping edge, since there is no traffic.

Still, the corners are so tight, it is not a quick drive. And, of course, you’ve got 20 kms of HIGH RISK AREA before you even get to the start of the climb where you’ve got to be on the look out for kangaroos, wombats and deer. It is the perfect place for them – wooded slopes and grassy valley bottom. I keep my eyes peeled and high beams on the entire drive up (except when I pass one vehicle I meet coming down the mountain). It was about this time last year I wrote off my car in a kangaroo collision.

But the reward for going so early  is to see all of the mountains bathed in predawn pink as we get to the trailhead. The other reward is getting up there before we had to drive into sun glare and try to spot other vehicles and corner edges with sun in our face.

I do a three-point turn in the middle of the road and pull into the parking area at Diamantina Hut. We’re hiking the Razorback Spur out to Feathertop today – the easiest way to do this summit. There are 3 or 4 other spurs you can use, but they are all very steep. I’m looking for a nice hike, not a suffer fest, so Razorback it is for me. 

The air temp is not bad, but the wind is ferocious and brings that wind chill right down. I’m glad to have my winter beanie!  I have to be careful getting my gear together because the wind is strong enough to really push the car doors back on their hinges which is no good for tight fitting seals later! 

Then I’m off and away just as the sun begins to rise. The wind is very pushy and flaps the fabric of my pant legs. My legs feel a bit fatigued to start, but they eventually get warmed up and come good. It is just about the most perfect day you could ever order up for a hike. That wind will come and go, but it will remain cloudless and sunny with a high temp around 15 degrees. Just perfect for an alpine stroll.

The hike is an undulating 11 kilometres. It is rocky in places and very exposed for most of its length. That means absolutely gorgeous views the whole way but also considerable danger if you were up here when storms came in. But the up and down is moderate overall, and it’s only the length that will tire you out on this trail. 

We traverse along the spur, and climb up and down moderate hills. There is a section at the Twin Knobs where you pop out onto the knob and get that great feeling of being alpine, as if the world is mostly below you, with only a few peaks above. 

There is a saddle just before the final climb to Feathertop where a grand snow gum provides shelter and shade to all the hikers resting their heart or knees, depending on which direction they are heading. From there it is 500 metres downhill to Federation Hut and about 1.3 kms the other way to Mt Feathertop. 

The ascent to Mt Feathertop has a steep section up its first hump where the slate has eroded into nice steps and good footholds. There’s a bit of exposure along this bit that might be a little scary here and there on a very windy day. But the second hump and final hump are much easier. 

Most peaks in Southeast Oz don’t really feel like peaks since so much of the Alps are just high plateaus. The highest peaks, like the highest in the state Mt Bogong (which we climbed in 2014), are just higher bumps on a plateau. But Mt Feathertop is an isolated point on a ridge, so it actually feels like a proper mountain.

The views are fabulous. I get a picture of Verne and Kermit with Nigel’s rescue St Bernard, Grappa, that his coach passengers bought him in Jungfrau when he drove tour buses in Europe for a while in the mid-90s. Poor Grappa doesn’t have many chances to get alpine these days. 

I have a look around, place the peaks in my head, and then start the 11 kilometres back to the car. 

I do detour the 500 metres to Federation Hut which adds another kilometre to my hike. However, I will do an extra kay for a toilet if it means I do not have to carry out my own crap or have to try to dig an appropriate depth hole (up here, it’s rocky enough, I’d be carrying out not digging). 

I met one solo woman with an overnight pack on my way in, saw some arsehole youth at the summit, and then meet four more duos on my way back on the trail (two young blokes going for an overnight at Federation Hut, an older couple moving very slowly and who aren’t likely to make the summit, a younger Indian couple, and an Aussie bloke with his Thai wife who also aren’t going to summit but are just going as far as they feel like to enjoy the views). 

I feel really good. I had pulled out my hiking poles for the return hike, but the trail is undulating enough that when your cardio is kaput, the trail tends to level out or go downhill. Then when your knees are done, the trail will go up or level out. So eventually, I get tired of carrying the poles and just break them back down and put them back on the pack. 

The last 1.7 kays or so are a bit of a slog. My knees don’t hurt, but my shoulder is kinda done and the bottoms of my feet are tired of all the uneven rocks. I don’t get any blisters, but they aren’t used to that length of uneven terrain.

My fitness is good. All of my work at the gym really does make all of this easier. That poor shoulder gets tired on the long hikes, though, so I tell myself we’ll have a good break back at the car before we have to drive down the many, many curves back down the mountain (it’s only been in the last week or two that driving has not been painful). 

It has been a most excellent hike. I’m so glad we came to do this one. It gets severely overrun with people in the summer, so it was the perfect time to come. I have so many other tracks and places I want to ride, I doubt I’ll ever return, so it was good to mark it off the list while we’re hanging out waiting for the contract to start and the shoulder to heal enough for long rides. You’ve got to make the most of life; you never know when something as simple as a mozzie virus will take you down.

