2020 might be the hardest year on record for many. But for some Bendigonians it doesn't compare with the challenges they've faced by choice. Here's how they're coping.
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"Difficult", "unprecedented", "uncertain", "trying", "testing". It's how we're all describing the COVID-19 pandemic.
Millions of Australians have forsaken the bonds that anchor them to those they love most - parents, children, friends - to stay at home with just those in their immediate household.
Hundreds of thousands have lost livelihoods.
And the most unlucky have said a final goodbye to people they loved.
It's been a rough time.
We've waited anxiously for the latest case numbers, tighter lockdown rules and international developments.
But what about people for who chosen to risk their lives previously? Prey to outside forces, subject to chance, by their own choice.
Former Bendigo man Ken Evers remembers the first time he faced the possibility of death, mid-air, flying away from Jamaica.
He and and fellow Bendigo Flying Club member Tim Pryse set off to fly around the world in 2010, to raise money to fight malaria.
Theirs was the first Australian designed and made plane to be flown around the globe.
Read more: Malaria mission takes to the skies
They fought through deadly weather, flew through the night, and were held on suspicion of drug smuggling in Brazil.
Flying out of Jamaica, they hit a massive storm.
"I fly professionally, and to this day I've never flown through a storm like I flew through out of Jamaica. 'Horrifying' would be a flattering word for it," Mr Evers said.
"That really rattled me, because it was the first time in all we'd done that I actually thought death was on the cards."
It was followed by another bad storm between Ghana and Uganda.
Mr Evers believes a plane they passed flying through the second storm crashed, killing everyone on board. He and Mr Pryse were the last to talk to it.
The idea to fly around the world came during a presentation about a breast cancer fundraising event at the Bendigo Flying Club. One member planned to fly in an air race to raise money.
Mr Evers said to the man next to him that maybe he'd fly to Papua New Guinea to raise money to fight malaria.
That man was Mr Pryse. He said if Mr Evers was really serious, he'd fly around the world. They didn't realise just how big of an undertaking that would be.
"Driving home, I thought, 'I'm going to fly around the world'," Mr Evers said.
"It would be one of those things, if I knew everything that was going to happen I would never have probably embarked on it. It was massive."
For Mr Evers the highest moment came when he was ready to quit.
He and Mr Pryse arrived in Africa, and emotionally he was done.
They had come off the back of two massive storms. They were hand-flying through the night, landing, getting up "utterly exhausted", and doing it all again.
Then they visited the Wototo Village in Uganda, an organisation which takes in children in need.
"That was when I actually felt like what we were doing had a genuine purpose," Mr Evers said.
"I was spent, I was absolutely spent, I had nothing left in the tank. But then to go there and actually see firsthand, look at people who'd been severely affected by malaria, listen to people who'd lost parents and children, and everything else. I felt like it justified what we were doing.
"Seeing those kids in that orphanage. These kids have gone through a storm every day of their lives. I've just gone through two that lasted an hour maybe."
Mr Pryse has spent the past fortnight in hotel quarantine in Queensland after returning from work flying in Papua New Guinea. He said coping with the rough moments was down to keeping a one track mind.
Mr Evers has flown corporate charter throughout the pandemic in his home in the United States, one of the western countries most visibly hit by the COVID-19 crisis.
He's found his experiences flying around the world have played into his reactions to the pandemic.
"When you're faced with a situation that you cannot back down from, you have to push through, I think it permanently changes you," he said.
"You learn to look at fear not as an ending, but as a fence. Yes it's there, but it can be conquered.
"Fear is something you have to recognise absolutely, but you're getting in the ring with a set of boxing gloves too."
Icy times
Bendigo's Linda Beilharz spent 56 days trekking 1100 kilometres across Antarctica to reach the South Pole. The expedition faced temperatures that plunged more than 50 degrees below zero; days of whiteout trudging through the tessellated snow with knee-deep dips; and almost no privacy.
And there was no guarantee the group would even make it to the pole. If someone was injured, they would need to call for help.
At the same time the group saw the sublime: an awe-inspiring landscape, huge skies filled effects of the sun.
"It makes you feel really inconsequential. There's no life down there, so you know it's lifeless, you know it's really hostile to life," Ms Beilharz said.
"You're only there by the grace of the fuel in your sled and carrying the food with you.
"Because I love the open spaces, and I love the wilderness, for me it was the closest you can get to true wilderness on this earth."
Ms Beilharz hadn't even planned to take part in the trip originally.
Her long-term love of bushwalking and then mountaineering exposed her to people who talked about bigger expeditions.
She began to train for mountainous environments after a trek in Nepal.
Ms Beilharz planned to trek across Greenland - a common place for beginners to start - but that fell through.
Casting around for something to do with the planned time, Ms Beilharz found a trip to the South Pole with a polar guide.
After a year's training, she was ready to go.
It's a journey that has claimed the lives of several early explorers.
That people had died in the hard conditions was only "a little bit" on Ms Beilharz's mind, though.
"When you're in a small group, you've got the support of each other in that group," she said.
"You know you're in the middle of the vast nowhere. But also you do a lot of thinking about the risks and how to manage those."
