tazzy boys

Wave Monkey

2006-10-12T21:13:00.000+11:00

Well i just wrote a bit of a story about my travels and gave it to the kind people at Wave Monkey to put on their website. For those that don't know Wave Monkey is a new Australian company bring in a few brands and alos designing some new gear to. Wirth checking out. The link is http://www.wavemonkey.com.au/catalog/news_tr.php So if your sitting in your office it with nothing better to do have a read. Cheers Colin

Tazzy Boys still in Norway

2006-10-02T01:12:00.000+11:00

Just a quick post on what I have been up to lately. Been living and hanging out with my friend Jussi now for a couple of months here and hiting up a few rivers with him to. Lately we have been doing rivers such as the roster section of the lagan, some deep gorge near oppdal, heaps of runs down amot and my new favourite the tora slides. Here are just a few pictures from the trips we've been doing.

Me heading down the last slide of the Tora

Local paddler Matin on the first drop we did on Tora

Jussi running the waterfal of Rosten
Me hard at work safety boating on the Amot

Now things are starting to cool down here, the rafting season has just ended and the rivers are getting to low so its time to head back to Australia for another summer of fun at Penrith. But before we leave here theres still a few more missions we have to do. The full story will soon be at wavemonkey.com.au
happy boatin, cheers Colin

tazzy boy in norway

2006-08-22T21:31:00.000+10:00

well after a season of fun in iceland i dicided to head to norway well i was in this part of world. i met up with a friend of mine called jussi, his working on the sjoa river and is also a keen kayaker. so i turned up got myself a boat and a new helmet and i was ready to go. in the first couple of days we managed to do a few different river, the amot section on the sjoa, the rosten canyon on the lagen, the tundra and the ula. all are realy sweet river and have some good stuff on them. well that all for now, here are a few pics, if you want to see more go to www.loungekayaker.com.au
cheers colin furmston

jussi on a wave on the sjoa river

the first slide on the rosten canyon

the first waterfall on the ulathe drop of the end of the ula slides

tazzy boys in iceland

2006-08-02T05:47:00.000+10:00

summer ended in oz so i dicided it was time to pack my bags and head to the northern part of the world to enjoy the northern summer, think i might have gone a bit to far! iceland was here i ended up after a friend of mine said they where looking for a safety boater/raft guide. so after a 40 trip to get here, not being able to bring my kayak and losing all my shit i made it to a cold wet iceland. i headed up north the next day after my stuff caught up to me, the rafting base is situated in the middle of Skagafjörður in the north of iceland.

here i have spent the past 3 months working my arse of, rafting on on the easy west river, safety kayaking on the grade 4 east river and even occationally guiding on the east. kayaking on the east most days has been heaps of fun, coping a few beats at the hand of the green room and swimming out from under rafts twice but still heaps of fun.

i have also manange to do a bit of rec kayaking here to, found a sweet first decent in the valley to do. had 4 runnable drops in it, first 3 where sweet (which included a nice 25 footer) but the last one got the better of my. had to boof out of a node but slipt to the left of it and found a rock ledge about half way down the 6 meter drop.

had a bit a sore back for the next few days but that was all sweet. also made a trip over to a waterfall called godafoss with a kiwi called maps, its a nice 13m waterfall. pretty easy, just fall over the edge and try to not land flat which both of us successed in doing.

well its of to norway now to hang out there for a few months, hopefully there should be some sweet stuff to do the and maybe even find some work! adrian is busy over in canada, spend time in bc. well thats all for now, catch ya all later, colin furmston

