I had not intended to tell this story but my hubby asked if
I was going to do a blog about it.
I sort of squinted at him, furrowed my brow and raised an
eyebrow, “Really you want me to write about your harebrained mis-
adventure?”
Him: “It wasn’t harebrained or a mis-
adventure, we had a great time”. We
being hubby and son.
Well that is where men and women have differing opinions
of what a fun adventure consists of, and I guess it depends whose side of the
story is being told.
This is my side, his side differs greatly.
The weekend before the ‘mis- adventure’ hubby had studied
the maps and decided to kayak down a small part of the Mongarlowe River. Apart from a few narrow spots with overhanging
vegetation it was an easy paddle.
The Mongarlowe River
One river conquered, the big one waiting.
Again the maps were consulted. If it took one hour to go from A to B on
the Mongarlowe River then it looked twice the distance for the Shoalhaven River
on the map.
Against my better judgment I dropped major man and minor
man off at the water hole at Bombay Bridge.
It was just before 5pm, dusk was around 8pm, plenty of time declared
major man, armed with a snap lock bag of sultanas and snacks plus mobile phone
and nothing else; no shoes, no torch, no jumpers. I was to collect them at the Warri Bridge two
hours later.
At Bombay Bridge. It looked like a pleasant start.
Warri Bridge over the Shoalhaven River
Tia Maria and I waited at the bridge. Tia Maria being my
dog not the alcohol, although if I had known how the evening was to turn out I
may have started drinking about now.
The problem with the Warri bridge area was I had very
little mobile service. It was getting on
for the estimated time of arrival but no sign of them floating down the river.
Tia and I had been sitting on the beach, me reading, her swimming. I went for a walk along the sand to see if I
could detect them around the bend. Nothing.
Back at the car I had mobile reception. There was a
message from major man “We are fine but it is taking longer than we
anticipated.”
Okay. Waited another half hour. Back down to the beach, nope no sign of them,
back to the car, beach, car, beach, car to get mobile reception to try him on
his phone for the 6th time.
Why is his mobile turned off?
Dusk was approaching and my anxiety building.
I was in and out of the car like a jack in the box. The Warri rest area on the Shoalhaven River
is a popular spot for free camping. Some
young guys were watching what must have appeared my rather odd behaviour,
agitatedly walking up and down, in and out of the car, with the mobile clamped
to my ear. Eventually they came over to say Hi.
I am sure they either thought I was a drug dealer or was waiting for my
dealer!!
It was now dark, I didn’t have a torch, neither Tia nor I
had eaten, major man’s phone was off or had no reception, they were nowhere in
sight. I decided to get the number for Braidwood police but held off calling
just in case my boys turned up over the next 10 minutes.
One last time down to the beach to see if I could see them coming. Then I would
call the police.
At the end of the beach on the bend Derek was camping for
the weekend. He had also observed my treks
up and down the sand. He was in a happy mood having had quite a bit to drink.
He asked me if all was OK.
I explained what was going on. His slurred, extremely ozzie statement to the
situation was “Dickheads! Here
have a beer”.
I declined the beer. I thought I would try
yelling down the river to see if I got a reply. I have a good five acre
voice. (Ask my neighbours!) No reply. Okay, that’s it, I will call the police. I was headed back to the car when Derek
called after me “Hey is your name Kerrie? I can hear someone calling from the
other side of the river.” Pure relief
flooded over me.
The yelling to and fro was frustrating. Major man and minor man could hear me
but the wind was carrying their voices away.
Eventually Derek and I worked out they had abandoned their kayak and
surf ski over a kilometre further up the river and were on foot, they were safe
but stranded somewhere on the other side of the river. Major man’s phone had gone for a swim and no
form of resuscitation was bringing it back to life.
“Just swim over to us” was my exasperated yell to them. Derek
in his drunken helpful way was waving an emergency fluorescent tube in the air
with an almost mesmerising chant of “Follow the light, come to the light”, like they were a pair of moths. No,
the blackberry vegetation along the steep bank of the river was too dense and
they couldn’t find their way through it in the dark to the river edge, even
with Derek’s glowing stick and chanting!
The next plan was to drive the car to the river under the bridge and use the
driving lights to help them find their way to me through the bush. I kept calling to them until I was almost
hoarse but wasn’t hearing an answer. So
I waited 20 minutes there, lights illuminating the river and bush in an amazing
display of blinding halogen. Even Derek
up the other end of the river commented on how “bloody amazing” the lights were.
Eventually I gave up and went back to my now good mate
Derek. My greeting from him was “Nah,
they are still stuck over there....... Dickheads.”
