Summit to Sea
Summit to Sea 2021/22
In 2021 and 2022, Andrew "Robbo" Robertson travelled along Murray River from Summit to Sea in his kayak (and on his bike for the first couple of days). He started at the top of Mt. Kosciuszko in the Snowy Mountains and finished at the ocean in Goolwa (near Adelaide) in South Australia. The total distance travelled was 2,363 kilometres. The trip was paused in May 2021 due to the closure of the South Australian border, however Andrew continued from Mildura in April 2022 and finished in May 2022.
Well we are in Thredbo and I am ready to begin the journey tomorrow (I think).
Today, Kath, her sister Carolyn and I drove to Thredbo from Mum and Dad’s place in Binalong. We drove via Towong, which is the town near where I will be finishing the bike leg of the trip and where I will be starting the paddle. After dropping the kayaks off at the cottages we will be staying at after the bike leg, we started the drive up the Upper Murray River valley and headed into the mountains.
After all these months (years) of thinking about the trip and looking at maps, it was great to be able to actually see the Murray River. I have to admit it all suddenly started to feel like it was actually happening. However, we also drove along a lot of the route that I will be riding my bike and we were able to see all of the mountains I need to ride up and down. I am not sure that it was necessarily a good idea to do that, because I now know how full on this ride is going to be. I have spent a lot of time up in the Snowy Mountains, but when you are about to ride up all the hills, you suddenly get a different perspective about how long and how steep they really are.
Tomorrow morning Kath and Carolyn will join me on the hike up to the summit of Mt. Kosciuszko. They will then head back to comfort of Thredbo, leaving me to camp at the top of the mountain. Then the following morning I will be hiking down to Dead Horse Gap where I will collect my bike from Kath and Carolyn, and I will ride down to the source of the Murray River. It will then be 4 days of riding up and down the mountains near the Murray River until I get to the river crossing at Bringenbrong Bridge near Khancoban.
A few people have asked how I am feeling about it all now that it is about to happen. I think that I am just looking forward to getting on with it. I have have been thinking about and planning it for so long, I just want to get into it and stop over thinking all the logistics. It is time to just let it happen.
I probably won’t be able to post anything for the next 5 days because I will be in the remote parts of the mountains with no internet. So I guess I will see you on the other side. Wish me luck!
It is only 3 days until we head down to the Snowy Mountains to start the adventure. I plan to hike off the top of Mt. Kosciouszko on Monday and then will be riding along the top of river for about 4 days. I should be starting the paddle around Saturday next week. Just keeping an eye on the cold front that is coming through later this week, which might delay things by a day or two… I am not so keen on riding in horizontal snow.
I just did a 2 day 100km ride from Lithgow to Newnes (and back again) via the Glow Worm Tunnel. I was treated to a 3 hour thunderstorm last night at Newnes, which caused all sorts of flooding and I had to change my day 2 route because of swollen rivers and washed out tracks. With 1500m gain over the 2 days (half of which was in a 3km stretch coming out of Wolgan Valley) it was definitely one of the most exhausting things I have done.
This trip was a really good test to see if my body and my gear was ready for the 4-5 days I will be riding at the beginning of the Summit To Sea expedition. The body seemed to pass (just) and the gear did really well.