Paddling Against the Tide - Getting Schooled on a Lazy River

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March 26th 2021

Published: April 26th 2021

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Backpackermatt

Drifting Downstream

Enjoying a rare favourable current on the Glenelg River

After knocking off the first half of the Great South West Walk over the previous week, my 'half-time break' stared with a much needed rest day in Nelson, before I packed up early and got a lift back to Moleside Landing with Chris - the owner/operator of the local canoe rental company - for my three-day kayak trip down the same 50km stretch of the Glenelg River that I had spent the previous three days following on foot. Thankfully the incessant rain of the previous day had subsided, though another problem had presented itself: school groups. I had thought there was something odd going on when the same campsites that had been virtually deserted on my walk were fully booked for the coming days according to Parks Victoria's online booking system, and as soon as I had mentioned it to Chris he said "ah, there must be school groups on the river"... but little did I realize just how many of these school groups there would be! Arriving at the same Moleside campsite where I had first encountered the Glenelg River, I found myself surrounded by twelve-year-old girls preparing for their own river trip. Thankfully I knew of a quiet little

On the starting blocks

My kayak for the next three days at Moleside Landing

landing just around the corner on Moleside Creek, so that I could pack my kayak in peace and slip away quietly.

Once on the river the noise fell away instantly, and it was just me and the river. The feeling of tranquility was overwhelming. There were no motorboats and no other canoes; just the trees, the birds and me... until I reached the next landing at Wild Dog Bend, where another school group were making their way out onto the water. Hoping to find a picnic table where I could enjoy a leisurely lunch in peace and quiet, I set my sights on Saunders Landing a further five kilometres downstream, and was sure I had found what I was looking for when an hour later I finally laid eyes on the timber landing and found it free of other watercraft... only to hear voices coming from the bush as I approached, which soon materialised into yet another school group, who this time were on foot! It seemed that the river itself belonged entirely to me, but the river banks belonged entirely to school groups!

'Surely there won't be anyone up ahead at Pritchards campsite' I thought to myself,

Wings Over Water

Cormorant drying it's wings

as I pressed on into my third hour on the river. Of course it didn't help that due to my inexperience at paddling (I could only recall using a kayak once before) I seemed to be completely incapable of going in a straight line! Time and time again I would straighten myself up and start paddling, only to almost instantly find myself straying further and further to the left. Often I would have to paddle four or five times in a row on my left-hand side to right myself, only to then start straying to the left again as soon as I started alternating strokes again. So onwards I went, zig-zagging my way downstream whilst constantly having to correct myself, and all the while praying that the campsite at Pritchards would be school group-free as I was in need of a rest break and some sustenance. Upon reaching Pritchards though it soon became obvious this wasn't the day for solitude seekers - already yet another school group (my fourth for the day) were setting up their tents at the campsite! So I pulled my kayak up to the bank and set myself up for lunch right there at the landing.

Serenity

Lunch stop at Pritchard's Landing

After a well-earned lunch break I had only another four kilometres (about an hour's worth of paddling) to go to my overnight stop at Skipworth Springs. And this time there would be no school groups waiting on the bank to scare away the wildlife (and my sanity). But just when I thought my luck had finally changed, the day had another unpleasant surprise in store for me: the so-called 'water point' was nothing more than a fetid puddle in what looked like it had once been a creek! With not only my drinking supply but all of my (dehydrated) meals depending on clean water, there was no way I was going to spend the night at a campsite without a reliable water source, so back in the kayak I went to paddle a further 4km downstream to the walkers' campsite at Battersbys, where I had spent the night only four days earlier and where I knew there was a rainwater tank that I could rely on. Imagine my surprise when I pulled up to the landing and found the entire walkers' campsite empty! What were the chances that at the best-equipped campsite of the day (complete with the only

Overnight Parking

My kayak hauled up on the bank beside the landing at Battersby's campsite

shelter on this stretch of the river) I would have the whole place to myself?!? Not great, of course. After thirty blissful minutes of peace and quiet, excited voices heralded the arrival of yet another school group (all girls) who had spent the day walking all the way from Moleside, and soon enough I was surrounded! Still, at least I had a reliable water source for the evening - and 4km less than expected to paddle the next day!

Unfortunately the weather took a turn for the worse overnight, with a light drizzle falling that would persist for the entire morning and on into the afternoon - in other words, the entire time that it would take me to break camp, paddle 13km (three hours) and then set up my waterlogged tent at the next campsite. Out on the river this wasn't really an inconvenience, as it wasn't particularly cold so I was wearing next to nothing anyway, and in a strange way it added to the ambience of the day. I had even managed to correct my 'slalom' technique from the previous day, so that instead of pinballing my way downstream from one side to the other I

Clouds and Crowds

Sunshine and seclusion were both in short supply at Battersby's

was able to pick the shortest route from one bend to the next and actually follow it! I was even able to pass an entire school group by threading my way in between their canoes without causing any major incidents, much to my own amazement! But apart from a blissful couple of minutes that I spent chilling out underneath a rocky overhang, that persistent drizzle would continue to slowly but surely soak me to the bone... along with my tent, which I had not been able to fit into either of the splash-proof compartments at each end of the kayak, and which was already wet anyway from having been packed up in the rain that morning.

