Mersey Madness - Birthday of the Queen

With various people coming at various stages of the trip, it was up to just 6 of us to pack the trailer for the whole trip. This actually worked out well, since it meant Ruth was the only one there who tried to show restraint in what we brought. Her options were easily overpowered, thankfully, and we were able to bring a whopping 6 rafts, 3 pack rafts and two personal kayaks for the 17 attendees. Ruth claims a compromise was agreed to, of either a 6^th raft or the kayaks. No one else remembers this, and both were taken.

With a mandatory Campbell Town HSP stop and Banjos bin raid which ended up dragging out to more than 45 minutes, we made our way to the Arm River Camp. Later that night, curious whisperings were overheard.

“Is that too vigorous?”

“No, that’s good”

And a bit later:

“Should I give it a bit more?”

“Yeah, we can pump it all night”

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the whispering and the subject matter remains unknown.

The next was an exciting day for the club, it was the birthday of our glorious queen and leader Ruth Steel. With small crews, two clean and exciting laps were had. Justin arrived to join us for the second. Only a single post lunch lap was run, with the first of several birthday celebrations taking up the remainder of the afternoon. The first round of birthday catering was excellent cupcakes made by Liam. Despite Tony’s doubts about the ‘strange bag of brown paste’ which was packed, the icing proved to be exquisite. Ruth was hoping to be in bed before the Friday night crew arrived, ready to complain about them making noise and turning the lights on, however, they made good time and Ruth was forced to behave cordially with them.

Despite the atrocious forecast, the weather for the day proved to be about as pleasant as August can be at the Mersey. Nevertheless, with many cold bodies, the fire was raging hard all afternoon. This meant there was a lot of wood, which thankfully the country boys declared they “[would] cut up for us”. With only a tomahawk, this proved a little challenging, but with a creative method of one person holding the tomahawk in the wood to be split with another striking it two-handed with a large log, it was accomplished well.

The contingent expanded again on Saturday morning, with the arrivals of Joshua, Erin, and Luke. With lots of people and lots of boats, many different combinations of crews and boats were run. With several new and prospective guides present, all the senior guides realised independently within less than a lap that guiding was a pain, and letting a newbie guide whilst giving instruction was a much better option. Soon it was realised that that too required too much instruction, and the best course of action was to let the newbies work it out themselves, then go R1ing. You see R1 has a lot of perks: there is no need to make idle conversation, let alone interpretation; you can also abuse your crew as much as you like for missing eddies and they don’t mind. In many ways, it combines the best aspects of pack rafting with team rafting. It was found the new red boats are the perfect boat for R1ing due to their great ability to edge when lightly loaded.

The approach letting the inexperienced member work it out together worked well most of the time. On one occasion, it stopped working so well. With the chaos of the following events, some aspects may have been forgotten, whilst some events from different laps may have accidently combined I, but it is recorded as best as is remembered. Descending in a packraft, Jeppe paddled into the Washing Machine hole and promptly flipped. Svein, coming in behind executed the exact same manoeuvre. With both paddlers, their boats, and paddles recovered, Gabe thought he would have a go surfing the hole in his packraft. He too flipped. Thankfully, Wade and Niamh were on hand to rescue him, well attempt to at least.

They pulled out of the eddy, and somehow caught up in the act of keeping track of Gabe, his boat and paddle, they forgot about a hole in their path. Sliding slowly into the hole, their boat stopped and wade fell out, adding to the stream of rafting paraphernalia down the river. Thankfully, everyone and everything was recovered reasonably effectively. Svein and his boat did become substantially separated from his paddle. Inspired by Justin’s canoeing prowess, and too potentially add to the mess, Will decided he may as well take the packraft down with a rafting paddle. Remarkably he was able to negotiate the Geminis, and all gear and people were sorted out whence they came.

With the faff police (read Will) out in force - they were slack the day before and fell into the time wasting trap of eating bread, there was time for two laps in the morning before lunch, and a further two laps in the afternoon, with the second being an R4 race lap. Setting a blistering pace of 25:14, Luke, Erin, Svein and Jeppe won, with Joshua, Tony, Will and Liam a mere 50 seconds behind. With Ben’s great love of R1ing, he too competed, coming in at 29:37. Despite the hard racing, some people were still not quite tired, and so a supposedly quick run of the Arm River was planned.

