The Chronicles Of Suntwe - Chapter One: The Day I Should Have Died

Chapter One: The Day I Should Have Died

“You never know what you’re capable of… until you’re forced to find out.”

The sky was a searing white haze that pressed against your skull like a vice. Mozambique in the aftermath of Cyclone Idai. A place already broken by poverty and corruption, now laid open by biblical floods. Rivers swollen beyond their banks. Villages erased. Bodies missing. It smelled of rot and sun-baked mud and the kind of desperation that sticks to your lungs.

Wayne. Troy. Me.

We were deep into it by then. The last day of an expedition that had chewed up and spat out every inch of energy we had. We had been kayaking the flood zones, searching for isolated villagers, administering first aid, and logging GPS coordinates for helicopter supply drops and medical evacs. It wasn’t glamour. It was grit. Humanitarian work with a heartbeat that could stop at any moment.

Entire villages were washed away by the flood waters

And now, we had one last stretch of river to check. A section nobody had touched yet.

This part of the Lusite River was different. Uncharted. Wild even before the cyclone had its way with it. Now it was something else entirely. A surging artery of brown chaos—ten times its normal width, roaring through jungle and wreckage.

The government and U.N. maps told us it would be quiet. A formality, really. We believed them. Confidence is a funny thing—it makes you carry your kayak a kilometre through ankle-deep sludge without complaint. It makes you look at your cracked lips, your wheezing lungs (I had been battling bronchitis from a week of high-angle rescues in the Eastern Highlands), and say, “One more won’t kill me.”

So, we pushed on, dragging boats through thick mud to reach the water’s edge.

Midday sun was brutal. Our extraction point—a washed-out bridge—was planned using old, unreliable maps. It looked about 13km away. We aimed to reach it by 5pm.

Spoiler alert: we never did.

Wayne and I Scouting on of the Rapids

At first, the river was generous. A few meaty wave trains, some fun drops. We were in good spirits, still high on the mission. But then, while scouting a rapid, I glanced down at my GPS—and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

We were not getting closer to the extraction point. We were getting further. Fast. The "13km" was road distance. On a meandering, flooded river, which meant three times the actual paddle.

I did the maths. We were well and truly fucked.

To make it worse, Troy pulled over and said he was out. He had hit his wall, his energy was depleted, and he could not continue. It was time to punch out. We didn’t argue. We didn’t need to. He was competent, bush-savvy, and sharper than most men I know. If anyone could hike out and survive the jungle alone, it was him.

So, we slapped paddles, said “see you soon,” and watched him disappear into the green.

Wayne and I turned downstream. Two men left. One swollen river. No margin for error.

We made our second mistake right there. We stopped scouting.

We were cocky. Exhausted. The river had played nice so far, and we convinced ourselves it would stay that way. So, we boat-scouted—bombing blind through drops like a couple of sugar-high teenagers in plastic coffins.

Me while it was still fun

I was up front, charging confidently, when I saw it.

The horizon line.

Too close.

Too late.

No time to eddy out. No time to think.

I dropped into the pour-over and got swallowed whole.

The hole at the base was a fucking beast. A foaming, churning, retentive bastard that pinned me, flipped me, rolled me like I was nothing. I fought to roll back up—made it—and then got shoved under again. And again. And again. I didn’t even have enough oxygen in my lungs to panic properly. Just the wheeze of bronchitis and the cold slap of futility.

Wayne followed me down—but fate dealt him a lucky bounce. He landed on my upside-down kayak, skipped off it like a skipping stone, and catapulted into the eddy below. My beatering saved his ass. He sat helpless, watching me fight the hydraulic from a distance. I had the throwbag. He had nothing.

I couldn’t stay in the boat.

I popped my skirt and bailed, praying the current would eject me.

It did not.

I got caught in the loop. Trapped in a recirculating nightmare, getting pummelled by the same surge of water repeatedly. I tried everything—balling up, stretching out, swimming sideways. I begged. I thrashed. I prayed.

Nothing worked.

Eventually, I stopped.

And in that terrifying stillness… I felt it.

Peace.

A weird kind of surrender. Not defeat. Not fear. Just clarity.

“Well. This is how I go.”

I thought of my boys. And then it all went dark.

Wayne and I under a tree that had caught a structure from a nearby village showing just how far the river had swelled

When I came to, I was face-down on a rock in the middle of the river, coughing up brown water. Lungs shredded. Mind scrambled. Wayne was yelling from the eddy—he had recovered my paddle, but my kayak was now ghosting downstream on its own little vacation.

He handed me the paddle, barked something about chasing the boat, and vanished again.

I was left alone.

Not just alone—properly alone. As far as the eye could see, nothing but floodwater and jungle. No humans. No banks. Just a cracked paddle, a bruised body, and the distinct feeling of being next on the crocodile dinner menu.