So with the rain still falling when I arrived at the Pattersons walkers' campsite after three hours on the river - shortly after passing within a few metres of two swamp wallabies feeding beside the water, who regarded me very nonchalantly as I paddled past - I immediately took everything out of the kayak to leave it under the shelter, and then set up my tent as quickly as possible. But the damage had already been done. Both the inner tent and the

Another campsite, another school group

Trying desperately to dry my tent out at Patterson's campsite on day two

fly were completely soaked; in fact so much so that I had resigned myself to having to sleep in one of the old fishing huts located down at the neighbouring canoe campsite. It also came as no surprise to find yet another school group already entrenched at the walkers' campsite, while still another group would later turn up in canoes to claim the adjacent campsite! I couldn't help wondering if there were any students actually left attending school in Victoria; or whether perhaps the state's education board had decided that with all of the frequent coronavirus-related lockdowns in this state they might as well just forget about school altogether and send every student out into the wilderness - that's certainly how it bloody felt anyway!

But just when it seemed all was lost, the drizzle eased off to just the barest trickle and then finally stopped altogether. Hallelujah! Finally I would have the chance to dry everything out. Slowly but surely I managed to get every surface of both my inner and outer tents dry by setting them up on top of a picnic table and turning each side to face the sun, whilst soaking up as much of

Morning Mist

Steely grey skies and still waters at Patterson's, early on day three

the water as possible from the inside with my microfibre towel. It took almost the entire afternoon, but eventually the tent was dry, and I was happy. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to appreciate the smallest things, and never have I been so grateful to have a dry tent to crawl into at the end of a day. Now if only I could shake off the pain in my right forearm that had been getting progressively worse ever since my first hour on the river the day before...

If I thought that the worst of the weather had already passed, I was in for a rude shock when the sound of heavy rain hitting my tent woke me up at 2am that night... and proceeded to keep me awake as it got even heavier throughout the next half-hour or so. Eventually the rain relented and I was able to slip back into a fitful sleep, but once again I faced an uphill battle trying to get my tent dry enough to pack up in the morning. In fact it wasn't until after the school group had left and I was able to air the tent out under

Kayak Cave

The perfect-sized dock in which to wait out the rain, in the limestone cliffs of the Glenelg River Gorge

the cover of the shelter that I was finally able to get it somewhat dry, but by then the tone of the day had been set - every time the weather started to clear, another shower would suddenly blow in from nowhere. The first time this happened out on the river I paddled with all my might to get to the cover of the overhanging cliffs on the far bank, which thanks to their being made of limestone were riddled with caves - one of which happened to be the exact size and shape of my kayak! Seriously, it was almost as if someone had deliberately carved out a purpose-built kayak dock in the base of the cliffs, and I couldn't imagine a better place to wait out the worst of the downpour.

Unfortunately though my little sprint across the river had taken it's toll on my right arm, which I noticed for the first time soon afterwards was now badly swollen just above the wrist... which wasn't exactly welcome news when I still had a further 15km to paddle to the take-out at Simsons Landing! To make matters worse, the southwesterly winds got progressively stronger as the morning

Border Crossing

Paddling from Victoria into South Australia on the lower stretches of the Glenelg River

went on, turning the gorge that I had entered into a wind tunnel and whipping up little swells that I found myself bouncing up and down over - it was beginning to seem like the river and the weather were conspiring against me! So onwards I struggled into the teeth of the wind - spotting a number of gorgeously-coloured azure kingfishers along the way - until after two-and-a-half hours I pulled into the bank at Hirth's Landing for a much needed break and some lunch. But even then my trials weren't over, as a dickhead in a motorboat went racing past way over the speed limit, sending bow waves towards the shore that would have swamped my kayak if I hadn't been so quick to race over and haul it up high onto the bank. Somewhere someone had to be having a laugh at my expense!

But eventually my luck started to change - along with the weather - so that by the time I slipped back onto the river not only had the clouds finally cleared for good, but the wind had miraculously swung around to the north so that it was behind me as I turned and

Changing Fortunes

Lunch stop on the final day at Hirth's Landing

paddled south for the final six kilometres towards Nelson. So this must be what paddling down a normal river (ie one with a downstream flow that isn't counteracted by the tides) must feel like! Even without any discernible current, there were times over the next hour with the wind behind me that I could simply float along beside the shore, gazing up at the vegetation clinging to every possible foothold on the banks, whilst offering only the occasional stroke to keep my momentum up and keep me on course. What a change from a couple of hours earlier, when every metre was hard-won and I had struggled to keep myself going! Dare I say it, it almost felt too easy - so much so that when I suddenly arrived at Simsons Landing far earlier than expected, I kept going downstream for a forther five hundred metres so that I could do a little 'victory lap' around the curiously-named Isle of Bags - a tiny little rocky islet in the middle of the river with a stone monument on the top - before turning back into the wind for one final push to the finish line. And with that my first

Mission Accomplished

Hauled out at Simson's Landing, after successfully completing my 50km paddle from Moleside

ever extended river trip was done... as was my right arm for the next few days. If only the old couple with the sailing boat from the week before had still been around, I might have been able to get the lady to operate on my arm like she had on Baz's foot!

But perhaps even more painful than my swollen forearm was the result of the football on my second night back in Nelson. Having started horribly and trailed for virtually the entire game, the Brisbane Lions had fought to the death against the Geelong Cats and looked set to snatch the game in the dying seconds, only for the umpires to make a howler of a non-decision with thirty seconds remaining (missing a blatant 'holding the ball' free kick that should have been awarded to the Lions' Zac Bailey - an error the AFL's umpiring department admitted to after the match) to cost them what should have been a miraculous victory. Even amateur surgery wouldn't have been able to quell the pain... and with good beer being non-existent in Nelson (there's only so much Guinness I can take) I couldn't even console myself with some locally-brewed 'painkillers'.