Read more: Linda Beilharz reflects on a rare feat
The first challenge was dealing with the cold. At minus -56 degrees with wind factor, it was an effort to avoid frost bite on fingers and toes.
It made Ms Beilharz realise how close life and death were in that situation, she said.
At one point her numb fingers could not open the zip of her bag to get out her jacket. If she'd been left alone, or a bit behind the group, it could have been really dangerous.
To reach the pole was both amazing and anticlimactic - marking the expedition's end.
After the South Pole trip, Ms Beilharz set a goal: to trek across all of the world's major icecaps. Her aim was to discover whether she could lead an expedition herself.
Three remained after Antarctica: Greenland, Patagonia and the North Pole.
She ticked the last - Patagonia - off her list in 2012.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms Beilharz has found she is doing something she got a lot of practice in icy treks: plodding along, slowly and patiently.
She learnt she couldn't control the unknown, but she could control her response to it.
It meant feeling comfortable not knowing what the future contained.
"None of us know what the outcome of the pandemic's going to be," Ms Beilharz said.
"We don't know how long we're going to be together, we don't know the consequences. In a way we've just got to live in the present, and not worry about something we can't control. That's something I got a lot of practice of.
"Just moving slowly and patiently through what you can do is the way to feel most comfortable with it. You do make progress even though you can't see it."
But her adventures have taught her one very valuable lesson: a problem can seem impassible, until you shift your view a little bit.
If there's a bit of lumpy ground, all it can take is walking upstream to open up other options, she said.
Riding onwards
Sam McMahon's adventures have gifted her with an interesting medical history for a 33-year-old. So much so her doctors told the interns to read her file last time she was in hospital.
Ms McMahon has spent the COVID-19 crisis recovering from her latest accident.
A crash while mountain-biking broke six ribs, fractured four vertebrae, dislocated her shoulder joint, fractured her sternum and punctured a lung.
Read more: Sam lends a helping hand
The former Bendigo student has climbed two 8000-metre peaks - one Mount Everest - and several 6000-metre peaks. She lived for months in a corrugated iron hut with a Nepalese family helping with earthquake recovery. And she loves hurtling down a slope mountain-biking.
Ms McMahon also lost half of a big toe to Mt Everest frostbite, has broken a hip, and has a metal rod in her tibia after car crash in her first year of university.
The latest crash was on a ride near her current home in Bright.
Ms McMahon was going downhill fast. She took a eight-metre jump, landed awkwardly, went over her handlebars, crushing the upper left of her body.
Having broken four ribs in a crash last year, she knew something was wrong, and called an ambulance.
But Ms McMahon didn't realise how serious her injuries were until she asked to call a friend when she got to Wangaratta hospital.
The doctors said they didn't have time, then asked who had power of attorney for her.
Ms McMahon was awake as they put a tube into her lung, to reinflate it, and later drain fluid.
"Once I was in hospital, and they were talking about my lung and reinflating my lung and stuff, I was like, 'Oh I think it's pretty bad'," she said.
"Everyone who was [at the crash] just thought that I'd dislocated my shoulder kind of thing, and maybe winded myself.
"The doctor and the nurses at Wang, once they realised what my injuries were, said, 'You must have quite a high pain tolerance'."
Read more: No stopping Sam's climbing feats
You might ask, "Why keep doing such dangerous things?".
For Ms McMahon it's the freedom to completely switch off from stress and problems.
"If I'm flying down the side of a hill on my mountain bike, I'm completely focused on where I'm going, and I'm not thinking about anything else," she said.
"In the mountains, especially high altitude or technical terrain, I'm only thinking about putting one foot in front of the other.
"It's just a feeling of freedom, where your mind is just clear of everything else, where you're just there in the moment."
Ms McMahon said she had learnt to treat her rehabilitation like she treated her adventures: working through pain to achieve a goal.
She's been able to bring that experience to coping with the COVID-19 lockdowns.
"From the mountaineering, or recovering from injury, I think the discomfort and the suffering never lasts forever," she said.
"When you're climbing a mountain at 8000 metres, and oxygen is very spare and your body wants to shut down, I focus on the view around me, or the people around me to distract form the discomfort, or the pain and suffering.
"When you're having those days when it's dark, and it's cold, and you've got ice splattering you in the face, you know that the sun's going to come up."
And the advice they share? Ms Beilharz: It's the mindset of the people in the team that matters; Ms McMahon: We're so lucky in Australia, we forget that; Mr Evers: We have to start caring about our fellow human beings.
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Elspeth Kernebone
Accident brought me to journalism, but every day convinces me again that strong media is more important than ever. After a starting off as the sole reporter in a tiny NSW town, I’m loving the teeming metropolis that is Bendigo. Focussed on health, business and education. Got a tip? Email elspeth.kernebone@bendigoadvertiser.com.au.
Accident brought me to journalism, but every day convinces me again that strong media is more important than ever. After a starting off as the sole reporter in a tiny NSW town, I’m loving the teeming metropolis that is Bendigo. Focussed on health, business and education. Got a tip? Email elspeth.kernebone@bendigoadvertiser.com.au.
