Rivers Canoe Club - Victorian Whitewater Safari.

The Plan:

In Winter the Australian high country gets blanketed with snow. Hard to believe as its only 1700-2100m high. Only just more than Johannesburg. But if you look back a couple posts to see some of the white stuff close up. Now its melting and this means water in the rivers, (not a real common sight). Time for the annual River Canoe Canoe club Safari to the Snowy mountains on the border of NSW and Victoria.

Trip by numbers.

Rivers paddled: 7
Longest River: 25km
Highest gradient:20m/km
Kilometers driven: 2100km
Days taken: 9
Showers: 1

The Rivers:

Mitta Mitta - Big River to Anglers Rest

Excellent ease back into river kayaking after a couple of months of no water. Mainly grade 2 with a couple of more technical rapids

Mitta Mitta – Gorge (Anglers Rest to Houminje bridge)

Great river at a good level (1.05 at the bridge) some good grade 3’s, with intimidating names like “Graveyard”, a great play wave by the lunch spot beach, and a couple of holes that provided some impromptu side surfing opportunities.

The Cobungra Crew

Cobungra Creek – To Anglers Rest

The best river of the trip. Great water ( 0.2 or 1.2 on the Anglers rest bridge), a steep 4km creek with a 20m/km gradient and an even steeper 4x4 drive in. None of our group had done this river before, so we were all pretty apprehensive and focused. 3 Big grade 4 rapids interspersed with some technical 3+ boulder gardens, some great rock slides and technical drops. Best moment was running the final rapid and seeing Dave, our trip leader come within an inch of flipping over in the run up to the main part of the rapid, and knowing that I was next in line. Then after running the rapid with a clean run - coming into the pool below it and seeing another paddling group who had just finished patching up one of their team who had face planted into a rock and then swam the rapid – not a pretty site.. From there it was 500m of easy drops and we were back at the campsite with cold beers waiting.

Dave and Chris, Synchronised on the Cobungra

Bungara Creek – To Mitta Mitta River

Another steep creek, but with not much water. Good to be introduced to the subtleties of creek paddling and getting repeatedly pinned. Water level (just flowing over the central spout as you lookup from the bridge at the end)

Swampy River – Geehi Campsite to Kahncoban

Geehi is arguably the best camping spot in Australia. With a view of the snow covered Kosciusko, in the background, a huge field full of kangaroos in the foreground and a river running past – it doesn’t get much better. The Swampy felt a little low for the first hours, before we got into the gorge section. But from there it was great pool drop boulders. With one serious portage around a rock sieve. A long good day out.

Thredbo River – Village to Ngarigo campsite..

There’s something particularly good about going to a Ski resort, waiting around between the skiers and boarders. Then gearing up and dropping into the river and paddling down the mountain. A tight creek, with some rocks, trees and technical drops. I had a nose bleed half way down which gave everyone else a fright. Then to end with a nice rapid, where cat had a nasty swim.

Happy Chappy...

Snowy River – 3km to Island bend.

At the end of the Munyang hydro scheme. It all started well, until we hit the main rapid of the day and we couldn’t even paddle the chicken shoot. So we portaged around it. The water continued to drop and we figured that the power generation was over. The fun police had pulled the plug.

[Apologies for the awful spelling i haven't had time to read what i written]