The Confluence Trip Part 1.

 

 

This trip was the first camping trip of the season (At Last) and also more of a reconnaissance mission for a trip we will do when it gets a bit warmer, in the kayaks to the confluence of the Arthur and Hellyer River. We still managed to have a bit of fun in the Zook and find some pretty spectacular waterfalls.

Day 1.

The Confluence Trip didn’t start out the best.  Just as we dropped the camping trailer and cruiser of at our camping spot for the night we jumped in the Zook to go do some exploring and then my GPS in the phone decided to stop working (We rely heavily on this and Memory Maps to get us in and out of some of the spectacular areas we come across and don’t like going very far without it fully functioning) I tried the old reset and some system test but still nothing so then the brains turned off and the temper started to control my judgment and I threw it a couple of times thinking that… It worked last time I threw it… After this failed I was really wound up so smashed it on the steering wheel of the Zook about 10 times, in the process smashing the screen rendering it just about completely useless for anything (but it made me feel better haha) after I came back (from the darkness) and thought to myself you… You Dickhead… I copped an earful from Jacinta and then thought I had just thrown away a great deal of money for not much reason.

After getting over my little hissy fit we left for the Confluence and within about a km of driving all life’s issues were forgotten and we were doing some 4wding and winching in the Zook.

 

After having a bit of fun in the Zook it wasn’t long before we came down to an old bridge on the Arthur River that had washed away and when you see the size of the logs used to build the bridge it makes you appreciate the power of the river when it is in full flood. If you saw how the structure was built you wouldn’t think anything would be capable of moving it let alone completely destroying it.

From here we backtracked and found the little track down to the Confluence and it was a pretty spectacular site in its own right as two rivers of equal size merge into one majestic river… The Arthur.  

I was hoping to get the drone in the air here and get an Ariel shot but the bush was a bit tight and my phone screen was smashed so next time.

From here we decided that the kayak trip to the confluence was definite and slowly made our way back looking for potential waterfalls along the way with a smashed phone.  At first, we didn’t have much luck but then found a little creek that looked promising because we found a Hygrocybe Cheelii.

9 times out of 10 without fail if we find one of these there is a waterfall within 100m.  This time there wasn’t but we kept following the creek into the Jurassic period and came across one of the biggest tree ferns we have seen. At this point, the Gully was starting to enclose with some spectacular little cliff faces and looked very promising for a waterfall and sure enough, it didn’t disappoint. 

Would have been a bit better with more flow but still worth the effort of finding.  From here we climbed back out and found the Zook again and continued on our exploration.

The next spot was more of a mistake more than anything as I wasn’t quite sure of our location due to the phone but it was quite a spectacular mistake that brought us to a creek running along the bottom of a 30m cliff face for quite a while.    We later found out that if we had of kept walking upstream we would have found a little waterfall.  At this stage, the beers were starting to call so we started to head back to camp but not before checking out one more potential on a creek flowing into the Arthur River.  This turned out to be quite an effort getting down to the mouth of the creek and unfortunately, there was no waterfall. (that was easy to get to this time)   Next time when we are in the Kayaks and we are willing to get the feet wet we will find the waterfall that is hidden around the corner of this creek.  From here we climbed back up the horrid hill got to the Zook cracked a can and went and enjoyed the rest of the night next to the best fireplace in Tasmania.

 

 

 

Day 2.

The next day we decided to Head into Savage River National Park and explore a potential waterfall we might have missed the last time we were there.

After fighting our way through thick scrub we made our way down to Atlas Creek and then worked our way up one of its tributaries and within about 200m found the telltale fungi and it was the biggest one of them we had ever seen. 

So we were wondering if this was going to be a reflection on the waterfall??

After about another 100m of the fungi, we came across the waterfall and it was beautiful although not that big. 

As I was looking for another angle to shoot the falls I did a bit of climbing and went WOW and soon realised that this was just a small section of a big waterfall so we climbed the safest route to the next section coming across another fungus.

 

From the midsection we where starting to realise just how big this waterfall actually was. 

After been rather pleased by our find we headed back to Burnie to get a new phone and then head home.

 

Hope you enjoyed.

Cheers

Tassietravelsblog.

Full video Including waterfall here.