This morning was the first Paterson Kona 24 meeting to start the organisation for the 2012 event. The entries will be open soon enough and all the work to put on another big event starts again. I can’t believe it has come around so fast!
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.