Now, here’s the thing. I have spent enough time around crocs to know how they hunt. This wasn’t ambush-from-below territory—this was surface strike stuff. Torpedo style. You would see them coming. Hopefully.

So, I hatched a plan.

A terrible one.

I was going to swim with the paddle across my chest like a bayonet and let the current carry me feet-first. As long as I didn’t splash, I shouldn’t ring the dinner bell. No shoes. No clue. Just full primal mode.

No crocs. No splashes. No screaming. I survived the swim.

Eventually, I saw my kayak wedged against a rock. I scrambled up and took stock. Cracked hull. Of course it was. Why wouldn’t it be? That day had already written its tone.

Across the river—way over on far river left—Wayne was waving like a lunatic. I squinted. He waved harder. I waved back like a confused chimp. Eventually, after several rounds of full-body river rat charades, I got the message.

“Do. Not. Run. The. Rapid.”

Why?

Because there was a hippo waiting at the bottom of it. Pissed off. Agitated. Circling like a nightclub bouncer looking for someone to smash.

I laughed out loud.

Because of course there was a fucking hippo.

So now my options were:

1. Stay on the rock and become croc chow!

2. Run the rapid and get hippo-smashed!

3. Cross-ferry through the current in a cracked kayak and pray it didn’t flood and flush me into the hippo’s jaws.

I chose option three.

Still having fun

At that point, I didn’t give a shit. I was running on borrowed adrenaline and burnt-out fear. No one left to impress. No one left to disappoint. Just a cracked boat, a current, and one more chance to tempt death.

I made it.

Wayne had waded out into the eddy and grabbed my bow, dragging me into the safety of river left. I flopped on the bank, laughing like a madman. Because when death misses you twice in a day, you’ve earned the right to giggle.

But we were not done.

The sun was setting. Fast. My kayak was cracked. The extraction point was still miles away. The river? Not an option anymore.

So, we made a call. We would hike out.

I pulled out my GPS—a dinky little Garmin Dakota 20. Useless for detail. Just an arrow on a screen and a zoomed-out line showing maybe a road if you were lucky.

I zoomed out. Found a road. Estimated it was over ten kilometres away.

I looked at Wayne and said, “It’s 2km.”

He nodded, hopeful.

And so began the stupidest hike of my life.

We started by dragging our kayaks—because logic had already left the building—but after 2km of bashing through bush, we gave up and stashed them under a tree.

Then we lost the Daylight. The jungle swallowed us.

The grass was taller than us. Thick. Wet. Alive. You had to part it with your arms just to take a step. The ground was a nightmare—rocks, roots, thorns, hidden ditches. Every few steps one of us would trip or get sliced. No light. No path. Just that fucking arrow on the GPS, which kept spinning if you did not hold it perfectly still.

I focused on keeping it pointed in the right direction. That was my job. Head down. Push forward.

What a lovely mess !

Wayne kept cramping—full-body lockups from dehydration. He would collapse, legs twisted, and I would offer to rub them out. He told me to fuck off.

So, I teased him about it for the next six kilometres.

I was high on survival at this point. Buzzing. Relentlessly upbeat. Wayne was not amused. I was full-blown irritating. But I could not help it—I felt untouchable. Like I had been forged that day by death and madness and come out laughing.

Eventually—around midnight—we hit a dirt road.

We were wrecked. Bleeding. Filthy.

I checked the GPS again.

Eleven kilometres to camp.

We just started walking.

And then... lights.

A rumble of tyres.

The extraction vehicle.

Our guy had been driving up and down the road all night hoping to spot us. He leapt out, gave us a bollocking, said we were liabilities, and then gave us a lift back to base.

Everyone else was asleep.

And because it was the final day, and I was meant to be heading to Zimbabwe in a few hours, the tents were already packed away.

I had no bed. No dry clothes. No towel.

So, I curled up under a tree. In my wet shorts. Helmet skewed. Lifejacket for a pillow. Breathed a sigh of relief and went to sleep.

Of course I did.

Because of course that was the ending.

Before we even started the hike out—exhausted, soaked, and cracked open— Wayne hit record. This was the only footage we managed to get that captures the surreal calm after the chaos. You can hear it in my voice.

Reflection

People think this story is about death. But it is not.

It is about choice.

Every step of that day, the universe gave me an out. An excuse. A reason to say, “That’s enough.”

But I did not take any of them.

Not because I am fearless. Not because I am special. I am just some ordinary bastard with a dumb habit of saying “fuck it” and stepping forward anyway.

And that day?

That day stripped me down to nothing—then showed me everything.

It reminded me how close death can be. And how alive you can feel when you stop running from it.

So yeah. It was the day I should’ve died.

But it was also the day I truly lived.

And I would not trade it for anything.