Clarence cruising
IT is not called the 'big river' for nothing. Forty nautical miles of navigable waterways take you from the coast up to the Grafton bridge with floating docks for easy shore access to a range of classic Aussie river towns.
On the way you can explore quirky shops and museums, get into some fishing, eat out every night, you can even do a pub crawl if you are so inclined, there is always a great pub in even the smallest of settlements.
Whether it is kayaking, paddle boarding, walking or cycling there is no end of possibilities for gentle exercise on the river and surrounding plains of the Clarence Valley. If you would like a break from weather watching, the Clarence River will provide that.
Sure you may get a bit of wind but it’s much more sheltered than coastal anchoring and beats the hell out of sheltering behind a headland in ocean swell as we have been known to try: never again! If there’s bad weather coming, head up-river.
We spent two months in our ketch Zefr and still felt like we had not seen it all. A few hours sailing/drifting up river with the tide will deliver you to a new and distinctive town, or you can drop the pick virtually anywhere and look out onto cattle grazing and cane fields. Just anchor to the side, out of the main channel, as prawn trawlers still work the river.
From its headwaters in the Great Dividing Range near Bonalbo, the Clarence descends 256 metres over the course of its 394 kilometre length and is joined by 24 tributaries. For those with a mast the navigable waterway ends just before the Grafton bridge.
CROSSING THE BAR
Like a lot of NSW bars, when it is good it’s very very good, but when it’s bad it’s a horror.
We have had several uneventful bar crossings here as we choose relatively calm days with low swell for the passage, usually down from Gold Coast or up
