Whom Shall I Send?

When Tasmania’s rarely paddled Lagoon River asked who was up for the challenge, Geoff Macqueen had a simple answer: Call me.

By GEOFF MACQUEEN

“Awhoop of joy means it’s high, and a cry of despair means it’s low,” I announced to Pete and Tyrone as I bounded off down the hill to find the river, leaving them to finish setting up the tents. As I pushed through the last bit of dense scrub fringing the river, a small stream came into view at my feet. My optimism evaporated. Packrafting this ‘river’ for 30km to the ocean was about as appealing as crawling it. I was so dismayed that I didn’t have the will to do the cry of despair. A short while later, Tyrone pushed through the scrub and joined me in a pall of gloom. We contemplated the possibilities. The river rising overnight seemed unlikely, as two days of supposed rain didn’t seem to have had any significant effect, and anyway, the rain was forecast to fizzle out during the evening. Our options were a slow arse-drag down a grungy creek, or a walk back out—not an enticing prospect, either, as there was no car waiting for us on Norfolk Road, meaning we’d have to walk an additional 40km back to Corinna. Pete arrived and joined the gloom. We chewed over those two unappealing options some more, only deciding to delay our decision until the morning.

The first night’s wet and windy camp on a gravelly ridge above the Lagoon River.

Credit: Tyrone Blyth

Geoff gets a run-up for a waterwall drop.

Credit: Tyrone Blyth

Tyrone pauses for a quick bubble bath.

Credit: Peter Sebbage

Just what the doctor ordered; Geoff paddles through good flows on the upper Lagoon.

Credit: Tyrone Blyth

Originating high on the eastern slopes of Tasmania’s Norfolk Range, the Lagoon River flows about 37km through broad open Tarkine valleys and narrow rocky gorges, finally discharging its water across a remote beach on the island’s west coast. Our research—which was confined to studying online maps and aerial photography—showed the river had good packrafting potential: A five-kilometre walk over open buttongrass ridges to the river; a 31km packraft of the river itself, descending 310m through what looked to be (mostly) clear sections of water; and, lastly, a 20km walk south along the coast to the Pieman Heads, from where we could catch a charter boat back to Corinna.

We needed rain to paddle the river, though. Lots of it. There are no rain gauges in the vicinity of the Lagoon River, and I wondered whether the Norfolk Range to the west might cast a rain shadow over the catchment. The best we could do was to time our departure for the tail end of a wet few days. We’d felt optimistic as we departed Launceston that morning, but now, above that feeble creek, as we sheltered in our tents from the wind and spitting rain, our optimism lay in ruins.

We settled in for the night, listening to the light patter of drizzle on the tents. When the drizzle increased to rain, we initially dismissed it as a passing shower. But as the precip became heavier, we allowed some optimism to seep back in. Soon we were cheering on the rain from our sleeping bags, which appeared to work, as heavy squalls began raking the tents. The rain came and went throughout the evening, and we fell asleep with renewed hopes.

At first light, we rushed down to the river. It had risen from a one-metrewide, ankle-deep-trickle to a two-metre-wide, kneedeep, fast-flowing creek. Some whoops of joy and a couple of highfives followed as our nervous optimism gave way to relief and elation. We rushed back up the hill to decamp and pack the rafts. An hour later we were back at the river, sliding the loaded packrafts into the water. “It’s already dropping,” observed Tyrone, who had jammed a stick in the bank earlier to mark the water level. So, without delay, we hopped into the rafts and were happily whisked off into the Tarkine wilderness on strong flows.

Easy kilometres passed. We paddled past open areas of low scrub and through dense tunnels of overhanging trees. Apart from one quick portage around a sharp rock, we remained in our packrafts; the river was thankfully clear of obstacles.

Tributaries converged, the river swelled, and soon we started to encounter occasional logs across the river. This marked the beginnings of a diabolical 500m log-jammed section that on aerial photography resembled the flattened forests of Tunguska. After Pete entertained us with a couple of botched log crossings, we decided it was time to hatch our detour plan. We squeezed through dense tea trees on the left bank to enter clear fields of buttongrass. Twenty minutes of arduous hauling work ensued as we dragged the packrafts sledge-style over the grass; meanwhile, Pete and I regularly assured Tyrone (who hadn’t seen the aerial photography and was dubious about the need to walk so far) that the log jam was indeed large and terrible, and that we had to drag further. Finally, we pushed back through the scrub at the river’s edge to find a wide and clear river. With a sceptical

Tyrone goading us that he still saw no evidence of a logjam, we seal-launched over dense scrub back into the river.

