Saturday, February 28, 2009
I remember
I remember boring Summer days @ Seventeen Mile Rocks Rd Oxley were spent amusing ourselves by tying the ankle height grass into booby traps ......we caught Mum numerous times on her way to the clothes line carrying a pile of wet washing , she had no idea it was us until years later, she thought it was some kind of peculiar grass that grew there - ha ha
A flooded river, a truck tube and near death experiences
I remember when the Ross river dam overflowed and the weekends I spent walking 4km to the spillway with tyre tubes over our heads. We would walk barefoot along Ross River road with only shorts on (sunscreen was only used when Mum caught you leaving and nagged you).
Once at the dam we would fight the raging current, razor sharp rocks, submerged bushes, eels and jumping long toms (a long fish that's mostly mouth and teeth) to get as close to the overflowing spillway as possible.
Then with an extraordinary feat of agility and clumsiness (that is only possible when young and stupid) we would push the tubes upstream a bit , leap out of the water and try and land our bums in the tubes. If you failed this trick you usually lost your tube, fell under the murky water and landed on the sharp rocks. I guess teamwork would've helped a lot but you can't hold someone's tube steady for them and point and laugh at the same time.
We started racing down the river, trying to avoid tree's, rocks, snakes and each other. The most sinister obstacle in my opinion was the submerged barb-wire fences. They punctured your tube, entangled you or at the least just gave you a nasty gash.
On one particular expedition another gang of kids from school were doing the same thing and we all came to a fork in the river. The left side look particularly rough with lots of tree tops sticking through the water so we headed down the right side. The other group said that was boring and they were going to explore the left side. I believe the term chickens was used.
About 3 minutes later we heard shouts and screams of agony from the other group. In hindsight I guess we should have gone to help but a kid's world is a tough place and survivial of the fittest rules supreme. We did all agree that we continue to take the right side in the future. We found out after the school holidays that there had been an old quarry down that route and the sharp rocks had punctured their tubes and their bums. Their expedition had been abruptly cut short, leaving us as the only intrepid pathfinders.
Further downstream there was a swimming hole called "Corbett's". It had high rock walls that funneled in slightly. I remember my mate Walker was in front of me with his legs in the water and arms draped up through the tube. The high walls and deep water had made these large swells and a rather strong vacuum under the surface. I was sitting in my tube and did not notice this, Walker on the hand was sucked out and vanished underwater. It all happened pretty quickly and before we realised that he could be dying, he shot out of the water about 20m in front of us. We all agreed that we would hold onto our tubes a bit tighter from now on.
Along the way we would always pull over at good climbing trees, climb up and leap into the river. When the river went down there were a lot of large boulders just below the surface where we were jumping. After seeing that, we all decided that someone would tread water and check the depth where the next jumper wanted to land. This was mostly my job as I wasn't much of a climber.
My friend Nathan had a dog called Heidi who always came with us. She had an amazing ability to find things to stand on under the water. We would flounder over to her, push her off and steal her rock to rest on. We lost her one day and a few hours later an exhausted, water-logged, mud covered Heidi came home. She was a great dog!
The river was an amazing place to grow up. With other adventures such as rock fights, fishing, making forts, using shang-hai's, creek-jumping someone else's bike and trying to reach the bottom by holding large rocks. But another time for those stories.
Once at the dam we would fight the raging current, razor sharp rocks, submerged bushes, eels and jumping long toms (a long fish that's mostly mouth and teeth) to get as close to the overflowing spillway as possible.
Then with an extraordinary feat of agility and clumsiness (that is only possible when young and stupid) we would push the tubes upstream a bit , leap out of the water and try and land our bums in the tubes. If you failed this trick you usually lost your tube, fell under the murky water and landed on the sharp rocks. I guess teamwork would've helped a lot but you can't hold someone's tube steady for them and point and laugh at the same time.
We started racing down the river, trying to avoid tree's, rocks, snakes and each other. The most sinister obstacle in my opinion was the submerged barb-wire fences. They punctured your tube, entangled you or at the least just gave you a nasty gash.
On one particular expedition another gang of kids from school were doing the same thing and we all came to a fork in the river. The left side look particularly rough with lots of tree tops sticking through the water so we headed down the right side. The other group said that was boring and they were going to explore the left side. I believe the term chickens was used.
About 3 minutes later we heard shouts and screams of agony from the other group. In hindsight I guess we should have gone to help but a kid's world is a tough place and survivial of the fittest rules supreme. We did all agree that we continue to take the right side in the future. We found out after the school holidays that there had been an old quarry down that route and the sharp rocks had punctured their tubes and their bums. Their expedition had been abruptly cut short, leaving us as the only intrepid pathfinders.
Further downstream there was a swimming hole called "Corbett's". It had high rock walls that funneled in slightly. I remember my mate Walker was in front of me with his legs in the water and arms draped up through the tube. The high walls and deep water had made these large swells and a rather strong vacuum under the surface. I was sitting in my tube and did not notice this, Walker on the hand was sucked out and vanished underwater. It all happened pretty quickly and before we realised that he could be dying, he shot out of the water about 20m in front of us. We all agreed that we would hold onto our tubes a bit tighter from now on.
Along the way we would always pull over at good climbing trees, climb up and leap into the river. When the river went down there were a lot of large boulders just below the surface where we were jumping. After seeing that, we all decided that someone would tread water and check the depth where the next jumper wanted to land. This was mostly my job as I wasn't much of a climber.
My friend Nathan had a dog called Heidi who always came with us. She had an amazing ability to find things to stand on under the water. We would flounder over to her, push her off and steal her rock to rest on. We lost her one day and a few hours later an exhausted, water-logged, mud covered Heidi came home. She was a great dog!
The river was an amazing place to grow up. With other adventures such as rock fights, fishing, making forts, using shang-hai's, creek-jumping someone else's bike and trying to reach the bottom by holding large rocks. But another time for those stories.
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