With a meeting in Vacy, it occurred to me while viewing google maps mid week that a paddle along the Paterson river might be kind of neat while I was in town. Unfortunately for my HuRT training, I was soft and didn’t ride out to Paterson, but I still took the panoo and my single speed with the intent of paddling until it stopped being fun, then paddling a bit more, then riding back to the car.

I didn’t really know what to expect. I knew the river was pretty shallow and narrow but you can’t really see much of it from the road so there was only one way to find out what awaited me.

I put in at Horns Crossing (see map) as it was the only place I could get river side access without having to cross private property and headed towards Paterson with the vague hope of making it all the way to Paterson but knowing there was a bridge about half way along which would be a bail out point if time or circumstances required it.

I learnt a few lessons from my last paddle with the moonlander and spent a little more time arranging the bike on the front of the boat to ensure all the parts were out of the way of my paddle stroke. I forgot to bring a sufficiently long 5mm allen key to get the pedal off  since my mini multi tool is useless for this, but fortunately found it didn’t matter since the cranks were now off the front of the boat and wouldn’t be digging into the boat.

I put in from the rocky river bank and rumped (that’s my term for bouncing along the bottom on your bum) my way to midstream where I soon fouled at the first ‘rapid’ I encountered. I think the term rapid is a little optimistic, as is the term gravel race. It’s probably better termed a grovel race but rapid is easier to type so interpret accordingly from here on in.

I quickly developed a portaging method of walking along in the ankle deep water behind the boat, checking its progress using my paddle and generally wishing I had thought to bring my neoprene surf booties rather than my service station pluggers which slipped unnervingly on the shiny river boulders.

The first thing that became readily apparent was the tremendous quantity of drift wood/snags there were in the river. Words don’t really begin to describe how frequent the hidden assassin sticks were positioned to tear me assunder and for the first 20 minutes of the paddle, I flinched at every ripple in the water as I anticipated the tearing sound and rapid decompression that would result if the boat came into contact with them.

A shiv tree

Thankfully, a second stream soon joined and as the water flow increased, the river became a little deeper and more forgiving although it remained just as stabby. I started to relax a little and enjoy the scenery. Weeping willows hanging into the water, azure kingfishers sunning themselves from river side branches, water dragons scrambling towards partially submerged logs and fish skipping across the surface at my approach.

I started to grow accustomed to the repetitive rumpings that came as my protruding posterior made contact with submerged objects or the ever too frequent sand banks. I portaged more rapids than I paddled although occasionally the water depth was sufficient to allow me to paddle some of the faster water. It would always be accompanied by a few bumps from beneath and a dragging sound of the boat against gravel, however it was quite engaging to try and pick a line to avoid hidden obstacles.

On a nondescript section of river, the water picked up pace through a slight narrowing and I steered for the middle to avoid the protruding mangled tree remains that lined its banks. It was here that the inevitable happened. I went from a brisk pace to a complete stop on something that was hidden. It had made no ripples on the surface to betray it’s presence and now it had successfully skewered the bottom of my boat. I was forced to portage my way free of the obstacle and it was then i noticed the floor chamber of the boat was no longer inflated. A quick desperate groping arm beneath the boat confirmed the obvious, there was a dirty great hole from which all my rumps buoyancy had escaped which now left the bottom of the boat hanging like a submersible hammock.

The hidden object

Looking at the paddocks that lined the river, I had a long way to retreat across private property to find my way back to the road and the boat was still operational so I decided my best option would be to continue downstream and exercise an early bail out option.

Soon I came upon the largest ‘rapid’ of the trip and despite all my best efforts to fall in and destroy the boat, somehow I blubbered my way through it and even managed to ‘eddy out’ and take a photo

I don’t quite understand how, but the river seemed to get progressively shallower and no wider and soon I was doing battle with never ending sand bars. I beached myself on one which despite all my desperate flailings, I was unable to escape from and again had to disembark the boat. I stepped from the boat only to sink completely to my hip as my leg post holed in quick sand. It seemed the river wasn’t content with just stealing the air from my boat and was no coverting my thong. Try as I might, my scrunched up toes were no match for the overwhelming suction acting upon my footwear as I heaved my leg back above the surface. I was forced to leave it there, buried a meter beneath the river bed and just be thankful I still had a floating boat as I rumped my way further downstream.

I knew i forgot something

At one point, I encountered an entire heard of cattle wading in the river and was looking forward to photographing their startled faces as I floated past. However my silent approach rang some kind of internal bovine alarm bell and they bellowed and thrashed and quickly stampeded from the water . They retreated to a safe distance at the top of the river bank where they watched me pass with a mix of fear, curiosity and annoyance. I was especially thankful that the monstrous bull was afraid of inflatable boats as I had some very good reasons to fear him.

Scarper! He's got a boat!

What are you looking at?

After a particularly protracted and annoying section of rumping, I heard the tell tale sound of car tyres across an old wooden bridge and I knew my trip was nearly complete. I flapped my way to the rivers edge and packed away my equipment beneath the bridge before hoisting my bike over my shoulder and very carefully scrabbling my way up the near vertical rock face that guarded the bridge pylons. A little bush whacking and I soon rejoined the road and was able to joyfully pedal my way back to the car.

