Intermediate and Advanced packrafting courses, Tasmania

Last year I did an intermediate packrafting course see: Learning the art of Packrafting on the Mersey River, Tasmania . I was very impressed with it and decided that there is still much to learn, so I enrolled for both the intermediate and advanced courses with Paddle Tasmania . Again I we were privileged to have Mark Oates, Dan Hall and a new instructor Richard Guy to lead our courses. These people are at the top of the field and were well skilled in teaching their skills to us.
Packraft rescue
I met with a great bunch of people on the course, many of whom were doing both courses. I was glad to repeat the intermediate course as there was much that I had forgotten and that needed a bit of polish.
Swiftwater rescue
This year Hydro could not release any water for us on the Mersey river (for the intermediate course), so it was held on the Forth river. This venue was a perfect teaching venue as various features were concentrated in the one location and the instructors could place themselves in key locations.
Stranded packraft
The  advanced packrafting course reiterated the basic strokes and their importance in white water. Further to that we learnt the art of timing, team management and how to boof. We did this course on the Mersey river and finished with a couple of runs on the Arm river. The arm river really tested our skill with the creek flows through many boulders. Thanks to Mark for the videos. Many great instructional videos on packrafting are available on his Youtube channel.  (This waterfall is the start of the Arm river, we started in the small pool infront of it. That was tricky enough.)

New packraft

My new Robfin Packraft L Big Bro arrived just in time, just 2 hours  before sailing to Tasmania. It was a punt to buy this craft, I am glad to say that it is a fine vessel.  I feel much better in this than my last one ( see Review: PacKraft whitewater ).

Being from a raft manufacture it  is very well made. Having 3 chambers, proper raft valves and an integrated inflated floor it drains very well and carves turns like a slalom skier. Even though it carves well there is a secondary stability that prevents that quick flip that occurs on other rafts.
To improve it, I would add more D anchors to assist holding things down and change the 2 point thigh strap to a 4 point one.(incidentally , the repair kit is superb and has two extra D loops). It is 5.7 kg versus 4 over other whitewater packrafts, but it isn't over the top in consideration of the added build quality and stiffness.

Side Trips

With the courses being on consecutive weekends there was time to do some exploration. Three others - including Marilyne from the Canadian and USA meetups came with me.
 
We paddled the Mersey river at Alum Cliffs, Collingwood river and Donaldson rivers. As well, there was a day trip to Cradle Mountain to do some walking around the 'circuit'. It was raining throughout the week so the rivers were swelling nicely.

Paddle Tasmania provides a resource describing the rivers here (River Guides). .

Starting with Cradle mountain - it did not disappoint. A bit more infrastructure than when I last visited: there are now a greater number of visitors. Most visitors rock up, take their picture of the mountain and leave. Our walk around the Marion's lookout, Face and Twisted lakes was quiet and provided a great experience with the light dusting of snow.
Perhaps the most scenic trip was on the Alum Cliffs section of the Mersey river. It started with an adventure clambering down the steep walls of the gorge. 
Then with the the water pumping with vigour through those large boulders we had to do a bit of careful planning to ensure a safe fun route through.
The Alum cliffs section of the Mersey is one of those trips you could do on multiple occasions and never get bored. what a gem.
 
The Collingwood river leads in to the Franklin river. We started at the Camberwell bridge on the Lyell highway and got out at the Franklin rafter's put in . The water was up at 1.2m so we had a fun run on the river. (unfortunately I do not have many photos for this river).

The Donaldson river was flowing strongly. At first we were not aware just how strong. There is little in the way of documentation for it. "A long wilderness trip with many grade 3 drops. One grade 4 double drop is encountered during the first half of the Donaldson section then a long grade 4, with several sizable drops is encountered just as the river seems to flatten out. Straight forward paddling then leads to the confluence with the Pieman."


I got caught in a dangerous hole behind a rock with water driving hard on both sides. It is amazing how you write your life's story on those moments. Not wanting to die I drew on the lessons learnt at the swiftwater course and the paddling course and managed to find that 'green' water and drive myself out.


I was in shock and there was some worry about the safety of everyone. We did not have enough information to determine the nature of the rest of the river so we camped overnight by the shore with a 3 hour shift of night watch of river levels then  aborted our trip electing to walk out.


Our walk out was 9 hours over a distance of 3km. The scrub was thick and almost impassable in places, pushing back just as hard as we were pushing through. Just to make things harder, we had leeches and the finger slicing "cutting grass" to contend with.


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