Paddling the Denison River

It’s been way too long since my last update, but unfortunately there hasn’t really been much going on until now. The shoulder injury I described in my last post has turned out to be a screaming epic for a start, and the past semester of uni has been pretty brutal but things are looking up now summer has started. After resting for 8 weeks and some physio work, my shoulder was still playing up, so I ended up having an MRI, then referred to a specialist, then another (contrast) MRI, then a cortisone injection and now I think I’ll end up going to Sydney to get it sorted. This has meant I haven’t climbed anything for the past 5 months other than a few easy routes. Grim times. What I have been doing is mountain biking a lot to stay fit and of course studying, but now that I’m on holiday I need some proper missions to stay sane.

Some time in October over a pint at the New Sydney it was decided that we should paddle the Denison River. After next to no organisation, Scotty, Aaron and I spent 5 days paddling it in the week just gone.

I was expecting it to be an epic adventure, and it certainly lived up to its reputation, even though we had a pretty uneventful trip. We got some great info off a few people and some pretty spot on maps which made life much easier. After a bit of discussion we decided to take plastic boats, but carry all our gear in a backpack and drag empty boats on the walk in. I headed out to lake Gordon the day before the trip and did a shuttle run of some kayaks across the lake, as we only had a small boat that wouldn’t fit everyone and their boat. I found the start of the track easily with a GPS, and left boats and some gear at the Northern end of Pearce Basin. The trip back was probably the biggest whitewater of the whole trip, with a big westerly change arriving with a hail storm and some decent waves. Bashing into big waves by myself in the middle of the lake in a hailstorm was less than ideal, but you get that on the big jobs.

Taking boats across the lake in the tinny

The weather the next day was not much better, but was at least calm for the boat trip out across the lake, which was a slow trip in an under-powered boat. Next up was the walk in – 6km with a vague track at best through the Southwest scrub. It actually went pretty quickly, but was definitely one of the most physically demanding days I’ve done. It rained most of the day and we only got a few views along the way. It took us a little over 7 hours to get to the river, which was roughly what we had hoped for. With not heaps of daylight left we threw a spraydeck and lifejacket on over the top of our walking clothes, which were totally saturated anyway, and paddled a few hundred meters to a campsite we’d been told about. It turned out the beach was only a few inches above river level and it had been raining all day, but we found a slightly higher one just up one of the tributaries. I had a pretty shocking night’s sleep, which meant I woke up around midnight and checked the river level. It had come up about 2 inches in a few hours, and as we were only about 40cm above the river, this was a bit concerning. Luckily it dropped in the rest of the night and all was sweet.

The ‘track’ on the walk in

Camp on the first night

 

The next days paddling was meant to be one of the biggest days of the trip, so we started fairly early and smashed out the many kilometres of flatwater to get to Marriots gorge. We had quite a high flow so the flatwater went quickly, and we were all happy to be on a river after the grim walk in. Paddling under the Prince of Wales range with big huon pines draping into the river was a pretty awesome experience.

Huon Pine growing into the river

We didn’t really know how long it would take to get through Marriots gorge, so smashed out the rapids and went through pretty quickly in case it was epic. We boat scouted most of it, portaged one rapid with a log in it but paddled the rest and were out of freedoms gates by lunchtime. Surprised by this rapid progress, we had a decent lunch break at the campsite, then pressed on to the junction of the Maxwell river to camp. We made it into camp by about 2pm, which meant we spent the sunny afternoon lying on the beach, drying gear and sipping some merlot. It was a great afternoon off and much needed after the past few days of grim weather and hard work.

Scotty paddling one of the bigger rapids in Marriots Gorge

Sweet boof off a drop in Marriots Gorge

Freedoms Gates

Chilling out at camp

The next day we didn’t really know where we wanted to end up, but paddled through fairly quickly to give ourselves time to potentially paddle up to the Gordon splits or put in a big day. Denison gorge was the next major obstacle to get through, which turned out to be short but intense. We paddled a few rapids, but a couple of the rapids before the major portage had logs in them so we ended up walking a fair bit. The major portage itself was fucking grim, with a big climb out of the river, not really a track across the side of a very steep slope, followed by an equally miserable descent to the river again, 100m downstream. It was baking hot in the sun and we were all pretty fried after the portage, so had lunch on the river at the bottom.

Portaging rapids in Denison Gorge

Miserable times hauling boats up the portage

The afternoon paddle looked mostly flat on the map, so I decided to ditch the drytop and opted for shorts and a t-shirt. This ended up being the best decision ever, as we paddled all the way to Sir John Falls that evening making it a huge day of flat-water in the sun. We slept on the jetty and finished the last of the wine, all absolutely shattered.

Jetty at Sir John Falls

With a whole day to paddle 20km of flatwater, we were pretty casual about the whole thing, and ended up arriving at heritage landing at about 2pm, giving us 21 hours to kill before the ferry picked us up. After many hours spent in a sleeping bag or lying in the sun, the boat arrived with the much anticipated buffet. I was down to 2 sachets of instant oats and some teabags, so we smashed some beers and annihilated the buffet that was included in our ticket price. 5 days, an amazing trip – grim times, epic times, rewarding times and good times.

End of a great trip!

Right now I’m up at Cradle Mountain doing some work as a canyoning guide, which is great. Sunny days in an awesome canyon, with enough daylight to do a few things after work. A few days ago we knocked off at about 3, so Joel and I went for a quick mission up Rysavy Ridge, soloing the 350m route in a bit over 3 hours car to car. I’m going to head back to Hobart via the Tyndalls, where I’m going to try a route I’ve wanted to repeat for a long time. The only thing that will stop me is not having the balls to go for it, so it’ll be character building even if I crash and burn. I’ve got lots of missions planned for summer that I should be able to do with a bung shoulder, and right now I’m pretty happy to be cruising around in the landcruiser living day to day with no commitments beyond next week. Good times.