also there are pics of the rafting at www.rafting.is

The Little Fisher

2005-10-20T21:38:00.000+11:00

The Lea race weekend as everyone in canoeing world knows was a wet one with race day being put back to Sunday. Saturday when the race was supposed to be run was devoted to river trips on the Iris, Mersey, upper Lea and in our case the Little Fisher.
Our group consisted of two unknown locals along with Dave the computer wiz from Flinders Island and Chris from Hobart.
As none of us had ever seen the river before we sought out some info from those who had. The word was to expect a fairly steep river grading 3+. Someone told us it would take about one and a half hours, but have since denied it. It in fact took about three and a half hours.
Anyway we made our way to the start via Dublin rd, which runs off the Mersey rd alongside Lake Rowallan after leaving a car at the get out spot on lake Parangana. The get in is at a bridge over the river and the river here is pretty indicative of what the rest of the river is like between major rapids, steep and rocky. We had a very inauspicious start with one of our members getting stuck on a log under the bridge and swimming whilst his boat raced of down the river on its own (no it wasn’t one of the ‘locals’)
Fortunately it pinned itself on a log not far down so boat and paddler were soon reunited. Just below here unknown local Blakey peeled off into an eddy and looking at me with a concerned look on his face asked if this is where we get out. Looking downstream I couldn’t see any obvious obstacles so I said, “no let’s keep going”. Turns out what he meant was, let’s walk out now while we still can. I always was slow on the uptake so when the wisdom of Blakey finally hit me it was too late.
Actually after the initial stutter under the bridge everyone managed just fine, apart from the odd pinning here and there and one tree hugging incident in which Chris saved my sorry hide from a sure fire dunking. The river is continuously steep and gets steeper along the way. The best rapids are after the half way mark and would be nudging grade 4. Some are very tight and technical. One particular rapid saw 3 out of 4 of our crew ending up broached on some boulder or other. Another feature of the river is the logs in it. Although not overly bad, there is enough to keep you on your toes. With the river being so steep and continuous, some rapids ended up being shot blind by our trusty probe Blakey, that’s were the logs became a bit of a worry.
As it was, all the good rapids were clear including one, which went into a cave. The cave was just a big eddy, but paddling out took a bit of effort.
After about 3 hours we reached the Fisher River just below the power station. It was pretty damned high and so gave us a great roller coaster ride trying to avoid some largish holes down to Lake Parangana.
All up a great day out and we even made it back for the meal at Weindorfers with 5 minutes to spare.
Ian S

trip report

2005-09-13T10:29:00.000+10:00

Weekend 21-22 of August
Crew: Marcus Morse, Sean ‘Tanky’ Clement, Anna Fairly, Craig ‘Swarz’ Chivers, Adrian Kiernan, Colin Furmston, Tom Griggs, Adam ‘Dicko’ Dickenson and Marc Benis.

Saturday
We started early, meeting at Adrian’s at 7am then around to Marcus’s to meet up with the other guys. So 6 of us drove up north with the plan of doing either the Lake River or the Nile. Adrian and I meet up with the other vehicle at Campbelltown to discuss plans, Swarz had been talking to Marc and it sound like the Nile was the better option. Swarz got some brief directions of Marc and Morsey scribed them down onto a piece of scrap paper, we where set. Also at this point Tom and Marc (both from Lonnie) got sick of waiting and decided to start the river with out us.

Tom Griggs boofing a small drop (photo: Craig Chivers)

So we drove along little winding dirt roads until we came to a causeway, the take out of the Nile, satisfied with the level we headed up to the put in. We found Tom’s car and parked there got changed and were off, the only problem was finding the put in. There was an old road that followed the river which we where supposed to follow, but for how long none of us knew as we where all virgins to this run. We got to a point on the track where it started to leave the river so we decide to head bush down to the river. Later we found out that this was a mistake because if you were to keep following the road it rejoins the river. This extra walks adds about 1.5 hours of good stuff on to the trip, ah well next time. So we started paddling down, minus Anna as she opted to be shuttle bunny, the Nile’s steep rocky river bed. It became clear to us that this was a prime level for the river, enough to cover all the rocks but still not to pushy. As we entered the first gorge it became apparent that this was going to be a great run.

Marcus styling it, in his boat this time! (photo: Craig Chivers)

The first rapids started pretty gently, a few nice grade 3’s to get wormed up on, then things started to get a bit harder. One of the bigger rapids involved ducking under a log at the top of the drop, boofing right to avoid a surf in a hole and then the negotiation of a tight bolder garden with a few hole in it. Morsey and I got through under the log fine, one of the benefits of being a midget, but then Adrian found he didn’t fit. So he went the roll and it went slightly pear shaped from there. But he still came out the bottom fine thanks to the abilities of his new boat, Fluid Solo, rather then his ability (just messing).