The X-ray and Ultrasound results

The shoulder is getting better. Slowly. Not in a linear fashion. I still have limitations, but the physio has been very happy with my progress. I have diligently done all the exercises and more. 

However, something about my persistent pain and certain bits of ROM that I’m missing just didn’t seem right to the physio, so she sent me to get another x-ray and an ultrasound. The ER in Salida told me I just had a sprained shoulder and did not identify the torn rotator cuff tendons, so she wanted to have another look to see if they’d missed anything else.

Unfortunately, there is a shortage of sonographers, so it was a month before I could get the appointment. This meant it was 2 months and 1 week post-injury when the scans were done. What would they still show?

A lot, actually. When I returned to the physio, she was relieved. She finally had some answers that made sense with what she was seeing in my movement, pain and ROM.

It turns out that I actually fractured my humerus in that fall. Yep, I broke my upper arm.

The loud thwack that might Dad thought was ribs breaking was actually the proximal humerus in the greater tuberosity region. It explains why I still have a fair bit of pain. It explains the pain being worse at night. It explains why I still have trouble moving my arm in certain directions. 

It also gives me a whole lot more Tough Chick cred. And it also means I’ve probably delayed healing because I’ve been using the arm too much. 

It also means I feel much more justified in going to the ER that day. When the ER doc said it was just a sprained shoulder and that I’d feel much better in 7-10 days, I felt like I was a real wuss that had wasted time and resources.

When my arm still really, really hurt at 10 days, I felt like a failure that had lost all of her pain tolerance.

When I was ticking down to 8 weeks post-injury and wasn’t close to being fully healed, even though I’d done ALL the work prescribed, I felt old and feeble. 

But the physio says, “Oh no… not at all. You broke your arm!! Broken bones have a completely different recovery timeframe. I can’t believe the ROM and strength you have at this point for such a severe injury.”

Proximal humerus fractures are common in old people who fall down on their arm. It is less common in people under 65 and usually occurs from mountain biking, skiing or car accidents. It requires a high energy trauma to break the bone if you aren’t old. The torn tendons just complicate things because they insert in the region of my fracture. 

Oh, thank god. I feel better now. Well, I don’t. It pushes out everything. I have to back off on lifting weights for another month, then a return to light weights the month after that. I’m still a fair way off from lifting heavy or riding the bike long distances. Shit. 

The greatest concern is that I may have delayed the bone healing because I’ve used my arm way too much based on the initial wrong diagnosis. The typical rehab goes like this:

Days 0-7 – Complete immobilisation in a sling. No lifting or moving the arm or holding anything.

Okay, so I got rid of the sling on Day 2. I started passively pushing my shit arm to my head on Day 3 so I could wash my hair and put it in a pony tail. I was lifting 1 gallon jugs (painfully) on day 5.

Days 8-21 – Out of sling but no raising the arm above elbow height. Don’t lift anything heavier than a coffee cup. Start very basic rehab and passive-assisted arm exercises.

I went for an overnight backpacking trip on Day 10!

Days 21 onward – very slow amping up of exercises. No driving until week 9. 

I drove the car (very painfully, I might add) at 4.5 weeks. I’ve been doing shoulder and bench presses with a 1 kg weight for the past two weeks.

(All of this because you are meant to strengthen rotator cuff muscles after you tear them – bone fracture rehab is a totally different game!)

So who knows how much I’ve delayed the recovery. The good news is that it was a nondisplaced fracture and was a clean break (it didn’t go sideways and has no jagged edges). The torn tendons have been healing and the largest one is now only 3X4mm in size. The bursa is inflamed but that is likely just from all the movement. There are no signs of developing osteoarthritis (it usually starts in quickly if it’s going to).

I go back to the physio again in 3 weeks. And I’ll get another x-ray in 5 weeks time to see if the bone has completely healed. I have to back off on lifting heavier items. I really need to rest the arm a lot and just do the rehab exercises for the next month. No bike riding on days I do the rehab exercises (3 times a week). I have to back off at the gym a bit.  And a few other things. 

So that was not what I was expecting. It does explain why some things have remained so painful though. And it explains all the arm bruising at the start.

And now I can add it to my tough chick resume: 

• Never had crutches or moonboot to recover from hairline fracture of fifth metatarsal while at uni; just hopped around and pushed with other foot on the bike for 3 weeks and then just limped for a while til pain stopped
• Rode and camped through entire freezing stage of frozen shoulder
• Rode up until 3.5 weeks before emergency surgery to remove severely inflamed gallbladder
• Rode 20 kms to hospital after being bitten by a dog; then rode 45 kms home after having bite irrigated and bandaged
• Rode for 3 months through the coldest, wettest spring on record where it rained 14 days straight at one point
• Went on a solo overnight backpacking trip 10 days after fracturing my arm and tearing two rotator cuff tendons

I thrive on challenge, not pain. So we don’t need any more injuries or illness, thanks. Just more fun and adventure. Lots more of that. But maybe not too much too soon. Maybe I just need to get a floatie and do some relaxing on the river a bit with my guys!