We bobbed down the river at a leisurely pace as the river turned us west into a steep-sided valley. Between us, we had about 45 years of whitewater-kayaking experience, but it was only in the last two years that we’d started packrafting. Our short experience with packrafts was enough to make us enthusiastic fans. Packrafts are light, tough, and fun to paddle. They’re also easy to carry in a pack, and this has opened up new paddling horizons for us, and led us to seek remote and interesting rivers, like the Lagoon. We floated easily past alternating landscapes of dense forest and bare, burnt-out hillsides, wondering out loud whether adventure without hardship can still be called adventure. In these easy waters, it felt more like lounging in a bean bag.

Just as we were contemplating the underwhelming prospect of bean bagging it all the way to the ocean, outcrops of bedrock (an ingredient of most quality rapids) appeared in the riverbed, and several nice Grade Three rapids followed. We buzzed as the valley sides steepened and the river descended into a shallow ravine. Around another corner, the river dropped out of sight. Above the drop, flurries of foam were ominously blowing around the ravine. We leap-frogged our way down the ravine, moving eddy to eddy, cautiously approaching the drop, before pulling out on the left bank to scout.

An inspection of the drop revealed the rapid was less treacherous than we’d imagined. There were two drops, with the exit of the first (and smaller drop) pushing the water forcefully against the right wall before pouring over a larger second drop that formed a nasty stopper at the bottom. The challenge was going to be breaking out of the powerful flow along the right wall, and running a chicken chute drop further to the left to avoid the nasty stopper. A Grade Three rapid, but there were potentially nasty consequences for mucking it up.

“Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” asked Pete, who had not only remembered a bible quote from the Brad Pitt movie Fury that we’d been discussing the previous day, but had also found a choice moment to use it. I don’t know about the biblical context, but in Fury, the quote precedes a terrible scene of carnage. “Here I am. Send me,” I volunteered boldly, raising my hand and completing the quote. We had a laugh, but chuffed as we were to be quoting bible passages, I now needed to get down to business and paddle the rapid.

I hopped back into my packraft and paddled into the flow. I headed right towards the wall to dodge an initial stopper, then veered hard back to the left to break out of the main flow and to head for the chicken chute. Plans for a soaring boof evaporated as I grazed a shallow rock, slowing the packraft at the lip. My desperate boof stroke failed to prevent the packraft from dipping into a vertical dive and plunging into the stopper. I popped out unscathed though, encouraging the others to have a shot. Tyrone and Pete both employed different strategies, but everyone plugged the chicken chute equally abysmally.

Our glee at finding good rapids was now mixed with mild apprehension as to what the Lagoon would serve up next. We were, however, elated at the turn towards exciting paddling, and we eagerly followed each bend around the river to see what it would offer. We weren’t disappointed. Quality rapid followed quality rapid, including a chunky Grade 4 that we bombed through without mishap. A broad three-metre waterfall, intimidating at first glance, provided a centre line with a nice little ramp at the crest which projected each of us cleanly over the stopper below.

It wasn’t much further before the steep valley sides receded. There were still occasional rapids to keep things lively, but it was late in the day, and we were on the lookout for a campsite. “There should be some beaches coming up soon,” I said, my aerial-photo research coming to the fore again. Tyrone pointed out that the beaches could be under water, and confirmed this possibility by pointing out that there was, at that moment, a beach visible beneath his packraft. I was sceptical, but he’d put a dent in my hopes for a nice beach camp, so we took the first option that Pete spotted—a small driftwood-strewn clearing on the right bank.

After some vigorous timber dragging, we pitched the tents and, while Pete experimented with a new curry for our dinner, we reflected on what a fantastic day of paddling it had been. But for some un-forecast squalls of rain last night, we could have been camping on the road to Corinna that evening.

As we spooned down Pete’s experimental curry (which was actually acceptable), we discussed the likelihood of anyone else having descended this river before. Tyrone said he’d be surprised if some hardy bushwalkers equipped with lilos hadn’t come down here in decades past. In any any case, liloers aside, we discovered several weeks after we returned home that a group had paddled the river in 8ft rafts about twenty years before us.