Major man could see a farm house lit up in the distance
behind him. They were going to try to
make their way to the house. I was to meet them there or try to drive from the
house down to the river.
By this time it was getting close to 9.30 pm. It was a
very dark night.
View from the Warri Bridge
I arrived at the house, now in tears. Can you imagine
opening your front door at night to a distressed woman in tears, with a very
strange story about her husband and son stranded at the river and asking them
for help to find them?
Fortunately they believed me and were willing to help.
But it turned out these people were only leasing the house, not the land, and
had only lived there a week with no idea how to get down to the river!!
After opening and closing numerous gates my farm house
saviours, Mark and Linda, found a track down towards the river where we called
and called for major and minor with no luck.
I was now becoming really panicked.
Mark wanted to call the SES. (State Emergency Services)
to rescue my major and minor men. We decided we would go back over the river
where we last heard from them and give it a final try to locate the boys before
involving a heap of people.
Back down the 2 kilometre driveway, over the bridge and
back down to Derek, who at least could substantiate my story. “They’re still there” said Derek with a shake
of his head and a swig of beer followed by his usual refrain, “.....Dickheads”
Mark had an idea where they were and called over to them
to find the fence line, follow it towards the house lights, he would do the
same from the other end until we met up.
Bye Derek. Back over the bridge, along the two kilometre driveway and off into
the most treacherous paddock I have ever seen.
The thistles were as high as the bonnet of the 4 wheel drive car and
thick as a forest. Deep wombat holes were liberally dotted through the thistles
and to the left was an erosion cliff.
I have to say Mark had no idea what he may find over the next hillock in that dark
paddock but not once did he baulk at continuing.
Hubby had already attempted to transverse the paddock but
on a moonless night, without a torch, after stumbling into a concealed wombat
hole and struggling their way bare foot through blackberry and thistle bushes
he deemed it too dangerous to keep going with our son. Following the fence line
still meant fighting through the thistles.
Then in the headlights we could see them coming up the
paddock through the thistles. I hugged
minor man to within an inch of his life.
Major man got a push and sound telling off with a few choice swear words
flying around, he was in deeeep cow poo and I told him, umm, yelled at him, “he was never taking
minor man on another of his harebrained adventures”, but my son had the biggest
grin on his face and said it was the best time he had ever had. He simply did
not appreciate the danger they had been in on the river.
We finally arrived back at our farm at midnight. Major
and minor were none the worse for their adventure down the Shoalhaven River
except hungry, damp and cold with a few thistle spikes in their feet and
blackberry scratches over their arms and legs.
My husband’s side of the saga is this -
He stresses at no point were they lost, he knew exactly
where they were. They just couldn’t get through the blackberry and dense bush to
the edge of the river or head through the paddock safely without a torch.
Mark’s car headlights gave them a point of direction and helped light the way.
The reason the foray took them so long was because there
were numerous cascades along the river, ranging in size from small to slightly
steep, where they had to get out and carry their kayak and surf ski on land
down and past the cascades. The river
was running fast and quite swollen from recent heavy rain which had also swept
logs and tree branches as well as swallowing up vegetation which had been
growing on small isles within the river. As darkness approached it was too
dangerous to continue to navigate past these obstacles.
I think the real wake-up call was when husband was snagged
under a partly submerged tree and the kayak took on water. He could have been drowned. He
decided it was safer to abandon the vessels and walk the rest of the way to the
bridge but the dense vegetation prevented them from following the edge of the
river causing them to walk inland until they were near-ish to Werri.
I will not say if they had left hours earlier there would
have been no drama. This part of the Shoalhaven River is not easily navigable.....(and
husband had wondered why he had not seen kayakers on it! That is telling within
itself!)
Moral of story ask local knowledge first
and listen to wife when she says it is too late in the afternoon to start an
adventure.
The next day we went back to Mark and Linda bearing thank you gifts. Derek had
pulled up camp. We then went off through the
paddocks to collect the kayak and surf ski.
Husband drove pretty much straight to them. As he said he knew exactly where he and minor
were all the time.
When we looked in the kayak the snap lock bag with husband’s drowned mobile
phone nestled amongst sultanas was not where he left it when they set off on
foot. We figured the sultanas attracted
an animal but thought we would find the phone discarded nearby. A search of the general vicinity did not
uncover it.
I have this funny image in my mind of a possum munching
on sultanas with the latest accessory in her pouch. Ring, ring.
“Hello Pos here, nope don’t know who Major is.”
