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| NYMBOIDA RIVER |
| In the winter of 2001, I invited one of my best mates to go on a canoeing trip down the Nymboida River. The Nymboida is one of the whitewater canoeing rivers of Australia. I was expecting a lot of heart-thumping rapids but what surprised me was the beautiful rugged scenery of the National Park that we paddled through. |
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| After a late start we got onto the river at a place called Buccarumbi (its probably aboriginal for something) and headed off down through the rapids. It was a challenge to take my old yellow fibreglass canadian canoe through this river as the water tried to sink it and the rocks tried to smash it. (Towards the end of the camp we began to refer to it as "the yellow submarine.") We found a great campsite along the river bank to rest and dry out after an afternoon of paddling. |
| Rohan is squatting at the fire laughing as I set the timer on my camera, dash over to the campsite and try to look like I'm doing something important in the picture. |
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| The second day was a lot longer. We negotiated heaps of rapids. During the quiet sections it was incredibly serene. We saw some graceful black swans that were very shy and usually took to the air with a deep "honk" sound. It was getting late as we arrived at possibly the worst set of rapids with nowhere to camp and a very leaky canoe. Here we found the end of someone elses canoe - it served as a stark reminder of the possible dangers we faced. We decided we had to get through and press on to find a campsite which we did as night fell. |
| The "Bridal Veil" set of rapids - a picturesque, sweeping set of boulders. (The canoe desrcibed it as a bruising experience.) I'm heading back to pick up Ro who decided to walk this one. |
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| The next morning held the glorious promise of more adventure. We patched the crumpled nose of our our canoe with gaffa tape and wrapped it in a red rag. A couple of kilometres downstream we found some other bits of the canoe we had seen on the previous day. I hope its passengers survived and got out of this remote location OK. After heaps more fun and rugged canoe country we arrived at our destination of Jackadgery (another aboriginal word?) about mid-afternoon. We then had to get back to our car at the start which was 80km away by road. Needless to say we were hitching and biking way into the night - bummer. |
| Ro trying to pose. The junction of the Nymboida and Mann Rivers is in the background. Ro is a peaceful and inspirational person and my most favouritest camping buddy. |
| This was a most excellent adventure. I wish we had more time to explore the banks of the river. I thank God for getting us through this one safely. |