It’s not everyday you get to raft the Nile!
A trip to do when all rivers in the area in high as the Nile need a bit more flow. Another amazing limestone gorge, full bush, running clear, even when high. Nice limestone rock formations.
Thanks to Martin Wilson for the info. If you have any photos to add to this page, please contact us.
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Access
Car shuttling is required.
Find 4 Mile road 4 km south of Charleston and drive this for approx. 6km.
On the last descent down to the river the track got quite rough for our low clearance SUV so we walked this part (300m). The other car is parked below the SH6 road bridge (or parked at the end of Darkies Terrace road to avoid the last 3km of very flat and slow water).
On the river
Flow on our day was estimated at 20 cumecs with water at the get in up to Tutu hanging branches on the side creek where you get in. This resulted in grade I+ paddling: moving water with some riffles and tiny wave trains.
Enjoy the raft down to the gorge and beneath the suspension bridge. Roughly 2 hrs of floating.
Note that we found this river to be higher than grade 1+, there were a variety of avoidable logs/large sticks.
In particular about 1/3 of the way down the river there is a section of rapids where there appears to be two large logs that can be passed between, do not go between these two logs, there is a serious entrapment hazard caused by a third mostly submerged log between them and overhanging branches. This can be avoided by padding to river right over a shallow section, that may be okay in very high flow.
There is a bollard with hi vis tape used as a takeout point by the cave tours, keep rafting past this to find the carpark which is obviously visible from the river, with a large rocky beach beside it.
The name of the road used for the put in is 4 mile road, currently roughly half of the road is technically closed due to a slip, and the last 300m is too rough for most cars unless you have a high clearance 4wd.
Don’t take this river overly lightly, as some sections were somewhat stiff for the grade.