We woke the next day to find the river level had dropped overnight; the flow was about half of yesterday’s. Five minutes into the day’s paddling, we rounded a right bend to reveal a gorgeous scene. A white, cobbled beach fronted a wide and deep, dark pool, with a pretty waterfall from a tributary creek tumbling in from the opposite side. Eucalypts fringed the pool before the rolling treeless hills beyond. Vindicated, I gave the others an I-toldyou-so speech. We’d bungled our choice of campsite. We enjoyed a brief stay in the little Eden, but with the water level still dropping, we were soon heading off downstream again.

The river served us up a few more grungy rapids, and we were glad we’d descended most of the river the previous day. By late morning, we could smell salt in the air, and a little later we could hear the muffled sounds of the ocean. Bush gave way to large sand dunes sloping steeply down to the water. We rounded a final left bend, revealing a wide and windy beachscape, the river a dark, tannin-stained ribbon winding its way across the beach to the booming surf.

The previous evening, we’d contemplated the possibility of paddling into the ocean and turning south for the Pieman Heads. Given the huge rows of swell crashing along the coast, that idea was now clearly ludicrous. Instead, we got off the river at a cluster of rocks halfway down the beach. We unpacked the rafts and re-packed everything into our rucksacks, along with half a kilo of fine wind-blown sand that found its way into our gear, shoes, clothes, and my digestive tract via a sandwich-wrap lunch.

One by one, we shouldered our packs and headed south along the beach, following the firmer sand at the water’s edge. The wide expanse of sand and ocean was such a contrast from packrafting through a green river valley that we were all absorbed in our own experiences for a while as we spread out along the beach and settled into our own paces.

After ten kilometres, the coast transitioned from beach to rocky headland. Here we came across an Aboriginal midden. The midden was collapsing, with the wind eroding and undercutting its sand foundation, scattering shell and bone debris around the beach. Hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago, a vastly different group of people had gathered around this place, nibbling on molluscs and casting shells on the heap. There’s a small thrill in contemplating that. Tyrone had passed through this area a couple of years ago and assured us that this midden, which was about a metre thick, was just a baby. “There are middens further north the size of houses,” he told us.

Our pre-booked boat to pick us up at the Pieman Heads and take us to Corinna wasn’t due for two days. So we spent two slow and enjoyable sunny days covering the last ten kilometres to the Pieman Heads, walking the partially overgrown vehicle tracks that meandered through the scrub and camping on grassy patches overlooking the rugged rocky coastline.

Controversially, vehicle access along these beaches and tracks was banned several years ago because of environmental concerns and the potential for damage to Aboriginal heritage sites. It’s a hot enough topic that reports of clandestine incursions by quad bikers have made the Tasmanian news. We didn’t see any recent signs of vehicles, and the bush was encroaching on the tracks in most places. The incumbent state government hopes to re-open vehicle access to this area, but in the meantime, increasing numbers of bushwalkers are passing through, unmolested by off-road vehicles and unbothered by the bad loud music that most of the Tasmanian 4x4 fraternity agrees provides an optimal camping experience. “You can see why they’re upset, though,” said Tyrone as we sat watching the sun set over the ocean on the last evening. “They practically had this place to themselves for decades.”

The distant drone of a motor from up the Pieman River signalled that our ride back to Corinna was approaching. We gobbled down the last of our lunch and stuffed gear back into our packs in time to jump aboard the boat as it nosed into the shore.

“How’s it going?” asked a chipper Pete.

“Oh, same shit, different day,” replied the skipper. I’m not sure if he meant it ironically, but in the guy’s defence, living and working in remote and secluded Corinna was sure to involve a lot of ‘same shit’. I sat back on the vinyl seat, totally satiated. As the boat wove its way back upriver to Corinna, I reflected on the last five days and what had made this trip so good. We’d passed through amazing and varied landscapes, experienced salvation from a night of unforecast rain, and enjoyed quality paddling and good company. Later, sitting back more comfortably on the restaurant porch at Corinna, Pete joked he may as well sell his packraft because he couldn’t see another trip measuring up to this one.

“We could just do the Lagoon again,” suggested Tyrone.

Yeah, definitely. Let’s do it again. W

The last of the Lagoon River as it winds its way across the beach to the ocean.

Credit: Tyrone Blyth

A gorgeous evening above the rocky Tarkine coast. Credit: Peter Sebbage

The final triumph as our ride back to Corinna arrives on time.

Credit: Tyrone Blyth

Geoff and Pete amble south along the Tarkine coast, leaving the beach for the rocky headland. Credit: Tyrone Blyth

CONTRIBUTOR: Eight years ago, at age 38, Geoff was introduced to whitewater paddling. His biggest regret in life is the years before paddling (BP) that he frittered away climbing and sailing.