All expectations were that the Box Canyon Gorge was going to be extremely impressive due to its depth and the rapids contained in it.
From last night’s SMS-only report, at least one part of that assessment seems to have been confirmed. The “window of opportunity” for satellite communication is always reasonably limited due to several satellites needing to be "aligned" to allow communication on the ground to be established.
Add to that the team is at the very bottom of a deep and narrow gorge, which therefore limits the possible time of a phonecall to …… zero.
Imagine the crew waiting for the GPS to have satellite contact and for the brief time it does, zapping off maybe only one SMS?
An expedition in deep crisis may well say:
“This is a disaster, I wish I was drinking back at the Croydon Hotel”.
In contrast, what was sent was:
“In middle of gorge, not much reception.
THIS IS TRULY THE GRAND CANYON OF OZ!!! ......T”.
Call us psychics but that sounds like all is fine …… “Hi all, T here, this is what we’ve been up to over the last couple of days. Running this thing has been just phenomenal; we’ve had several days of high-octane paddling through this remarkable place. The water height is pretty well perfect with really high sandstone cliffs towering above us as we scout the Class 5 drops that have pretty well been the primary feature of the last few days.
Happily the bank allows easy movement, so we’ve had good opportunities to inspect everything that needs a thorough viewing. The only mishaps have been when Caleb and Anthony ran blind a solid 5 and got a reasonable thrashing for their trouble and I received a moderate beat-down that almost led to a swim but didn’t, otherwise we’ve all fine and have had some great paddling.
Everyone is feeling well but all of us are really tired, that’s the main feeling we all have … we’re pretty rooted. Combine the walk-in, the heat, the paddling and the strain of making the right decisions in such a remote place, these things have all taken their toll. Expected of course but we’ll be OK.
Apart from the paddling, what else has there been? Well, we’ve seen pink and white eagles and lots more Bradshaw aboriginal paintings. One we saw was particularly notable because it depicted a man sporting obviously a western style hat and a massive penis! We all though was: “What was going on there?”
The image was totally out of character to everything else we’ve seen in the paintings, so maybe a “first contact” image from a 100+ years ago?
We’ve made a point of camping well above the river and last night we were at least 50 vertical metres above it and there was still a huge amount of flood debris up there. What it must look like in full flood must be insane, we’re just grateful we’re here when it’s at an ideal height.
We finished the paddling at lunchtime today and what we have been dreading has begun …… more bloody hiking but worse this time, as we’ve got to take the boats as well to get across to the Mitchell.
We thought we’d be able to hike with the gear and boats in one go but that’s proving not to be possible, so it’s 2 trips – gear in one trip and the boat in the next. This is going to be really tough going for the next few days, we always knew it would take about 3 – 4 days to get to the Mitchell and we can’t see it being feasible to do it faster. We are really not looking forward to the next few days at all ….
We’ve captured a huge amount of great stills and video but don’t expect a lot of happy reports over the next few days, while we slog it out. Waterfall Dreaming has taken on a new meaning; our immediate dream is to get to the Mitchell in 2 days and jump in it! Wish us luck. T”.  - Mitchell River Falls, C Smith photo.
Day 10 and the effort is taking a bit of a toll, so read on from Anthony below but first, some comparative statistics from the www.bodybuilding.com ‘s calorie burning and activity calculator.
Polar travel and mountaineering are accepted to be at the top of the burn chart and these figures below have been calculated on the assumption of a 70kg person participating in the activity for 8 hours per day.
While the WFD team may not have been pulling sleds in the Arctic, their burn rate has got to be massively higher than 3,000 cals per day that apparently paddling normally requires (Dubious of this 3,000 figure tho').
While that’s speculative, what’s not is that their energy levels are down at present and it’s not because of the last 2 activities! Winter mountaineering 10,106 Whitewater rafting, kayaking or canoeing 3,063 Walking in church for religious purposes 1,225 Or light sexual activities, specifically kissing and hugging 613
Enough of this gibberish, Day 10 now ....
"Anthony here, here’s what we got up to during today. It’s been a really successful one and it seems to have outstripped our most ambitious hopes, not confirmed yet but it seems so.
We got up early this morning from the last river camp on the Moran and planned to shuttle the gear and boats as far as we could before the heat really kicked in.
A good plan but it’s pretty near impossible to stay cool given how hot this place is most of the time. The first part of the hike was up a steep boulder field and the effort to get the gear up it was huge but by 3.30 pm we were past it and at a tributary of the Mitchell River.
