The Desert Swimmer

From Severe Depression on an Outback Sheep Station to Swimming the English Channel

De: Brendan Cullen, Paul Mitchell

The inspirational true story of an Aussie bloke from the outback, crippled with depression, who challenges himself to swim the English Channel as a way of managing his mental health struggles.

Brendan Cullen manages Kars Station, a 10,000-head sheep property 65 kilometres outside Broken Hill, New South Wales. In 2022, despite his nearest beach being more than 600 kilometres away, he swam the English Channel.

Taking up swimming was part of Brendan's recovery from severe depression, an illness that had seen him cope in highly unhealthy ways–drinking, overwork, being emotionally absent–for years. But then he found the strength to walk through the doors of Broken Hill Hospital and ask for help.

After watching his brother compete in an open-water swim in 2015, a year later Brendan was doing the same. Despite it being exhausting and challenging, it made him feel vitally alive. In 2018 he happened to see an advertisement encouraging swimmers to take on the English Channel. A spark of an idea was lit.

Through COVID-19 restrictions, he trained for hours at dawn in the murky Menindee Lake system, and in icy local waters, determined to take on one of the world's most challenging ocean swims. And he did, completing the Channel crossing in 17 hours, after strong currents dragged him off course and extended his journey to 64 kilometres–almost double the shortest possible distance a swimmer might cover to make it across.

The Desert Swimmer shows the good that comes from facing challenges head on.

©2025 Brendan Cullen and Paul Mitchell (P)2026 W. F. Howes Ltd.