Chapter 3: Adventure

Sunday 25-Feb 2007

On the day of the grand kayak trip, it was a beautiful day. There were absolutely no clouds in the sky, although a change with showers was forecast in the evening. It was already thirty degrees centigrade by the time Chris's mum dropped him at Joe's place at eight o'clock in the morning, and a top temperature of close to forty degrees was predicted.

They gathered at a small car park beside the Yarra. The birds were singing, the river drifted slowly past, and it was a calm morning with just a breath of wind. Chris breathed deeply, enjoying the peace, and watching as a couple on horses rode up the side of the river through the willows.

The peace didn't last long; soon there were about twenty kids from the class unloading kayaks from a huge trailer on the back of a mini-bus, making as much noise as they possibly could. Eventually everyone was ready, tucked into their kayaks with the safety lectures done, waiting in the shallow water around the little boat ramp launch point. Finally Joe called out that it was time to go, and there was a mad rush, like peak hour, as they all manoeuvred themselves out into the main flow of the river.

For the first hour, the river was wide and peaceful, and they paddled gently down the river, enjoying the beautiful sunny day and each other's company. There was the inevitable amount of splashing, but Chris was pleased to see that it didn't get too out of control. Chris enjoyed watching the forest as they drifted along; there were no houses along this section. Probably a state park or something, he figured. They could have gone faster, but the day was getting quite hot, into the high thirties already, so they mostly rested, trailing their hands in the cool water.

After about half an hour, they rounded a big bend on the river. Just as Chris passed the corner, there was some loud shouting further downstream. Chris looked up just in time to see a guy on a mountain bike fly out of the forest, sail high over the water, finally falling into the river with a huge splash. The whole group burst into laughter at the sight.

A couple of minutes later Chris was intrigued to see four guys about his age lazing on the side the river, working their way through a few six-packs. They were wearing just board shorts, and each had a bike with them. One was still dripping wet from jumping into the river. Behind them was a steep track leading down to the river, and right there was a jump built up in the earth.

The group slowed, paddling gently backwards so that they stayed in place talking to the four guys. There was a lot of laughing and cheering, and one of the guys grudgingly volunteered to give them a demonstration. He pushed his cycle up the steep track, and once at the top, turned, mounting the bike, and rode down the track as fast as he could, finally launching himself off the jump. Chris was pretty impressed with how high over the river the guy was able to get from what appeared to be a little jump. He noted that the guy pushed the bike out from under him and away just before he hit the water — "for safety" the guys had said, though with the amount of alcohol it looked like they'd put away, Chris wondered whether safety was really high on their agenda.

"Come and join us anytime", the guy in the river declared. "You just need to bring a bike and a six-pack or two!"

"Uhhh, possibly not," Chris thought to himself, as they started drifting down the river again. A little while later, Joe called a halt.

"Okay everyone, from here on in the river gets narrower, it starts flowing quite a lot faster, and we start getting regular rapids. Let's not get spread out. Do your best to delay after each one until everyone is through."

"The first rapid is actually one of the more challenging ones. If you want to fall out of the kayak, head down the right-hand side of the river. The left-hand side is a little easier. Just sit in the middle of the stream, with your nose pointing a little to the left, and then when you pass the first rock, paddle to the left as quick as you can. I'll go through first so that you can see what I mean."

Chris noticed that most of the girls and a couple of the guys were looking a little apprehensive at this point. He felt that way himself. The rapids weren't big or anything, really just very gentle ones, so there was no real danger, but it would be quite embarrassing to fall out. He flexed his legs as he waited to get to the rapids; they were starting to get a little sore from being confined in the kayak.

"Hey — what's that?"

Chris looked around to see David, another guy in the class, pointing at the sky. He looked up, and to his surprise, there in the small amount of sky they could see from the bottom of the river valley was a dark grey cloud in the sky.

"Hey, the forecast was for sunny all day," Lisa groaned.

"You gotta love Melbourne, four seasons in one day!" That was David repeating the old Melbourne mantra in retort.

Chris sighed. The weather forecasters sure had no idea how to pick Melbourne weather. Well, if it rained, it probably wouldn't be much, and a little bit of water wouldn't hurt.

A couple of minutes after that, they came to the first rapid. A couple of the guys took the right hand side, but Chris decided that just this time it might be better if he took the beginners' way. He was pleased to find out that the kayak felt very stable, and after that he decided that he would take the more difficult path when there was a choice like this. In fact, if this was one of the more difficult rapids, then it was going to be a pretty lame adventure.

While they were waiting for the last person to come through the rapids, the first rain started to fall, just a light drizzle. It got steadily stronger and stronger, so that by the time they got to the next rapid, it was raining quite heavily. That rapid was just a weeny one, and didn't slow them down very much at all.

"Do you think this rain is going to be okay?" Lisa asked Chris.

"Hey Joe, are we going to be all right with all this rain?" Chris yelled out.

Joe looked round with a pensive look on this face. "Well, the rain is just water, that's okay, but if the river starts to rise, we might be in trouble. If we see it starting to rise then we'll head over to the side and go up to the track," he yelled out, so that everyone would be able to hear him.

Chris looked around, trying to get an impression of how high the river was running. There seemed to be a consistent gap of about two feet from the river to the lowest foliage. He'd keep that in mind.

Not long after that it started to rain in earnest. Chris had thought it had been raining heavily before that, but now he realised it had only just been warming up. In fact, Chris had never seen rain like this. This was like a monsoon, from what he'd heard about them. The world had gone mad; it was starting to feel as though the river no longer had a firm surface.

Chris was wearing a cap, and the rain was so hard that there was a waterfall coming off the front of the cap. He had to hold his head to the side to see through the waterfall, though it was still hard to see even then. He gasped. This was unreal. But actually, it was quite exciting. He started to think that this might be quite an adventure after all. He breezed through another rapid, and then turned to wait for the rest.

Chapter 4 »