Grounded again

While it was quite and adventure, I wouldn’t reccomend anyone paddle this section of river. With more water, it would certainly be a much better paddling prospect however I suspect the stabby trees would be particularly angry with passing pack rafts in these circumstances and the same net result would occur.

Now I need to figure out the best way to patch the bottom of the raft which now sports holes in two separate locations. I suspect a second breach was made in the floor further downstream from the first to add insult to injury. There are plenty more rivers to paddle and explore in the Hunter and I’ve got plans to sample as many as possible in this strange marriage between bike and boat.

It’s going to be a pretty ‘euro’ style course with big climbs and steep descents that will be really worth of a National round. With a little bit of work, we should have some of the sections scratched in shortly and we’ll open them up to get some wheels over them for anyone with a big motor or big ambition.

There will be a notice soon enough on the HMBA website for help with some build days that are going to be needed on both the XC trail and the downhill track. If you can get along, it will be a huge boost to the club.

Despite having had a plastic fantastic inflatable boat for nearly a fortnight and riding with it for nearly 80kms last weekend, today was the first time I had free to put it through its paces. I had spent a little time trying to figure out where would be the most appropriate place to take it and came up with the following list:

1. Somewhere without an audience. If it all goes pear shaped, I really don’t want my failures to be public

2. Still water – Beaches and surf are out of the question

3. Fresh water – The bike has copped enough salt water already. I didn’t want to bathe it in salt water just for a test run.

4. A short distance – I had no idea how the thing would actually paddle so modest goals were called for.

Funnily enough, the Hunter river at Raymond Terrace ticked all the boxes so I planned on this route which had a paddle of about 3kms downstream and a 3 km ride to get back to the car.

I parked the car under the bridge and kicked all the makeshift bongs and beer bottles out of the way and set about getting ready. It was clear that many a misspent youth and misspent dole payment had occurred underneath this bridge. There was a sketchy accessway to the murky water which was littered with drift wood and rubbish which didn’t look very inviting but I gave myself a mental poke and decided to harden up.

My makeshift inflation bag comprised of a robust garbage bag and a cut off piece of funnel (known as the B-rad method) worked a treat and I had my boat inflated in no time. I still have a little bit of practice to go since my boat doesn’t have a one way valve and requires some deft valve manipulation to avoid constantly loosing air. I had only tried the inflation bag indoors where it is hard to get it to billow and collect air but outdoors in the howling wind, the real trick was trying to hang onto it as it formed a makeshift spinnaker.

The 20 cent inflation bag

Air goes in here

I pulled the wheels off the moonlander and stacked the whole thing on the boat and strapped it all down using the cam lock straps and bungee chord I had used to strap the boat onto the rack. I had pulled the non drive side pedal off since it dug awkwardly into the floor of the boat. The whole thing looked pretty dodgy but I couldn’t figure out a better way to make it happen so just shrugged and headed for the water.

A handy strapping anchor point on the moonlander fork

Who would have thought rowlocks would come in handy?

Worlds best bungee chord

I have to admitt to being very nervous as I had no idea whether it was going to float as I dragged the boat across some ugly looking rocks and clambered inside issuing all grace and style.

It passed the first test – I was still above the water line.

A few haphazzard paddle strokes and I was away from the bank and the wind caught me and started me off downstream.

From there, it was an idyllic float along some lovely reed lined river banks as I enjoyed the sunshine and views. As the river twisted and turned, the apparent angle of the wind changed so I kept to the shoreline as best as possible to remain in the lee and calm water. Whenever I strayed to far away from the bank, the wind would catch me and i’d have to paddle HARD to get back on course. I was pleased that it was in fact possible to make headway directly into the wind however it was very slow going and it was clear that picking favourable conditions was the key to successfully crossing some waterways in the future.

Yours truly

I finished up in the riverside park in Raymond Terrace and packed everything away before pedalling back to the car. The packup was pretty smooth and took about 10 minutes so a little more practice is needed to streamline my methods.

I survived and nothing went wrong!

Overall, it was an outstanding success. I’m pretty chuffed that the ironically named “Collosus” boat by sevylor worked well enough to let me dabble in pack rafting until I can get my hands on an Alpaca raft.

180 degree panorama from trail side

Click for full size

I strapped everything I’d bought to the bike and it was a mess. There was no room for stuff where I’d normally put it and I had heaps more stuff than I’d normally take. However it was the best way to see how everything came together for the odyssey.  In short, it weighed a metric tonne. I didn’t put it on a set of scales (mostly because it would break them) but with the boat and oars, the total weight must have been close to 30kgs.