To our surprise it actually has some water in it which seems to allow us to float and paddle down it, before it will join the Mitchell proper. We had to walk the whole trip 3 times during today to shuttle the boats, then back to the gear and one last trip to bring the gear to the tributary but we finally made it.
The great bonus will be if the tributary allows us to stay on the water until we get to the main flow and if it does, we’ll have cut the portaging down by up to three quarters because we were anticipating up to 4 days overland to get to the Mitchell.
Fingers crossed and Sunday will prove whether it’s possible but it could!
2 dinners each tonight for all of us to replenish energy lost over the last 10 days, as we’ve got to be firing again when we get to the Mitchell itself. We anticipate maybe 2 – 3 days paddling on it until we get to the Mitchell River Falls.
That’s maybe 60k’s ahead of us and it should go more quickly if the flow is high when we get on it. We think that it will be and that it will be quite a bit wider than the Moran but all this is still pretty speculative at this point.
The days summation? Tired but really happy to have found water to paddle on so early; wish us luck that it keeps going! All good and will speak soon …. Anthony”. “Hi all, Tanya here, just a short update for now to describe yesterday and today as well.
On Saturday afternoon we made it down the tributary about 6 k’s and while it’s been a big help to be on the water and not hiking and carrying, it’s a pity that there’s not a bit more water in this thing, as we’re bum-dragging a lot of the time.
Quite a lot of rocks to negotiate and a small volume of flow but it’s been the Orb spiders that are one of the things we dislike the most. They’re not dangerous to humans, spin a wheel shaped web and eat mainly insects but also small birds and even microbats that get trapped in their webs.
And kayakers too it seems, I had one on my face for some time before I realized! I dealt with it in a quiet and dignified manner though. Are you kidding? I screamed and swore until I got it off!  - Mitchell Falls, photo courtesy of www.KimberleyAustralia.com
In fact, the females are approximately 30mm long, whereas the males are a tiny 6mm and sometimes look like a meal stuck in the web or a baby spider, rather than the female’s mate.
Anyway, that’s about it for now, another double meal for all of us to combat the fatigue we’re all feeling and I can already feel the good that eating more has done. Eating more food, combined with this morning we chose to have a half day rest and not get on the water until noon, has definitely helped our energy levels.
Rain now predicted for this area, we’ll see what that brings us, nothing too significant we hope. Out from here and for now …. T”.
Postscript for today, the expedition would like to thank Kimberly local Birgit "B" Bradtke who runs the Kimberley & Outback Australia Travel Guide, for all her help including the photo above of the Mitchell River Falls. You’re encouraged to visit her sites below and her help has been greatly appreciated.
www.KimberleyAustralia.com and www.TheOutbackGuide.com A couple more days for the expedition to reach the falls, so it’s appropriate that there is another image of what they’re hoping to run. There’s even a video that gives some good perspective on the multiple tiers and what’s at the bottom of them.
Before you click here for the vid, be aware that it is largely a bunch of French tourists wandering around the scrub and singing by a campfire, the charming French children’s song, Alouette. You might think the words to the song refer to kids playing in the dappled sunshine of the Loire Valley. In fact, a synthesis of it is:
Lark, oh gentle lark, I will pull the feathers off your tail, legs, back, wings, neck, beak and head.
No explanation is given of why this behaviour towards larks is necessary.
Got the tune in your head and want to learn the lyrics? Allez here  - Pandanus in the background.
“Caleb here tonight, here’s some info from the rest of our today. We got in the boats about noon on Sunday and put in some more hours on the water.
A lot of the time the thick pandanus palms have been exceedingly difficult to get through which has been draining but fortunately there has been pretty reasonable water flow even in the tributary.
 - The Mitchell at low water.
We even had a couple of Class 3’s to run, before we made it to the main body of the Mitchell.
It’s a relief to be here at last and while there are some flat water sections, the flow is also pretty good and at this rate, we’ll make it to the falls in 2 more days i.e. the end of Tuesday should see us there. The plan then is to have a rest day there and scope out how it looks, before potentially doing anything dramatic. There are a number of factors we just can’t know yet, so we’ll wait and see.
Tired but going well and helped by some cooler weather in the high 20’s brought on by some cloud cover for a change. That’s about it, see you soon.
PS. What is it with these Orb spiders? They are everywhere! …. Caleb”. Actually that was rubbish on the home page, the reception was excellent and he said exactly that for a good reason. It is.
Well sort of. Niagara Falls is a single drop of 53 metres (176 feet) and the Mitchell Falls are 80 metres (262 feet) but spread out over 4 drops but in the words of King Ferdinand the fourth, the founder of the Spanish Inquisition ........ it aint no weenie roast either.
