First Paddle of 2011

The First Paddle of the Mulgrave River 2011
(The story of Lawrie)

Christmas 2010 in the North brought presents to children and among other things....with heavy downpours in the Mulgrave catchment, a huge level of water. Just as a guide intrepid paddlers utilise the Bureau of Meteorology's website of recording river levels. The level and recording gauge used for the Mulgrave River, among others, is at The Fisheries .... a low bridge of just 1.85 metres from the river bottom. Most of our paddle trips are based between 1 metre to 1.85 metres or in our terms from 80 cm underneath the bridge to bridge level.

The news events of early 2011 of Central Queensland and South-East Queensland brought sobering information in regards to driving over flooded causeways with many vehicles lost and some tragic lives lost.

So when the intrepid paddlers learnt that the river level for the Mulgrave was at 9 metres, there was no way paddles were going to happen in the Mulgrave Valley. Paddlers went to other funspots at Freshwater Creek and Crystal Cascades (see earlier posts).

The first paddle of the Mulgrave started with a group of 11 venturing forth on usual plans....to do a trip from Kearneys to the Sharks Tooth. However, a locked gate at Arnolds Bridge soon had us changing our paddle plans to paddle from Arnolds to Roos Road bridge.

This meant that the virgin paddlers, Lawrie and Cameron, were to be thrown in at the deep end to venture through the Sharks Tooth rapid first up.




Lawrie and Cameron went through initial refresher kayak training


and increased their confidence to at least face the first rapid.

Some of the crew as a warm up ventured up to the swing rapid to play in holes and the standing waves to then meet us at Arnold's Bridge. Once they came down , our adventure began in earnest.

Once through the Shark's Tooth rapid being separated from his boat, Lawrie was told that he was through once of the hardest rapids that the river had to offer. From this photo to the left, Lawrie found that if he was to venture into troubled waters.....he had crew and friends ready to help.

Once all was reset and people emptied their boats of water creeping in, we followed the river to find an unusual small hole and wave just below of our normal pull out at the campground. Here Timme and Adro went through a usual play of surfing their boats.

Unfortunately with this part of the river, a long serene flatwater section of the river has to be traversed to get to the next set of rapids.

Due to the ageing nature of our paddlers, and the more interest in paddling the flowing waters, we rarely travel these sections anymore.

However, this section of river does provide interesting vistas of quiet paddling and Lawrie took full advantage of a serene paddle.


Once the first set of lang flatwater was behind us, the intrepid paddlers now faced the rushing waters of Melaleuca Corner and the ever present Rock Garden rapids.

On his first try, Lawrie surpassed the expectations of the crew, and managed to paddle through the Garden. However unfortunately, the same could not be said for Cameron and Gus who had not done the Rock Garden previously. Chaos reigned and carnage followed.

They were not the only ones.....

Tarzan had previously not paddled for a while and found that he had problems with rocks. He also found that his pretty Perception kayak had close encounters with submerged rocks and ended up for a while sticking end upon end out of those same rocks much like the Lady of the Lake held Excalibur.

Tarzan had then submitted to following the river on his backside....much to the bemusement of the other crew.

The river then flatens out for most of the way with trivial rapids on the way. Portages over the Fisheries Bridge gave a chance for Seal Launches. Overhanging branches then claimed the ego of Spray, Gus and Cameron.

The day ended quite satisfactory with Laggy cooking a magnificent meal of sausages and onions for a sizzle to fill the hungry torsos.

Please Remember : If you paddle the amazing and natural watercourses of this fabulous country of ours, do not leave anything other than footprints, and take nothing away other than photographs and memories.

My best wishes to the unfortunate people of South East Queensland for the tragic events that have unfolded in the past week.