Good River for Old Men

How many rafts can you fit on an auto rickshaw

No its not a Cohen Brothers film and there is no psychotic bolt gun wielding assassin. However the pre-production for this epic was longer than most Hollywood blockbusters.  For each of the previous three monsoons, I had called the rafting companies that ply their trade on the Kundalika River, a dam fed river that runs through Kolad which is about 150km south of Mumbai. Despite my obvious desperation and an accent that would indicate that I had some money to spend, they showed little interest in guiding me.











This year I tried again without holding out too much hope but I was pleasantly surprise to get a return call from the first company that I had contacted.  They seemed to be will to provide a guide and I had an even bigger bonus in that Brendon, a Kiwi teacher from the American School, was keen to come along. We were a little apprehensive.  Both Brendon and I fall into the "mature" demographic and I hadn't paddled white water since I left Australia almost 5 years ago and for Brendon it was 10 years. Doubts aside, the car was loaded on Saturday evening and on a rainy Sunday morning we set off for the Kundalika.

Ming showing Brendon how it is done on a little wave

After about a three hour trip we found a surprisingly well marked put in point for the four rafting companies that operate on the river.  They were busy briefing a total of 25 rafts of 10 customers each when we met Ming, our Nepali raft guide who had been given the task of showing us the River.  Ming had the whole raft guide "thing" going, a set of dreadlocks that Sideshow Bob would have been proud of and a collection of whistles and other paraphernalia dangling from his helmet. Ming was one of a number of Nepali guides from Pokhara who work in southern India for a few months a year when the water is too high in Nepal.

Brendon was in my old creek boat an Dagger CFS and I was in my Riot Prankster, a cutting edge playboat about 15 years ago.  That is like saying that Chumbawanmba is cutting edge! Even though the boat was well past its prime, so was I, and it was hard work wedging myself into the boat.  To make matters worse my spray deck had ripped at the seam between the deck and the tunnel and I had it stitched together in India.  The repair was rough to say the least and wasn't seam sealed so I was a little leaky.  I was carrying a second ill fitting deck as a spare just in case!

A nice little wave for a surf

Brendon and I squeezed into the boats and slid into the river.  No amount of yoga prepares yourself for sitting in a tightly fitted out playboat and within minutes my ankles were suffering. We warmed up on some moving water before following behind Ming.  I was surprised how quickly is all came back. My body and subconscious remembered what to do and before long I was looking for spots to try cartwheels before my conscious mind could stop myself.

The river itself was a Grade 2 with a little bit of volume and the run to the pull out was about 11km with some slow moving water for the last couple of kilometres.  Ming was not aware of any CFS/Cumec data to give an indication of flow rate.  The rapids were simple and there were a few easy holes to try some flat spins and there were wave trains that supplied plenty of clean surfing opportunities. That said, the skills were rusty and the timing was a little off but it wont take long for that to recover.

Brendon and Ming

At least the leaky decks gave us
an excuse to stretch our legs

The river itself runs below two dams at Patnus and Kawalji and into a third, the Kundalike River Dam, before meandering to the Arabian Sea at near Korlai Beach, one of my launch points when I was sea kayaking near Alibaug. Despite the heavy local rain, the river is dependent on release from the dams which commences at about 0830 each day and appears to continue until early afternoon.  Due to the dam release the river continues to have good flows through the winter. The river was very clean and we only started to see a few plastic bottles in the water after the water started to back up in the Kundalika Dam.  

The answer, it appears, is three

The run was uneventful and Brendon and I had a great time, so good that we are committed to go back again next weekend. We pulled out with the rafts and enjoyed the theatre of the loading of rafts onto auto rickshaws before departing back through the heavy rains for the four hour ride back to Mumbai. 

It was a great little river on which to re-build skills and, if the opportunity comes to do something harder up in the mountains this winter,I would be able to approach it with increased confidence.  A good river for old men.