Further on down we came across a rapid that consisted of a few shoots with a few holes in them. Swarz went first, followed by Morsey then every one else came in behind. On the last of the shoots Morsey found his forward momentum halted by a hole, after a bit of rodeo action he decided that swimming was a good option. The only problem with swimming was A. swimming out of the hole with getting run down by the other kayakers coming through and B. swimming in front of all your mates.

Adrian enjoying his new boat (photo: Craig Chivers)

After more continuos fun grade 3/4 rapids we caught up with Tom and Marc as they where scouting a drops. After that we bombed down through some more great 3/4 rapids occasionally interrupted by a bigger rapid that required scouting. After about 3.5 hours we reached the end of the run, happy with our efforts we drunk a beer and went looking for some accommodations for the night.

Adrian and I rang a local Lonnie Paddler, Dicko, to see if we could stay there. Thankfully he said yes so the bivvy bag could stay dry another night as we where welcomed with nice beds and heater to dry our gear in front of. I rang Swarz to discuss the plans for tomorrow and to see if they had found any where to stay. It turns out they had driven to Devonport in anticipation of doing the Leven Canyon the next day but the people they had planned to stay with where not home. They where reduce to sleeping in a carport and 2 of them had forgotten sleeping bags.

Colin just after ducking under the log (photo: Craig Chivers)

Adrian and I went a check out Cataract Gorge for the next day. We found the river to be at a prime level. So we went to the pub, had dinner and went back to Dicko’s for a good night sleep.

Sunday
Woke early to go and check on the level of Cataract, one of the advantages of the river being in the middle of town, we found the river to be even higher then the day before. This was a surprise as we had expected the river to drop. It was now flowing at a bit under 3000cfs. We called in Tom and the four of us where ready, Adrian, Dicko Tom and I.

Adrian was super pumped as well as having a little brown undies action at the same time as this was his first full run of the gorge. The rest of us where pretty darn happy, finally a good level cataract trip, and the first for me this year.

The first rapid went without incident except me ending up of the wrong side of the river to dodge a hole but still got through fine much to Tom’s disappointment. We then arrived at the play wave. I was the only one in a play boat so we did not stay there long. Then it off down 3 fingers (think that’s what it is called!), some nice big waves, holes and one big rock that Tom decided to give a bit of a hug. Apart from that, things where going fine.

The next rapid is called Arse Rap (someone once swam and loss the butt out of their shorts), easy left to right move with a few holes to skirt around. Adrian almost found his way into one of these holes due to Dicko’s immaculate directions, but quick thinking and a fast boat soon got him out of trouble. At the bottom of the rapid there is a ski jump, if you hit it right there is some good air to be had, all good clean fun.

Then down to Duck Reach the start of the Teva Cataract Extreme Race which was held in January this year although it was a bit lower then. We got down there fine, all the way down until the Plateau Rapid. Its got a big hole in the middle that you have to get far left to get round, its always a good trap for newbies. Adrian came on down and sure enough heading straight for the hole, but thanks to the rather large boat he was paddling he got up enough speed to punch through the monster. One more rapid then we where down in the Tamar (the finish), this rapid is called the Slalom Rapid, named after the 1992 slalom world cup held there. Those that where there would testify to this being one mean rapid but once it gets a bit of water going down it become just a few wave trains with one or two holes on either side to catch any wayward paddler. Everyone got through fine except for me, spent a bit of time upside down counting fish but came out the bottom fine.
(sorry no photos of Cataract as it is all stuck on dicko's camera.)
Satisfied with our effort we headed back to Dicko’s to check out the footage from the day. Dicko has been filming a bit lately with the plan to bring out a new video about Tazzy paddling, X-Tas has been around for to long. It is time to give people a fresh look at Tazzy boating.

Well that was a fun weekend, no one hurt themselves except for Marcus’s ego but that will grow back. Next weekend it’s off to Bradies Lake Slalom course for the Annual Back to Bronte weekend, the birth place of the ball race.
Cheers and hope the paddling is good where you are, Colin Furmston

best weekend ever!