This turned into being one of the most shambolically organised trips I think I have ever witnessed in the club. Having witnessed a twelve year old absolutely send it down Arm River Falls the weekend before, Liam’s fragile ego demanded that he at least turn up at the waterfall with his packrafting gear and think about running it. As such, he and Joshua walked there, whilst Luke and Erin walked to the lower get in to join them when they arrived.  Various onlookers assembled sporadically along the track, and Tony volunteered to drive down to get out to collect everybody.

Upon inspecting the falls, Liam made the wise concession that twelve year olds are simply superior paddlers and decided not to run it. Somehow, with the associated faff, it took half an hour for Joshua and Liam to put on the river below the falls. Meanwhile, after waiting more than half an hour, Luke and Erin decided something must be wrong and started walking up to the falls. Luke and Erin arrived at the falls and were informed by an onlooker that Liam and Josh had already put on river. They then put on river there below the falls, behind Joshua and Liam.

Joshua and Liam went down, enjoying the river greatly, describing it as very enjoyable continuous grade 3. Passing the lower get in, they concluded Luke and Erin must have already put in and where ahead of them. Where the river forked, they forgot the description and opted to descend the right hand channel rather than the left hand one which they should have chosen. They soon reached a rapid which was too tight to allow a kayak to pass. Considering the daylight, they decided to walk out via a small cliff.

Upon returning to camp and hearing that Luke and Erin were not there, Joshua went back down to the river to try and find them. Soon after, however, Tony returned from the end of the river, with Erin and Luke. They reported they had had a very enjoyable trip down the river, and were happy to get another black dot on the map at the sheds. Just as plans were being made to send out a search for Joshua who was himself searching for Luke and Erin, he returned. In the processes of all the walking up and down the hill, approximately 40+ leaches were acquired by various members of the club. A couple of leaches were given a free ride up to the camp where their passing around made great entertainment for the evening – whether it was entertaining depends a bit on who you ask. Gabe: certainly, Niamh: less so.

The next morning, there was time for two morning laps before it was time for lunch and clean-up. Learning from the previous day that letting the newbies work it out for themselves might not be the strategy, a new plan of putting them all in a single boat together with two senior guides there to instruct. From memory, ten people were crammed into a purple. Ruth has found she rather likes this role of instruction without having to do any hard work. She reported that her bum became a bit soggy from sitting in the puddle that forms from the raft sit so low in the water, but this was superior to having to paddle. Ben, Liam and Will continued their efforts in R1ing. Liam became sick of the limited manoeuvrability half way down and took on two members of the overloaded purple, benefitting both boats.

For the final lap, it was time to go all out and leave nothing in reserve. Will took this took the extreme, swimming an astounding six times from ‘conscious bad decisions’. The most impressive of these swims was a near perfect copy and paste of a swim he did the day before in the sneaky eddy on the left in the last bend before the get out. If you want to repeat this swim yourself, the method is easy. First wait until there is a large raft in the eddy, then simply convince yourself that since you’re in a packraft, there’s plenty of room still left for you. As you enter the eddy, realise all too suddenly that you won’t also fit. Then, take a big breath of air and prepare to swim as you come sailing in underneath the raft and flip. To be fair on Will, he did swim for different reasons between the days. On his second attempt, he only very, very nearly flipped in the above manner, instead flipping on the eddy line as he attempted to leave. Regardless, the result was the same, flipping right into the seam and being dragged down to a great depth. On his second swim into this seam, he was down long enough for Talia to ask Ben “Should we go for Will or his boat?” and Ben to reply ‘All’s well that ends well’ and Will was recovered into Ben and Talia’s boat and the run was finished well -even when Ruth as the last boat Gave missing the get out her best go to give Tony and Ben a reason to stand in the eddy and catch her.

Despite the incredibly lousy weather forecast and the doubts the Hydro had about their ability to give us a release, the trip was astounding success. Nine laps were run across the three days, with everybody getting a mix of guiding an paddling, in various different boats and crews.

Proudly written by a wonderful Will Grant

Award nominations:

Funk master - gabe for producing the most powerful amora inside his drysuit

Outdoor barbecue - to Grano for taking his bucket from the bunk room to the center of the court yard to get fully butt naked and changed there.

Passenger princess - to Ruth for being a senior guide who refuses to guide any boats or paddle

Most promising prospect - to talia for maintaining trainee guide status for 4 years running. -Faffmaster - to Will for having a slide of bread at lunch

Most impressive - to Gabe for being able to roll a packraft but not reenter

Hottest on river - to Jeppe for going from our coldest paddler who used to freeze every trip to having a lot of swimming #acclimitized