Packrafting in Victoria

Victoria packs more packraftable water into a small state than anywhere else in the country. High country rivers like the Jamieson and the Mitta Mitta drop out of the ranges and change character with every season. The Glenelg winds through limestone gorge country in the far south-west on flat water that suits a multi-day trip. The Murray gives you red gum banks and sandbar camps for as many days as you want to give it. And the Yarra turns a work night into a paddle: pack the packraft, catch a train, walk to the bank. Most of this water sits within a few hours of Melbourne. Check levels before you drive, because snowmelt and dam releases move these rivers around. A Seeka suits the lakes, the slow rivers and the touring reaches. The gorge sections at high water are a different sport.

5 trip guides

VIC

Glenelg River: slow water for days

The Glenelg River runs through far south-west Victoria to the sea at Nelson. It is broad and slow for most of its length, crossing flat farmland before it enters the limestone gorge country of Lower Glenelg National Park. The lower river is one of Victoria's best-known multi-day flat-water journeys, and the campsite system gives the trip its shape. Pack light, take several days, and let the river set the pace.

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VIC

Packrafting the Jamieson River

The Jamieson River comes out of the Victorian high country, drops off the ranges and winds down to the Goulburn near the small township of Jamieson. Snowmelt and rain feed it, so the river you paddle depends entirely on when you go and what the catchment has had. At the right level it is proper moving water through a thinly settled valley. At low summer levels it can be little more than a wade.

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VIC

Packrafting the Yarra: paddling from the suburbs

The Yarra runs through Melbourne's suburbs for most of its length. It is not a wilderness river, and that is the whole point. When the hull packs into a backpack, a suburban river becomes a weeknight option. Finish work, catch a train to a riverside suburb, walk to the bank, and you are on the water before dark. That is a different kind of access to the outdoors, and the Yarra makes the case for it.

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VIC

The Mitta Mitta River by packraft

The Mitta Mitta starts in the Victorian Alps and swings through a long arc of widening valleys before it reaches Lake Hume near the New South Wales border. This is river-journey country. Forested ridgelines, camps with nobody else in them, long stretches where the only sound is water over rock. The river covers a wide range, from unhurried valley reaches that make a relaxed day out to committed gorge water that calls for experience and the right kit. Know which part of the river you are looking at, and what the water is doing on the day you arrive. Everything follows from that.

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VIC

The Snowy River by packraft

The Snowy River carries a weight that few Australian waterways do. Banjo Paterson wrote it into the national imagination, and the name still stands for something wild and remote. The real river is more complicated than the poem. The Snowy Mountains Scheme dammed its headwaters in the mid-twentieth century, and environmental releases in recent decades have put some life back into the lower reaches. The multi-day journey through Snowy River National Park in East Gippsland remains one of Victoria's great wilderness trips. It asks a great deal of anyone who takes it on.

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