2005-09-05T18:22:00.000+10:00

Here are a few pics from the weekends action which included a high level trip down the Alum Cliff section of the Mersey River. A second decent of the Wilmont Gorge then a lower Nile trip. To end things off we played on a massive wave on Cataract Gorge.

Adrian surfing a nice wave on the Mersey RiverMullet shooting a rapid on the Wilmont Gorge
Harry bombing down a drop on the Wilmont
Adrian boofing a small drop on the Nile River

Colin surfing the monster on Cataract Gorge

Mullet showing that you only need one blade

Adrian in the meat

The full story is coming soon so stay turned, cheers Colin Furmston

First Big Winter Weekend for Tassie Boaters

2005-08-11T20:13:00.000+10:00

So far this ‘winter’ we have managed only a depressingly small number of river trips to date, but after this weekend that looks like its about to change.

With heavy overnight rainfall expected for Friday night up around the Devonport area, we made for our boats and gear to follow the rain. We hatched a plan some weeks back to look at machinery creek, an impressive looking gorge we drove past on the way to the Lea River from Sheffield. We had bought ourselves a 1:25 000 map of the area and spent many an evening with beers, plotting out how to get down into the gorge itself. With what looked like an impressive 240meter/km gradient through the short George it made for quite difficult access. The crew was set, Andrew Maynard, Colin Furmston and I

I don’t think we expected to find a new river trip so much as a few impressive waterfalls to ‘Huck off’ but what we found did surprise us. We had spoken with many people of our intentions. Some were more doubting than others. And then there was Harry (‘high brace’), Harry told us that Thorpie’ and others had already scouted the gorge and said it was good to go with enough water. Well Colin and I shat our pants. First of all, if the gorge was runnable, which I doubted severely... I wanted to be on the first trip down. Secondly, holy shit its steep. With gradient like that I didn’t know what to expect! We had scouted the upper feeder creek some weekends before and found a 20m waterfall. Turns out many other unsuspecting boaters have stubbled across this treasure. To set the record strait, its called ‘Phillips Falls’ and is NOT runnable, unless of course you feel that you ‘boof’ is great and the air mattress under your seat will hold out at 400kn force when you hit solid bedrock at the bottom, but hay, its your call!

We walked in with our gear (not including kayaks) Friday afternoon. We had it meticulously planned (cough). We would walk from an old mining road down the river bed, marking with a GPS the positions of any hazards or waterfalls we came across. I think we got about one kilometre down towards the gorge before it became obvious that we were in well above our heads. Literally! The river bed up until this point was for the record probably no fun in a kayak (if there was ever enough water) and the strainers every 50 meters or so would certainly have you walking 70% of the river bed. But when we finally turned a corner we saw two nice clean drops, only about a meter in hight. The only problem being we were now probably some 50 vertical meters deep in the gorge. So doing what any responsible kayaker would do, I jumped in the first pool and waded across to see around the corner better. What confronted me was a very large horizon line. No problem right?! I’ve got ropes and a harness!... It was never going to happen. The water fall was way too big and there were no possible anchor points in the rock. Where were the big solid strainers when you need them?

To cut a long story short, we walked out of the gorge back up to the road, traversing along the road and back down a spur to get a look at what we had been confronted with. There were two very large unrunnable drops. Both had unfortunately to larger % of rocks / water in the landing. We walked back to the car, contented that the Thorpe story was very sketchy, and we wish him the best of luck on his first and last decent. I still think there may be room for one or two runnable waterfalls further down the short gorge, but they would be more effort than worth as access would be impossible without a climbing style setup. The lower section of creek running out of the bottom has a gradient of about 30m/km and would need substantially more water than we would get before the next ice age!