“Anthony here on Tuesday, well we’re here at the falls at last. It took another long day yesterday to make it with too many flat sections for our liking but there were some rapids created by fault-lines in the rock.
Some were actually pretty good, falls style and fun and they broke up the slog for us. We were of course really excited to eventually see the main falls ahead and got to them by 5.00 pm on Monday.
How do they look?
Unbelievably impressive and biggggg is how they look!! The whole vertical height is 80 metres, spread over 90 horizontal metres but it’s the last one that’s just massive.
An easy 30 metres straight down and a main chute so big that you could easily get a cruise ship through.The whole thing’s on a vast scale that we’d never imagined; none of the photos do this place any kind of justice.
Our thoughts immediately turned to how we could possibly run all or some of them.
The answer is that that decision was one of the easiest we’ll all have to make in our paddling careers. You can’t. Simple as that, you just can’t.
Apart from the size of them, and the volume, and the fact that the water pouring off them creates so much mist that you can barely see, all the falls drop immediately onto big rock shelves that stick out way too far, even in high water like this is.
It wouldn’t even be paddling, just straight over the edge and then straight onto unyielding planet earth. The first photos of going over the lip would be really impressive but the last one would not!
We almost thought of an abseil inspection of the second falls but more scouting made clear to us that it wouldn’t go either. Initially we all admitted to being a bit disappointed to learn this thing can’t be run but we then thought of what we’ve done and the nature of this trip.
We’ve made the first descents of 2 really significant wild rivers, in a place that sums up the word wilderness and the fact we can’t run the falls as a finale, doesn’t diminish the experience itself and sense of satisfaction we’re all feeling right now. 
We’ve got a ton of excellent stills and video footage, the Moran gorge was an absolute highlight and to see the number of timeless Bradshaw paintings, created an extra dimension and connection to the value and importance of preserving this area.
We’ve really had to work hard to get here and throughout the whole trip, we’ve meshed very well as a team and all have remained friends, which is hugely important and not always the case either!
So ….. we’re feeling really good and pleased too.
What more of note? Last night was a bit of an epic, as there was a hell-storm during the evening which bucketed rain on us, lightning really close and as we had camped right at the edge of the falls, we became genuinely concerned at the possibility of being swept over them during the night.
So we baled from there and moved to higher ground and therefore safety.
Being known as the first people to go over Mitchell falls but in sleeping bags is not the epitaph any of us want to leave!
While the shift of camp was a bit of an epic, it proved to be totally the right call, as by this morning the water level had risen considerably and therefore decision to move camp was totally vindicated. (Which is good, as it WAS NOT fun).
From here, what’s the plan? We’ll start out on Wednesday to walk to the airstrip and expect to be there that night. Then on Thursday, we’ll fly to Kunnaurra for a few days there and fly south from Darwin on the 28th as per our bookings.
We’ll try to head south earlier if we can change the flights without a big increase in cost but we can’t be sure at this stage.
We’re in the final stages of the expedition now and will send more after we have time to recover and reflect but for now, all on WFD are safe and well and happy …. cheers Yappa”. 
“Hey guys, just thought I'd shoot a quick email now that we are back in civilization.
Yesterday was one crazy day. We woke and didn’t move all that quickly because our intentions were to have the entire day to walk our 15 km to the air strip. We hauled our boats one last time to a secret location in the bushes where our helicopter pilot Butch could pick them up from and then went back for our gear.
We start the walk which was no real problem because a lot of it was on walking track to start with but it was obvious we were all VERY tired.
People were slipping and tripping all over the place. After the first 3 k’s of walking, we emerged onto 4x4 roads which we thought was going to be great to walk on. But soon we found out that the flat hard roads were just awful on our soft feet and aches and pains settled in.
At lunch and with still 11 k’s to go, we contemplated the idea of getting flown out early and picked up that night, instead of the following morning. One thing led to the other and before we knew it, the lure of beer and steaks had the sat phone out and we were making plans to get picked up. The only problem was that we were still 11 k’s away from the air-strip, were already wrecked and only had 3 and a half hours to get there. Our current walking pace had only been a mere 3km an hour crawl.
But we sucked it up and picked up the pace and pretty much broke ourselves down right till the end of the trip. By the time we got to the air-strip we could barely walk and were half passing out but we were there.
That night we shacked up in Hotel Kununurra for a good bed and a big steak dinner. Beers and Karaoke were then the celebration of the night.
A great way to end the trip - Anthony". |
