Clarence River Cruising

[Mac26Mpaul]

This one will be more of interest to the Aussie folks.

We just did nine great days on the Clarence River. I have posted a couple of cruising vids - may be a bit much for some as they are family cruising vids rather than sailing vids - but anyone thinking of going there should get a few useful tidbits from them.

Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4AnlDPps40
Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qESVvHq_l2M

And if that's all too much, here are the cruising notes:
Cruising Notes:
The Clarence River is a long wide deep river in a mostly flat part of the country. It’s perfect for some nice calm flatwater sailing – pretty much a trailer sailer heaven, and fine for big cats and most keelers too – great for the power cruisers also of course. As Simon Carter states in his great Clarence cruising videos on youtube, it is very much an underutilized river. There really aren’t many boats at all, which is confusing because it is a great sailing river!

There are some charming sleepy riverside towns on the Clarence, each with bucket loads of character. Each also has a great riverside pub and they have excellent free public pontoons. Overnight staying on them seems fine and there really was hardly any other boats to worry about – this was in school holiday time too! The one at Maclean has free power and water (why in QLD do we pay more for boat rego than anywhere else and yet hardly any of it seems to be spent on facilities for us, like it clearly does elsewhere – well done NSW!) Most people will think its either Maclean, or Ulmarra that has it in the charm stakes, however we were very impressed with Grafton. With its tree lined streets (some of those trees are enormous!), majestic churches and colonial era buildings oozing buckets of character and charm, not to mention its modern shopping Centre - all within easy walking distance of the free public pontoon, it is the winner for us! When we first sailed into Grafton, we were treated to a school of dolphins - I wouldn’t have thought they would be that far up the river and in fresh water but there they were.

We started our cruise staying at the Yamba Marina for 3 nights, price of a berth for 10 meter or below boats was $36 per night including power and water (bring your own hose as always). Secure car and trailer parking is $15 per night or $90 per week. Key deposit is $50. One washer and dryer in the launderette and they are $4 each in dollar coins (These prices are current for January 2016).
You can buy good waterproof boating maps of the Clarence online for $7 posted Oz wide

http://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/maritime/usin ... -maps.html

However they are not needed. Clarence Tourism produces a brilliant guide including all the maps you need, freely available to download.

http://www.clarencetourism.com/media/do ... de_web.pdf

Otherwise there is a free hardcopy version of it available in the Marina office at Yamba, and this version has a fold out map of of the river.
There are just two bridges to worry about on the Clarence. The Harwood Bridge (8.5 meter clearance closed and 36.5 meter open) and the other at Grafton (6.6metre clearance). The Harwood bridge can be opened with 24 hours’ notice by calling the bridge operator. It can only be operated at 06:00 and 18:00 in school holiday times. We simply lowered our mast half way down (with our gin pole) to go under it. Another option would be to skip Yamba and start your cruise at Harwood which is near the Highway, and has a large public pontoon, boat ramp and area where you could leave your rig. Launching here would let you experience the best part of the river without the Harwood bridge. A new bridge to replace the Harwood Bridge in the future will have a clearance of 30 meters. We lowered our mast to get under the Grafton bridge because this gives you access to the free public pontoons and makes you central to town where as if you stay on the Eastern side of the bridge, there is no pontoon, and you will have quite a bit further to walk.

There are a couple of sets of powerlines across the Clarence at about 17 meters. There are also lines across Susan Island in Grafton at 9 meters. We didn't go past them but I'm told it is pretty with good small boat sailing and pretty scenery up there so maybe worth keeping the mast down between Grafton bridge and Susan Island power lines - next time that's my plan!
Susan Island is home to the largest fruit bat colony in the Southern Hemisphere and seeing the highway in the sky, of thousands and thousands of bats flying up the river each night on Dusk is something to behold.

That was our first time on the Clarence but we will be back!

[ris]

Nice video. Thanks for posting your trip, we enjoyed watching it.

[Mac26Mpaul]

Thanks Ris, it was a great trip

[taime1]

Great videos. Sure helps those of us up here wintering. Thanks for sharing - makes me long for summer and dream about potential destinations and improvements to make.

[Mac26Mpaul]

Thanks, your summer is just around the corner - start getting that boat sorted and ready