North West Bay Madness (a return to chaos)

With torrential downpours the day before, every river in the state was up. As such, there really was only one option being considered, the Northwest Bay. It was the first weekend of semester so there was a new contingent of exchange students keen to get wet. Some may argue that the Northwest Bay is not the most suitable river for first timers, and something like the Picton would be more suited. Josh is not of that opinion however.

The rain also appeared to have coaxed a lot of others out of their beds so a moderately large trip was on the cards. The guide to newbie ratio was perhaps a little low, but stoke was certainly high.

Joshua and his car (we miss you GABE!!!)

After the ever pleasant drive if just 15 minutes to the get in, it was time to haze some new members by subjecting them to boat pumping. The trip began with Will and Josh guiding blues, Liam guiding a red.  Erin was shredding in a pack raft whilst Luke and the newly imported Elin were both in Kayaks.

The first few feature were negotiated fairly well, but before too long we had the first flip. The rapid consisted of left hand bend in the river. On the outside a tree had been undermined such that it projected out approximately 1m into the river. Being on the outside of the corner, the main flow of the river was directed directly at this tree. 

On the lead in to this rapid, Will's boat hit a rock and was sent spinning. As such he was unable to hold a angle to execute a ferry glide away from the tree. In almost comical fashion, the nose of the raft caught the tree and was flipped cleanly upside down. Everyone was able to self rescue to effectively self rescue by swimming into a nice eddy 30m downstream. No paddles were lost and Will was able to wrangle the upturned raft beautifully into the eddy as well. If you're going to flip, recover well. Great work team!!

The next sections were executed reasonably well. A couple of people had unplanned exits from the rafts after hitting rocks, but all were recovered well. The rafting was going so well, that between the stream of consciousness swearing from Will, he was even able to  utter some choice phrases such as "Damn I'm good", much to the doubt of his crew.

Liam decided to show Elin how The Club treats kayakers, by charing into the eddy she was parked in and and running her over. She was able to recover herself and Luke was able to recover her boat.

Having just recovered from that swim, it was time for one of the larger features of the river, a 0.5m drop on river right. Catching her rear end in the side of the drop as she went down, Elin was sent swimming again. She was able to recover again, but decided that continuing in a kayak was probably not the best idea.

It was this decided that Tom would guide the boat Josh was guiding, Elin would jump in with that boat, and Josh are would finish the river in the kayak. Previously I have discussed my idea of telescopic femurs for more versatile leg mobility, well Josh must have best me to the surgeon's room, because he apparently fit the kayak quite well, despite the large height difference between him and Elin.

There was now just a couple more drops and holes before the large weir. With killer lines being shredded by all, it was now in sight. And then in the last hole, Will didn't punch it quite as hard as he needed and tipped Ruth and Dom out right there and then. The raft was now being recirculated in the hole. Cam did an admirable job of staying in, but he too fell. It was now just Will being surfed in the hole. After a good minute in the he hole and half a dozen near flips, the raft exited the hole. Although not quite as clean as the flip earlier, the crew did a top job of self rescuing.

It was now Tom's go. And in near perfect copy and paste fashion, Tom's entire crew were tipped l, and the raft was left languishing in the hole. With a good recovery, all people and most paddled were in the bank. With competency that would even make professionals jealous, Luke swiped the raft with his snag plate and was able to pendulum it into eddy. 

Advice of 'don't go near weirs even with a 10 foot' must have been strong in the minds' of Will's entire boat, because they gave it such a wide berth they were unable to ferry glide across the base of it into the channel on river left and we're forced into a large patch of bush mod-river. Thankfully Josh was able to walk over and apply some arboriculture work to free them. Josh maintained a great mood - not at all grumpy that two senior guides had just ploughed straight into trees and made very little attempt to free themselves. Oopsies - hehe!

Despite the bottom section being much longer and chunkier than anyone remembers, it was negotiated well. The lower broken weir provided some concern, but it too was negotiated. The bowls club was reached and the final tally of 0 change in people, 0 change in boats, -3 change in paddles seemed like a pretty fair price for a thoroughly enjoyable morning of paddling.

Note - two paddles recovered the next day :)

A video from Liam showing some of our on river fun!!!

a VERY well written trip report by the lovely, kind, and handsome WILL GRANT

Award nominations:

Senoir guide - Ruth steel - for refusing to guide on any and all trips unless FORCED

Compedancy complete - Luke Dimsey - for being ready to help, rescue and sort his way out of any accidents we throw at him (safety man)