Then It Rained…
After a creek free winter to date, it was a pleasure to be back on the water at everybody’s home run the Lea River. We had a full nights sleep and our stomachs were full of Andrew Maynard’s mum’s fantastic cooking. Ready to charge off boating, I managed to borrow a ‘Huck’ as my new creek boat had not yet arrived.
Our dreams came true as the farmer was home making a walk over the hill a thing of the past. Andrew, Chris‘toppa, Colin and I were in for a good day as the water level was on the high side, slightly higher than the last year’s lea race to be precise. Our fist trip down was slow but at a fantastic level. We all nailed our boofs, some better than others and were totally psyched for another run or two after a paddle across the lake. The second run was much quicker as we took all the race lines and filed in close to each other.

The first of my bad incidents came when ‘boofing’ (or lack of…) first drop; I hit the bottom causing my ankle to jam severally in my misfitted boat. Having my confidence shattered was the probably the worst part of it all. I sprung back out of the water, back under the veil of water dropping to the poor over, bounced of the rock and landed nose pointing downstream and stern in the poor over. Knowing how old Dan would have felt when Andrew and co landed on him gave me the motivation to crank hard and fast out of the poor over before young Toppa landed one of his sweet boofs right on my head!
That was almost the end of the day for me. With two very competent down river racers and a man with a boofing machine paddling next to me blew my confidence completely. I landed sideways in a small hole, getting a trashing for a minute or so and finally working my way out. “I’m actually a really crap boater, I’m out of my depth, ill hurt myself”. These were just a few thoughts going through my head as I drove the shuttle for their third and final run. From what I could tell as I brewed a Milo on the bank of the lake for my mates at the end of their run, was that Toppa had taken one for the team as well, full fist to you too mate.

Even after three lea trips they were all keen for a Huck off pencil pine falls near Cradle Mountain, and I sure was keen on filming from my dry warm raincoat! Here are a couple of shots from the drop. Unfortunately Toppa’ (yellow) hurt his back after boofing the 8meter drop (Double Fista!)

Day 3, More rain…

Leaving Andrews place at about 7am we drove out towards Launceston with the intention of North Esk or the Nile River. The B.O.M suggested there had been 126mm in 9hr at cradle and a mere 97mm at Ben Lomond so there was no shortage of water for the day. We arrived at Tom Griggs place at met up with Dicko as well. After discussing at length about which river would not beat us to death, we decided to run big bend through to Corra Lyn on the North Esk The river was fluctuating between 1.4-5 meters, meaning the lower section was sure to be a Rolla coaster. Delaying somewhat to wait for Ian smith and High brace Harry who were driving up from Hobart to join us.
After my low confidence the day before and Colin and Andrew more pumped than ever, my head started to pull in some what. Being a virgin to big bend I was a wreck inside, knowing that my strength was big water helped somewhat but knowing that my deck popped off the Phat (another borrowed boat) every time I went through a stopper certainly didn’t! Battling my burning desire to get out and walk back to the car as it was bloody freezing as well, we pushed on.

“What was the line?…centre, tong, boof, hold deck, far left, keeper rock, boof, hold deck, boof, hold deck” nailed! “ skirt hole, chase Ian’s boat, eddy” poor old Ian had taken a swim in a nice “little” poor over, once he had exited from the boat it began an acrobatics routine that I wish I had got on camera. Grazing his leg severally it was obvious that I wasn’t the only one with my ego in tatters. The section that followed was just what I needed, “I always said big water was my thing…none of those bloody rocks! yea ha!” I would have to say that for everyone else it appeared the river was giving them no love, Harry, Ian and Andrew all got out at white hills for various reasons.

Pushing through the lower gorge felt real good. Taking it in turns of leading with tom, whom I must add knows the lines damn well, we pushed through very quickly. Dicko had a tense moment as he almost ran the guts of Diagonal stopper, his eyes opening like a new born babies at the site of it. We all arrive at the portage slab before first drop unscathed and peered into the mist coming from the drop. Having not paddled first drop over about 1.3 meters, I was not about to start. Colin ran it first making full love with Harry’s boat after hitting the eddy at the bottom of the second drop. Dicko’s camera was closely monitoring the action. Tom ran it, nailing the first drop with a strong low brace onto the powerful cushion making it look easy, as he had no need for a roll at the bottom. Being the dirty piker that I am, I dragged my kayak to the eddy above second drop, running only the large standing wave dead centre. Dicko followed behind after packing up his camera equipment.