We shuttled a car to Wisemans Ferry and then drove back to the start line at Wollombi before heading off into the midday sun. It was brutal. Long exposed fire road climbs on a loaded bike were just hardwork but serendipity intervened when we noticed flogger had pinged two spokes so a protracted battle with Fulcrum UST rims ensued to lace in some replacement spokes – these bad boys WERE NOT  designed to be easily trail side serviceable. It chewed up over an hour in the shade though which gave some respite from the heat and allowed us to recover a little

Gear shot

Floggers ride

Cooling off near the start before water got very scarce

Missing spokes

Insert swearing here

Random parts

More swearing needed

My new snack food discovery

Part of our route crossed a private road which we snuck through (and even had a long chat with one of the residents) but we will have to come back and map some alternatives before we use the route in the Big HuRT.

We were really low on water having mowed through 4 litres in a couple of hours however the ridge lines we were following were completely devoid of water. It wasn’t until we dropped down the the Old North Road that we stumbled upon a fairly turbid looking dam where we filtered the water with my MSR pump and then threw in some aquatabs for good measure. I’ll either get really sick tonight or we’ve proven the water is safe to drink if you treat it.

Old culvert section build by convicts in ye olde days

Water source - I suggest you filter it

We followed the old convict trail with no real idea how we were progressing and no real urgency to make any given point. The terrain alternated from soft sand (woohoo for moonlanders) to boulder littered climbs that rattled every bone in your body (not so woohoo for moonlanders).

About 2 hours from sunset we started looking for possible camp sites. They were slim pickings. The ground was all rock, and the late afternoon sun beat down on us. Thankfully we passed on a couple of lesser bivvy spots (Flogger seems to think I always suggest to bivvy right in the middle of an ants nest) and eventually found somewhere with actual grass which was flat- WIN!.

Trail side camp site

Of course, it turned out not long after setting up the tent that we were only feet from a bull and nest. For anyone from overseas, these ants are HUGE! They are so big that you step on them and they keep going. It’s like trying to squash an angry bison. If they think you are attacking them, they actually start jumping at you rather than running away. They are nasty stuff. In the end, I found the best approach was to relocate any approaching ants with a leaf to a safe distance in order to keep the peace. Thankfully they all went to bed when the sun went down and by some miracle, no one was bitten.

Bivvy ant attacking an inanimate object

The following morning we rounded out the trip along the section of trail most people would be familiar with from the Dirtworks. The trail is characterised by chunky chunky rocks. Heaps and heaps of ledges, boulders and all manner of fun stuff. It would be be described as challenging on the moonlander. Running ‘touring’ pressures of 10psi to compensate for the extra load, the bike was pin balling off every edge and at time was like riding a mechanical bull. It shook hard enough to require me to stop and re tighten the rear rack bolts as it tried to vibrate right off the bike.

Chunky climb

Ten Mile Hollow camp site

Chunky descending

Never the less, ride what you brought. So we pedalled, grinned, sweated and laughed our way through to the finish. Literally within site of the finish I broke my front rack. It was a humerous affair as I was midway through descending some super chunky single track when all of a sudden I was precariously balancing on the front wheel with the rear wheel way up in the air. Somehow I brought everything back under control. The bike was wedged, it wouldn’t push forward at all. I couldn’t figure it out. It felt like the the wheel was wedged in a rock but there wasn’t anything there. It took an embarrassingly long amount of time to realise the rack had snapped and tilted forward wedging on the tyre.

A view down to the finish

At the finish line, I had intended to break out the boat and go for a test paddle but a beer at Wollombi pub was calling my name so we wound up the weekends trip with a burger and a beer. Glorious.

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Tent

Boat

Paddle

It isn’t lost upon me that my paddle is worth three times as much as the boat, however I figure I will be able to use the paddle when I finally get around to getting an alpaca (right after I sell a kidney).

The tent is actually pretty light for a 2 person model. If you check the rest of the weights amongst other models, most weigh at least 2.3 kgs. It will also be perfect for short hiking trips with the Mrs. I got it for this trip as it is a little more luxurious than sleeping in a bivvy bag in this crummy La Nina summer. I’m picturing spending a few nights in heavy rain and this little baby will see me snug as a bug.

I’m so excited about this trip I can barely sit still. It is so far removed from anything I’ve done before that I have no idea what to expect. I’m guessing lots of photos and big smiles!

In the true spirit of a bike shop mechanic, I grabbed hammer and started wailing on it. It didn’t bend as I needed so I got a bigger hammer.

I may or may not have cracked one of the welds on the rack but after several complicated bends, it fit reasonably well. The shiny silver stays are meant to go onto rack mounts on the seat stays but they are way too short so I improvised and instead joined them to the seat post collar bolt. Apparently Salsa make a nifty little seat post collar that which accomplishes the same thing so I will probably change it over at some point.

Next comes the front rack which I haven’t decided upon. I intend to put the tent on it so it won’t have to carry too much weight, perhaps 3 Kg so i’m thinking the Salsa Minimalist rack looks pretty trick  from what I’ve seen on MTBR. I’ll probably order one of those shortly and post some photos when I get it set up.

I have a ride in mid January that I will use to put the racks through their paces and do my best to break them. I’d rather have it happen on an overnighter than on the first day of a 10 day ride.

The rack is pretty centred to the tyre - It is wonky in just the right way