an option." Packing away their kayaks, they caught a boat and a ride to the Amur River Delta, where they finally got to see the river they'd been following for two months disgorge its contents into the ocean. About a week after they pulled off the river, the entire region flooded. The river broke its banks and swelled up to 50 kilometres wide in parts, sweeping away houses and causing widespread destruction. "The floods showed how powerful this river is," says Amber. "It was like the ultimate validation of our decision to get off the water. There's no doubt what would have happened. Imagine – we were struggling to navigate when it was 3 kilometres wide. And we would have been amongst all the stuff that gets washed into the river during floods, bits of houses and cars." Ultimately, Sabra's tendonitis probably saved all three women's lives.
SOMEBODYS RIVER
“Why would you come to this place that God forgot?” This question was fired into Amber's face as she got off the water in Komsomolsk. A local girl called Natalia clearly couldn't believe her cold blue eyes as she observed the four western women climbing out of their kayaks, like aliens landing somewhere they would surely regret. When she embarked on the journey that led to the Nobody's River expedition, this kind of blunt inquisition was not what Amber expected to face at the denouement of the adventure she had spent years planning. It was a fair question though, and even now, months after the expedition, she has to dig almost as deep as she did when answering Natalia. "We think the Amur River is incredibly special – like nowhere else in the world,” she says – despite man's abuse of the dragon and God's apparently amnesiac approach to it. "The concept of a free-flowing river is a really powerful metaphor for connection," she continues. "To sit on a river that has had no obstructions from its headwaters to its mouth, where it flows into the ocean – the opportunity to experience that is pretty amazing."