While on a whitewater rafting trip to find out the truth about an ...

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‘I haven’t seen it like this for a long time…’ It’s dusk at Tom Groggin Station on the slopes of the Snowy Mountains and river guide Linton Smith falls quiet as he scans a raging stretch of the Murray River. We’ve been planning to hit it in inflatable kayaks, but with the catchment at Thredbo and Falls Creek swollen from an ongoing downpour that began the previous night, it’s 14ft raft time. Expat Canadian river guide Caleb “The Real Bear Grylls” Feasby and apprentice Steve “Don’t Call Me ‘Grasshopper’” Eeles join us on our adventure. Caleb, who famously completed a first descent of the Moran and Mitchell Rivers in the Kimberley in 19 days, has been down this gorge before. For Steve and me, it’s the first time. Less than a week from the winter solstice, ground support is impossible. Access roads are closed and anyone with any sense is hibernating. It’s time to pack the dry bags for the first Murray Gates 40 41 less than a week from the winter solstice, ground support is impossible. Access roads are closed and anyone with any sense is hibernating. time to pack the dry bags for the season’s first murray gates gorge run Caleb and Steve inflate the raft at Tom Groggin Station Gorge run of the season. There’s a second reason we’re paddling – we’re following the trail of a legendary modern-day hermit, the late Frank “Pop” Thomson. <strong>While</strong> rafting the Mitta Mitta River with Linton previously, we had talked about who lived out in the wilderness of north-east Victoria. He mentioned a hermit who had frequented an area along the Murray River near the Murray Gates. Linton had heard stories in and around the small town of Corryong about an unkempt old man surfacing for supplies, piquing everyone’s curiosity, scaring the kids and then vanishing again back to the bush. Linton reckoned if we ever did the gates, the river’s turbulent birthplace, the hermit’s story might be worth investigating. It’s earlier in the day and we’re in Corryong – population 1,500, 450km north-east of Melbourne – for supplies. Standing out front of his sports storecum-barber shop – a half century-old local institution – 80-year-old Ron “Hobie” Hoban remembers Pop Thomson fondly. “I used to cut his hair… he was a bloody good old fella,” he tells me, admitting that it might have been 50 years since he last saw Pop. “We all liked him,” he adds, then turns his eyes east to the storm rolling into town along the Murray Valley Highway. The Unloading the raft on the riverbank Trevor Davis, station manager of Tom Groggin Station Linton surveys the river ahead WHITEWATER R AF TING Ready to roll at Tom Groggin Station Ron “Hobie” Hoban photography Andrew Harris tiger tales jul-aug jul-aug tiger tales
WHITEWATER R AF TING rain comes, turns horizontal and drives Ron inside. A neighbouring shop owner points at our trailer of inflatable kayaks and shouts, “You might be needing those soon.” That evening at Tom Groggin Station, we’re out in a hut that once sheltered Jack Riley, believed by some to be bush poet Banjo Paterson’s “Man From Snowy River”. Nobody knows if the legendary outdoorsman was actually a composite of many local cattleman. It’s possible that our hermit, Pop, is remembered similarly; the lines between him and other bush-dwelling loners have been blurred. The next morning, station manager Trevor Davis, who grew up in the area, tells me what he knows about Pop. “I think he was in World War II, and after that he came back to the city but couldn’t cope with city life. I don’t know how he got that bit of land up in Bunroy. He built a humpy and it just grew from there. He was a bit of a weird old And then there’s the first-run factor. Linton explains that there could be all sorts of “new wood” such as fallen trees in the river, and other debris like clotheslines that could trap rafters and toss them overboard into the freezing water. At low-water levels, the Murray Gates demands a frustrating degree of technical know-how. At near-flood levels, it’s one long, fierce stretch. And at its current level of 1.2m – far too much water for kayaks – it’s fit only for our much larger raft. Once we’re afloat, chatter drops to a minimum. An icy breeze blows upriver, numbing us silent. We’re listening for the first rush of the rapids. Guiding from the rear, Linton instructs us clearly: “Look out for new wood”. The river will usually flow over or around rocks, but when a tree splashes into the water, it creates “sieves” or “strainers” that can puncture or trap rafts and suck people under. In lower water, Linton would have brought a chainsaw along for the ride. The rain comes and Then, the roar begins. “Head breaker”, quickly turns horizontal. it’s called. Linton screams over the din a shop owner points of rushing water, “Get ready to forward 42 at our trailer of paddle! Forward paddle! Go hard!” Then, it’s “Stop! Stop!” followed by a frantic 43 inflatable kayaks and “Back paddle!” And so it goes. Soon, at shouts, ‘you might be “Off the Wall” – one of the river’s needing those soon’ colourfully named rapids – we graze a rock guy. He had a couple of little dogs. He did a little bit of gold prospecting up there – he actually taught us how to prospect for gold.” Trevor says Pop showed him how to dig with a teaspoon into certain rock crevices for flecks and tiny nuggets. Pop had a couple of jars of gold, he reckons. The old man went into town every Saturday, Trevor says, and one afternoon he returned to find his stash had been stolen. “Not long after that, he fell to pieces.” The Murray Gates Gorge is first-class whitewater. Located more than 510km from Melbourne, it’s vehicle-accessible only in summer. Linton won’t grade individual rapids for me – 20 are significant enough to have earned names – but he does concede that it’s a very technical, grade-four river. On the six-grade International Scale of River Difficulty, that makes it suitable only for expert boatmen. The Murray is so narrow that there’s only one right line or route through each rapid. “If you do make a mistake,” Linton says, “you’re in the poo.” Linton Smith Steve Eeles Caleb Feasby photography Andrew Harris Steve and Caleb negotiate a rapid Linton, Caleb and Steve in a tight spot wall before manoeuvring past. Linton’s approach is elegant – minimal effort with maximal output. He heads towards obstacles and then makes small adjustments to pass them. Better this than going out of his way to avoid things and having to over-correct in a big way. Still, at “Shark’s Tooth” he deems passage unsafe so we undertake a heavy portage over a fallen tree. So well-chosen are Linton’s lines that there are remarkably few “overs”, where a crew must leap “over left” or “over right” to instantaneously counterbalance a flipping raft. At “The Thing”, a nasty bit of rock nearly flips us, but Caleb shunts himself across the raft to stabilise us. Later, he gives an encore performance at “Hole in the Head”. “The Rock Garden” is a lengthy, fast, pinball-like ride with a “flip-rock” at the bottom, which we avoid. We’re all buzzing, working like the well-oiled machine a rafting crew needs to be. The last significant rapid is “Jellyfish Rock”, so named because people try to go left instead of right and end up with their tiger tales jul-aug jul-aug tiger tales
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