After all the waiting for the rain gods to be appeased, finally we had nailed our first big kayaking weekend of winter. Baby did it feel good!

Enjoy the photos!

By Adrian Kiernan

Another day at the beach!

2005-07-14T22:07:00.000+10:00

it was looking like it was going to be a great tassie winters day, freezing cold but blue skies, so we headed of to the beach for some surf action. in tow was adrian, robin, george and myself. surf wasn't great but still usable and there where some good moves thrown such as adrain's air screw that we even managed to get on video. here are a few pics of the days action. cheers colin furmston.
adrian tuckin up into a barrel
me (colin) doing a helix
adrian at the peak of his air screw

a good plan B

2005-07-03T14:09:00.000+10:00

it had been raining all night so we where keen for some river action but after a check of the river levels in the morning it was eveident that a trip to the beach was on the cards. there was a eastely sweel hitting taasie so we went some where different then usual, eagle hawk neck. on arrive we discovered we where not the only ones with the idea of coming here, it was packed out with surfers and no wonder with the waves that were pumping in. we where discussing which end of the beach to go to, i was keen for the southern end that looked bigger and was a bit less crowded and adrain was keen for the middle section. it turned out that adrain had the right idea, the waves in the middle where plenty big enough.

the day started with some big waves and some big moves. at one point adrain came backout to the back with a huge smile on his face, turned out he got and air screw. george turned up after awhile to join in on the action, pulling some of the biggest air blunts of the day. the moves that where going down where pan ams, massive airblunts, donkey flips and helixs. the only problem with all this fun was no one wanted to get out and use the camera but after awhile it started to die off a bit and adrain went in for a rest and grabed the camera and i did the same for awhile and these are some of the shots we got, enjoy. colin furmston

me (colin furmston) i the early stages of a pan am

george doing one of his huge air blunts

adrain found his blunt again

colin doing a helix

broad river

2005-06-29T21:27:00.000+10:00

the broad is a local run in hobart, a 1 and a bit hour drive up the derwent valley and you'll fine this gem of a run. its a great run, low volume and gradient that is 100m a kilo + in spots, its is considered grade 4/5 because of its technical nature. the broad flows on very little rain and sometimes snow melt, if it looks low at the bridge at the bottom then its good to go. it as advisable to get a local to show you where the put in and take out are as they can be hard to fine also a key for a gate is needed, this is available from a local hobart paddler known as harry.

Me (colin furmston) booking a straight drop

the first hard part about this run is the walk in, a hour long bush bash down to the river, its not too hard to find the way as the river is located at the bottom of the hill although there are quicker ways down the hill. once at the river you will notice its steep gradient and the low volume nature of the river. a little way down the broad and you will discover one of the major hazards of this run, trees! there are quiet a few trees straining this river and also creating some of the rapids.

Dan Hall riding over one of many log drops

the river is made up of many good drops, the biggest being no more then 3m in a singe drop. most of the larger drops should be scouted as there are many pin rocks and strainers to be careful of. it is properly a good idea to get someone who has done the trip to come along to show the way.

super fun 2 stage drop

hope you all come down and have a go at this run some time. if you need some one to come along send me an email and i'll be more then happy to show you around. cheers colin Dan about to discover there are rocks in the landing

beachin

2005-06-29T15:35:00.000+10:00

recently adrain and colin headed to a local beach known as park beach. the weather was great and the waves were good to. started early in the morning and we where joined by a few surfer that where also out enjoying the conditions. we hanged around for about 4 hours, the waves dropped off, and headed home. here are a few pics of the action:

colin going for a pan am an actually stuck it

adrain doing one of the many helix he was throwing

colin doing a donkey flip

hope the boatins good where you are, cheers colin furmston

the concept

2005-06-29T15:21:00.000+10:00

the blog has been create to help promot tassie as a boating destination and to promot the boaters that inhabit it. there will be trip reports, profiles and event reports. hope you guys enjoy and there will be post soon, cheers colin furmston