Team: Mathew*, Mark*, Luke*, and John*. *(Names replaced by biblical disciples to protect identities)
(Scene: 9pm Monday Night.)
T: A, we paddling the Grose tomorrow?
A: Yup.
T: You got the day off work - asked you boss?
A: Nope, you?
T: Nope.
A: Ok, see you 6:30 at Maccas
T: Cool.
So it was a bunch of bludgers and truants that met at Yarramundi to paddle the Grose River in the Blue Mountains on a wet Tuesday morning. We headed up to the Grose Rd, near Falconbridge and headed along the dirt road towards the Grose Lookout point, only to be stopped by the locked gate that was shown on the map too. Funny that. The NSW guides’ 1hr walk in was looking optimistic. 3 hours, 8km, and some vicious leeches later we were down at the brown flooding thing that was the Grose river.
For an hour we paddled 8km of pool drop fun rapids, big waves, flushing holes and exciting hydraulics. All class 3 kind of stuff. The gauge we passed (and on the net) showed 1.68m and we all reckoned the higher is went the more washed out and bouncy it would become. No need to get out and scout, with the captain in the lead, with the exception of one sieve on river right all the rapids were fun and clean.
Lunch at 12, and then the last 6km of flat and then upstream paddling on the Nepean back to the car.
Even with a whitewater ratio of 1:4, we still think it was way better than work - our shoulders disagree.
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