A Weekend of Water in the ACT.

Molonglo River – Coppins Crossing to the treatment plant

Paddlers:
Tim Sindle, Jiri, Catherine, Dave, Nicole, Aiden, Bo, Sam, Pete, Brett,

Its 5am on a Saturday morning, my housemates haven’t got back from Friday night partying yet, and we’re packing the car and heading off to Canberra for the weekend. Who goes to Canberra for the weekend anyway?

Lotsa Water

Jiri had arranged to meet up with some guys from ANU kayak club for a paddle. 8:45am we arrived to some good news. A torrential downpour overnight and the gates of Lake Burly Griffin were open. To us this meant nothing, but to the ACT crowd this was the rare opportunity to paddle the Molonglo River.

The trip started ominously, patching up a cyclist who had hit the gravel on the Coppins Crossing bridge corner and landed unceremoniously in the river. The water was flowing strongly through the small rapids, races and many overhanging trees.

Tim Surveying the rapid

At the first big rapid, a multi stage affair, we all went down cleanly first time. It was so good we decided to walk upstream and do it again. This was where the carnage started. After a flawless first run, Nicole had a good 2^nd run down inspecting the bottom of the river, followed by a neat roll up after the last drop. Brett from ANU broke a paddle in half mid-rapid, but still managed to roll up C1 style. Nicole’s finger needed some inventive splinting, and she was soon back on the water.

Nicole inspecting river beds.

Next rapid, while playing in the small hole at the end, Aiden dislocated his shoulder and swam out of his boat. While we fished out his gear, he made his way to the side - not looking too happy. Luckily it slipped back into place, but no further paddling for him. Now we were in the gorge section, after some scouting the banks and debate we decided that it would be best for him to walk out, with another paddler for company. Returning to our boats, one of the paddles had been stolen by a rogue platypus, so the breakdown spare was employed.

The drops got bigger from there, and with just 3 in our group we continued on, scouting from the banks, from the river, and from midway through some drops too. Many great rapids later. We caught up to the main group where they had tales of trees, pinnings and throw ropes, and how they had cleaned out a log jam from a small shoot that we had run earlier.

Logs cleared, "someone" in the shoot.

The cascading water from the sewage treatment plant was our cue to take out, and we excited river left and had a solid walk up the hill back to the cars in the pouring rain. While driving the car shuffle we met the walkers who had got a lift back to the start and been waiting there for us. We then retired to Canberra, for a coffee shop break, some diner and camping under the Tharwa bridge.

Murrumbidgee – Angle Crossing to Tharwa sands section

Gauge: 2.6m Lobbs Hole. (21 cumecs)

Paddlers:

Team Houghton: - Ian, Caroline, Andrew, Michael,

Team SUCC: -Tim, Jiri, Catherine, Dave

Three generations of Sydney Uni kayakers set off: Caroline and Ian (Old hand Sydney uni) Jiri, Catherine, Dave and Tim (current Sydney Uni) and Andrew and Michael (Future Sydney Uni paddlers?).

Dave’s Quote of the day - “There’s nothing big on the upper Bidgee…”

We started off with Jiri narrowly dodging a car on the Angle crossing causeway (not a common occurrence). 3km of flat water was the first challenge, but this what we paddle for – Right?. A couple of gentle rocky races, and the odd comment…”Hey there’s a lot of water here”, where confirmed We got to Lobbs hole gauge and there was a stunned silence when Ian read of - 2.6m. We had been expecting something just over 2m, where the river runs at 7 cumecs..not 21.

Jiri dodging cars at Angle Crossing

The first big rapid was a 4 m boiling affair with a couple of big flushing holes on the left that could be avoided. Dave chose not to. As I waited at the top, thinking after getting the thumbs up from Jiri that it was a trivial rapid. Next thing I saw was Dave’s Necky standing vertically in the hole. Against better judgment I followed Dave down, similar line on the left. Big hole, exited backwards after a bit of surfing and bracing, then charged across the pool to get to Dave’s boat before the next corner. Unfortunately he lost his camera, so if anyone out there finds it please return it, or at least email the photos back!

At this stage Ian and Caroline decided that this water level was too risky for their children. Not knowing what the rapids would be like further down, they walked back up the river, while Ian paddled the Topo Duo down the river with us

From there 3 more big rapids awaited us. The first had a tricky entrance into it with a must make move to avoid a boiling rock sieve on the left channel. Everyone made it with room to spare, including Ian in the Topo who deftly pirouetted the long boat on its tail.

The second a big multi stage drop that Cat did brilliantly with a roll after each. With the high flow the gorge section and following flat water section took much less time than we thought and we were out in 2hrs.

Cat only half there..

After some attempted scouting to pick up missing family members, Ian decided to paddle down again in the Duo and pick them up on the way through, and for them to portage the big rapids. With 5 notable rapids and the flat water was flowing fast, this would be quicker than them walking out with the boats. He ended up shooting each of the major rapids another 2 times to get boats down, while the rest of the family portaged. It was quite a site to behold, a one manned Topo being expertly navigated through the hydraulics.

Ian the master of the Single Topo Duo..

Meanwhile we sat in the shade, helped a bunch of clueless locals to push their flooded Holden out of the middle of the river, and tried our hand at hot water boat nose reconstructive therapy.

Some cars were never meant to cross swollen rivers...

We said our good byes to the ACT and excellent weekend of great water kayaking and pointed the car in the direction of Sydney and home.

Getting back home only to find one of my housemates had broken his leg in an “incident” at the pub - and I though I had been the one doing the potentially “risky” activities?

[Photo and Video's By Ian and Jiri and Tim - Many Thanks]