AAWT winter traverse - Episode 32 (The Murrumbidgee)

Another extended edit...
Day 32 - rain, hail, sun & flooded rivers! It rained heavily all night. And we discovered whilst going to the toilet in the middle of the night that the creek next to us, that was originally ten metres away, was actually now five metres away. It went from a tiny bubbling steam to a fast flowing creek that had broken its banks. This was a major sign of things to come. Our ambitious goal was to walk 27km but first we had to cross Tantangara Creek. On our previous traverse trip we were unable to cross this due to major flooding. Instead we had to do a 7km major detour. We had heard that there might now be a bridge at the crossing point but we laughed when we got to it. There was indeed a bridge however the Tantangara had flooded the next 50+ metres after the bridge (swamp). Fortunately the sun was out by then and it was only knee deep at most. Soon after we briefly stopped to admire Witzes Hut. By now we were getting nervous as we needed to again cross the Tantangara much lower down where it is much larger plus cross the Murrumbidgee River which is THE major river in the area. There used to be some old bridge pylons that you could use to dangerously cross the Tantangara but we discovered that these have now been removed. Thus we set about crossing the waist deep and quite fast flowing ‘creek’. This went without incident but every river crossing was costing us valuable time. It was getting late and just after 4pm when we finally arrived at the Murrumbidgee. We just needed to cross it quickly so we could complete another 7km section, mostly off-track. This was not to be though. The river was extremely fast flowing and looked perfect for a whitewater kayak trip. Andrew twice tried to cross without a pack but each time found chest deep water and strong currents. We spent ages looking for alternative places to cross but to no avail. Eventually we headed a long way upstream to a small gorge and considered crossing the rocks through the major rapids that spanned the now 35 metre wide river. Ultimately we decided that without our whitewater safety gear that this was not a sensible choice. Our only alternative was a 12 km detour out to main roads and then eventually to a bridge that crossed upstream. We set off trying to complete the off-track section to the highway before it got dark. We made it just but still had 10 km to go so it was headtorches on and get into a walking rhythm. The stars were beautiful but it was freezing cold. When we got to the bridge we were surprised at how powerful the river was still there, a fair way upstream. It reinforced our thinking that we had actually made the right call by not attempting to cross with packs earlier. In the end it was 9:15pm by the time we got to Ghost Gully after about 32km of walking.

[@GeoterricsOutdoorsAustralia]

Thought you would have used a packraft!! That looks sooooo cold!!

[@MarkOates]

Definitely would have been handy and would also have saved us a 10km detour that day!

[@Troffy21]

Hahahaha you each took a wetshoe each, my brother and I do the exact same thing