By Matthew Fallow                

To tell a story like this is difficult without cutting directly to the chase. What an adventure we had! A real experience of a lifetime, boating pristine rivers in wilderness areas older than life itself. Hours on the river at a time, in superb rapids meandering through ancient rainforests of 2000 year old Huon Pine, not seeing a soul on the river for days at a time. The West Coast of Tasmania is a rugged remote part of the world, our closest landfall being South America or Antarctica. The company of intrepid adventurers, trusty jet boats, uncanny luck and great weather, now this is jet boating!

With a cosmopolitan group of boaters to assemble in Devonport Tasmania in a couple of days time we left Sydney early with 3 boats. Simon Taylor in his trusty 30 year old Hamilton Gemini/P76, crew Chris Horsfall, Steve Kain in ex Kiwi ‘Rockhard’ River Craft/Toyota V8 and myself in a Hamilton 151 Mk2 Chev 383. Mid way to Melbourne we stopped at Gundagai to launch into the Mighty Murrumbidgee River. Here we also meet up with another of our party Steve & Kay Links Hamilton J73 Chev 350 and crew Danny & Anna Williams.

 

 

Flow was swift and we headed upstream some 45 minutes to the confluence of the Hydro fed Tumut River. To boat to the dam requires approx 4 hours one way so we thought we would just have a little look up. Well with good flow in this great narrow little river we boated for a further 1 hour 40 minutes and conscious we would have to return on fuel vapors alone, reluctantly we about faced. No sooner were we back in the Murrumbidgee River when the weather turned strange, boating through hot and cold patches of air at least 10 degrees differential. What was going on? Minutes later we saw it, a wall of wind coming down the river right at us, picking up river water with it as it went. The noise was deafening, the force of the wind wanted to tip the boat, we pointed directly into it and headed for a large tree on the bank, which we clung to for the next 10 minutes. After emptying the bilge of water and branches we boated back to the ramp in beautiful sunshine! Chris the ever-mindful ‘Harry Butler’ of our group went to the rescue of a small turtle on the road, however when the turtle tentatively popped one leg out of his shell, Chris reared back and retreated. Chris eventually overpowered the turtle beast and we were all very proud of him J

After spending 3 hours in the queue to board the Spirit of Tasmania passenger/car ferry we were finally on board and assembled in the bar. Here we met up with two more of our crew Jan & Marcus Wilkins from New Zealand. The rest of the trip across the Tasman was spent having the odd beer and wine and telling truthful jet boat yarns. Our first day in Tasmania saw us disembarking at Devonport and heading for the famous formula one town of Longford. On the way we visited a steam museum and even rode a Penny Farthing Bicycle. Longford, now a sleepy country town, once featured on the world stage as having one of the great F1 tracks in the 1950’s –1960’s. Our hotel featured memorabilia from these days including Hulme, Brabham, Fangio, Stewart etc so the publican was not worried at all when we played jet boating videos through the bar video system.

Our first river the Macquarie, a hydro fed river meandering through the farming countryside was dispensed with smartly on our first day boating. 1 Hour upstream we came across an impassable weir and headed for home, much to the pleasure of local trout fishermen. Fortunately from here all the rivers were in remote locations and free from civilization. Next morning we rendezvoued with the last of our team to join us, Bob Jones Custom Doen Jet Chev 350 a local Taswegian.

The road to New Norfolk saw us take the back way through some very very steep country, in fact the only 4WD not amongst us; a commodore had some overheating worries coming up the mountain. Once through the Great Lakes region we headed down off the beaten track via a dirt road to an old Hyrdo power station "Waddamanna" fascinating to walk through it’s 13 generator sets. From there we headed to the upper Derwent River for a quick run on a rarely boated stretch of water. So rare in fact it was a little difficult to find, anyway some ½ hour later and negotiating an old rickety army bridge we were in the water. A great little run of only 30 minutes upstream, but it certainly gave us a taste of good white water in days to come. That night saw us staying in an Old English style guest house "Rosie’s" where after dinner we visited local jet boat tourist operator Brian Harwood @ Devil Jet. We again told all of our truthful jet boat stories (only rapids were bigger and dents now smaller). Next morning Brian took all 11 of us for a