News & Events
October 2009 King
Early October brought continued overflow at the spillway and
another opportunity for the club to play on the King. Brandon and
Lawrence joined Damian and Steven from Patterson Lakes club for a run
down the King on Saturday. We headed up from Mansfield on
Saturday afternoon watching cars full of boats heading south prove how
popular this run is. It was great to see a multi family group
with rafts and kayaks finishing up at the take out. We also
appreciated the fire they left us. Saturday night saw us join the
group at the local pub to listen to Lawrence profess his love for the
King river, and to watch the locals consume large amounts of lambs fry
and bacon. I have no idea how a vegetarian pizza ever got on the
menu – this is a manly pub!.
Sunday dawned slightly damp and
grey but we gathered some more paddlers, Dan and Adam, and headed up to
the put in. Brandon again proved that thrashing your car through
the mud never stops being fun. The spillway looked awesome and we
toyed with the idea of bringing up an old boat and a mannequin next
time for a photo opportunity. Would be interesting to see what
happens…
We
were joined at the put in by a dozen rafters who we would bump into
over the course of the day. This included seeing them all part
company with their transport mid rapid while we waited in the eddy
below. Great fun. The first run was dispatched with plenty
of playing on the way down. Good level with some interesting
rapids where many of the waves seem to be at an angle, rather than
running across the river. One swimmer, but it sounded almost
voluntary.
A
note to first timers on the river, the action starts rather quickly so
if you take time to warm up your brain (like me) go and play under the
spillway for a while or prepare for the consequences. It can get
pretty shallow and bumpy when upside down. A quick shuttle and
wave bye to Damian and Steven and we were ready to go again.
The
next run was again a play fest with Adam and Dan showing an energizer
bunny level of oomph. Much of this energy was spent trying to get
onto the weir wave with predictable results. Rarely have I seen
people so keen for a good trashing. More surfing on anything we
could find including some impressive looking surfing on Cappuccino and
then back to the cars for the trip home.
Great fun at a good level – I think it was around 1.2m.
Scott