Upstream - Part 1 - Expedition -The River

*Please Note - I have revisited and edited these posts, removing/hiding names in response to input from our community.

Willa at first camp writing in her Journal. This was a daily practice for her the entire journey.

Our journey began in a neighbouring valley. Rainee drove Willa and I out to the Millers of Missabotti's place. We had a cup of tea and a chat then loaded our gear into the back of their ute and took off to our starting point.

It's a slow, twisty drive up out of the valley to the ridge and the forests. All roads I have driven repeatedly and ran. They are changing again. When I first went up this road and when I ran to Point Lookout, the road was thick with growth. A car could get through, but only by pushing through the lantana. It had been cleared and for a while you would regularly pass the machinery keeping the edges clear. Now the lantana is coming back. It is narrowing again.

We had recently had some rain, sections of the road were quite slippery. There were only a couple of small trees down on the road. Paul and I were able to clear it all quite quickly. The Silky saw makes short work of most timber. We looked hard but there was to be no view of Mt K on that day. The clouds were still quite thick up here on the ridge line.

We unloaded all our gear and set up camp at the locked gate. I had packed extra to be used for this night only. There was a lot of moisture in the air and the occasional drop of light rain. We got a fire going and Willa cooked us up a stir fry. Our last meal of fresh food for a while. We definitely did not appreciate this enough at the time. We went to bed early. Our 3 swags underneath a canvas tarp.

Putting on the snake gaiters

In the morning we looked out and could see the clouds sitting in the valley below us and pushing over the ridge opposite. We breakfasted and drank some coffee. They were coffee bags. They were pretty bad. They were what I would be drinking for the next 10 days. After packing up the gear and putting the extra stuff back into the ute, We prepared our packs.

It is interesting that packs are never as heavy as when you put them on at the start of hike. This is a good thing. Ours were pretty loaded. I had made a couple of last minute 'panic' additions. Just as we were about to head off I realised I hadn't actually put on my shoes. Pack off and restart. Paul walked down the hill into the valley with us. Surprisingly his phone rang. It was Rainee checking in. We didn't know it at the time, but this would be our last communication with her for a week.

Pushing on down the hill we made our way to the creek where we would stash the cache with our resupplies. We found an accessible log, which also gave it some shelter, and hid it away. You had to get wet feet crossing the creek. Willa convinced me to take off our shoes. I complied with this last effort to keep our feet dry. I knew there was another crossing up ahead anyway. We gave Paul a hug and we went our separate ways.

Walking along on the old road Willa began to recognise familiar landmarks from a previous outing. All very exciting until she remembered some of the uphill sections we had coming up. These were all feeling much bigger this time with our big loads. Willa was comforted as I pointed out to her we would not be travelling back on the same road as we would be in the water. I have to admit, I was pretty comforted in this knowledge too.

The grass section of the road is crap. The grass is always just long enough that you can't quite see what is on the ground, just ahead of you . We saw one, quite big red-belly snake and then a small grass snake before arriving at the campsite at M*** Scrub. M*** Scrub has alway appeared to me as a dark, damp and dingy space that holds no appeal to me. This was to change later in the trip.

At our first entry to the river, I observed that the water was higher than on previous visits, but not worryingly high in the least. We rock hopped our way along the edge. At S***Creek, our path diverted away from the *** *** *** Walk, One of NSWPS Premier Walks. The walk went along the creek (actually most people travel in a downstream direction) whereas we would continue up The River. Willa decided that the wetsuit booties she was wearing were too uncomfortable and went back to wearing sneakers. Not wanting to carry them for no reason she hid them up the side of the river under some big rocks to collect on the way back through.

The higher water levels meant that we were spending nearly all of our time walking in the water. Willa and I had a trekking pole each. These were invaluable in helping to keep us upright on the slippery rocks in the moving water. We criss-crossed back and forth across the river. At times we were wading through waist deep water. There were some very pools and we kept finding ways around, until we couldn't.

We reached a deep and long pool on a bend. The inside of the bend appeared quite flat with low scrub, however when we attempted to go through we soon discovered it was choked up with thorny vines of multiple varieties. It was time to inflate a raft. I had not intended to use the rafts on the ascent. I had been through here previously without an issue. This time the water was higher and banks scoured out. The raft is easy enough to inflate. I then ferried Willa and our gear across in a couple of trips. We decided to leave it blown up. We ended up using it a couple more times that day.

