Howdy. Any knowledge of denison river?

[RoRo]

Howdy folks...

Hows things?

Just a quick query if I may.

We are planning a trip kayaking down the denison & gordon rivers (as white water paddlers) & we are trying to absorb as much info beforehand regarding the Truchanas Huon pine reserve (are the wires still there? any other markings?), old piners camps etc. If you have any points of interest that you know of, we'd love to know! We are reading all the books from Dombrovskis & Truchanas & to some degree, retracing Truchanas's trips down/along the Denison in late 60's/ early 70's...

Cheers!

Ro

[Nick S]

I know a certain forum member who just rafted the denison river very recently. I'll let him know about this post..

[Son of a Beach]

My brother and father rafted the Denison about 20 years ago. Not sure how you're accessing the river to start with, but they had a lot of terrible horizontal scrub to get over before reaching the river. I think it ended up taking them a whole day to walk what they thought would be an hour or so. Of course they had to walk it 3 times too, carrying their usual walking load first trip, then going back, then carrying their rafts. I can't be sure of their route, but I think they got a boat across the lake and walked from there.

My Dad suffered kidney shutdown during the trip due to the physical (and emotional?) stress. Came good a few days later.

[Luuk Veltkamp]

Hi Ro

I have just rafted the Denison River last week. Its was a great trip with mid level water, the Huon Pine Reserve was spectacular! We planned to climb Olagus Bluff but the scars from the walk in where still to fresh! The walk in from Pearce Basin on the Gordon dam was hard work with our pack raftes, the walk in is 3km and took us just over 5 hours, the climb up the ridge is pleasant, but the decent is a bit scrubby and takes time, the constant heavy rain dident help, our tall packs made the going slow down to the river, the track is a bit hard to follow but marked by pink tape. If you are accustomed to off track scrub bashing type walking, you will be fine. The first camp is at a little shingle bank about 300m from where we reached the river.

We Portaged some of the rapids at Marriotts Gorge and a big bolder sieve at Denison Gorge, but most everything else was runnable.

The Gordon River was moving at full pace, which turned out to be the biggest water of the trip, particularly at Sunshine Gorge, we took a side trip up to the old Olga camp hydro hut above the gorge, interesting if you are into a bit of tas history. Access to the hut is up a track marked by a sign "Helipad Access" before reaching the gorge.

Also worth a look is the Denison Camp which can be found at a cable way before the final rapid on the Denison before the confluence.

We used some very detailed and well written notes buy a party who did the river about 6 years ago, and can get you a copy of you want.

Some photos attached!

Regards

Luuk Veltkamp

Attachments

Olga Hut

[HitchHiking]

that looks like one heck of trip! Sewwt pics as well.

[RoRo]

Thanks for your replies guys....much Appreciated...very excited about trip....

Did you get my email/ message Luuk? Very keen to grab those notes if possible...that would be great!

Also, a few more questions like location of olga hydro hut....

Cheers

Ro (wag2woody [at] hotmail.com)

[Luuk Veltkamp]

Yeah got your email, just waiting on the nots and I will pass them on!

Luuk

[Phil]

Is that Tim with you there Luuk??......did Bec get along too or have to stay home with bub??

[Luuk Veltkamp]

Yep, tim did most of the work on the raft, as i took in the views! Bec had to spend the week with the bub alone!

[mickstarr]

Hi Luuk , am new to this pack rafting and have cousin coming from Sydney to do some exploring would it be possible to also get a copy of those notes emailed to me at starrs253@bigpond.com , but we won,t be going till next summer , in the mean time we are going to Lady Lake and Ironstone plus a few other huts when he,s down thanks Mick

[scrub boy]

Nice rafts, can I ask where you got them from?

[BushOn]

Hi Ro (and others).
How is the planning going?

I too am planning a trip into the area. Well starting to plan. My real objective is the Truchanas Huon Pine Forest, more so than the rivers - although that may change.

My interest stems from a few things, but includes a connection to the Truchanas family.

Cheers

[RoRo]

Howdy Bushon...

How are you?

Just touching base regarding your trip plans? How are they going?

We had a rippa trip along Denison & Gordon. We also were keenly following the footsteps & history of Olegas Truchanas. Out of a strong interest aswell as a small connection to the family aswell.

Cheers

Ro

[BushOn]

Hi Ro.
No progress yet I am afraid. How depressing! I think I need new walking buddies - the release from the domestic front has at least been granted!

Is anyone else out there interested? This might still have to be a 12 or 14 month project (unless things fall into place real quickly).

Regards, BushOn.