It was slow going. We had walked under blue skies across the old farms, but the sky had slowly become overcast when the valley narrowed. There was moisture in the air. I was constantly scanning the sides of the river thinking about camps. there weren't a lot of options. We made it to the spot where I had turned back once before. There was a very narrow and very low lying section of sand. It was early in the day but Willa and I decided to make camp for the day.

Camp day 1

We strung up the tarp and rolled out the mats and sleeping bags. I got a small fire going and Willa prepared our dinner. We were in bed early but didn't really sleep. On the bank opposite us we looked at a wall of glow worms while we lay in the dark. It was a restless sleep. I kept monitoring the water levels throughout the night. It would not need to rise much and we would go under. Fortunately it appeared to go down.

Sunset on the Bellinger River

We had a beautiful slow morning. This was to become our rhythm for the majority of the journey. Porridge with dried sultanas and apples, putting on wet clothes, deflating mats and folding our groundsheet and the tarp, roll up the ropes and repack. We had a quick explore and found a freshly used platypus burrow a few metres down from where we had slept.

We began our trek by walking around the cascade through the bush and then into a seriously rocky and slippery section. It was to become more challenging as the day progressed. The water had started to deepen and we again found ourselves needing to use the raft to ferry our gear and continue upstream. We also had sections where it was practical to just drag the packs in the raft. A welcome relief.

We came to a section in which the river made a substantial change in elevation. After discussion Willa and decided to drag our gear up it, inside the raft. This was probably not the best decision. But neither of us were in a rush to put the heavy packs back on if avoidable. The first part of this required us to drag the raft up a small cascade.

I tried to find good footing at the front of the raft to lift it, hopefully up to the top. It was pretty heavy and its weight was amplified by the movement of the water. The raft felt stuck. As I adjusted my footing again the water started to go up over the side of the raft. Almost simultaneously the water started to suck my legs under the pinned raft. I was starting to go under and the raft was getting heavier. I summoned a burst of strength and managed to lift the raft and break the suction. I had been a little shaken and the magnitude of how a simple error can have big effects came home to me. The whole incident had been quick and I looked at Willa. She was calm, seemingly unaware of what I had just experienced.

Partly for ease of carrying and as an extra layer of protection, we began to wear our helmets while crossing the slippery rocks. Willa had taken some big falls and her legs were getting pretty beaten up. At one point she had gone completely under wearing her pack. At our first entry to the river Willa and I reviewed safe technique for moving through water with packs. This included crossing techniques such as the partner tripod, clipping the hip belt only and if the crossing looked particularly challenging, undo this as well. If you went down in swift water you needed to get the pack off quickly.

Willa sitting in overflow creek on The River. A false confluence?

We had been aiming for the confluence of A*** Creek and The River for two days. It just seemed to be moving away from us. We were using topo maps on a GPS and paper. Every time we looked over them it seemed like we were just around a bend from the destination. There were a couple of false forks. None were as grand as the final destination would turn out to be. One of these false forks was particularly interesting. The river flowed in a sharp horseshoe bend. on the inside of the bend the river had cut straight across, twice. These overflow creeks were clear of debris and had a small flow of water. It would seem they run quite deep, quite frequently.

We were getting close to the confluence. The river and its environment changed quite dramatically as we rounded the horseshoe bend. The river was making a serious elevation change over a couple of hundred metre stretch. The best way to describe it was a rock garden. The river bounced off rocks of varying sizes, from wheelie bin to landcruiser. on our right we were looking into the crater of the volcano and its crumbled side. The forest was special. We passed a giant curtain fig and other coloured plants. There was moss hanging from branches. Willa and I both commented that this place felt so familiar, yet at the same time so different. It was similar to the environment of Tasmania or New Zealand, but entirely different.

Bellinger and Andersons creek Confluence

We pushed up a side stream to avoid the boulders. We crossed back over and rock hopped for 100m and then we were there. The confluence was glorious. It forked off in two cascades. a giant boulder sat in the middle atop of a single smooth piece of rock the width of the river. The forest ceiling had opened up for us here and we looked up between the two waterways at a steeply sided, pointed peak. It was loud.

We found a campsite high above the water with a marvellous outlook both upstream and down. Willa and I got setup and then sat down to enjoy the space.

Camp on high ground Day 2