On Sunday the 13th of June 2021 I met up with Jason, who I met through the Packrafting in Tasmania Facebook group, to paddle the Meander River from the Meander Dam at Huntsman Lake to Meander.

Distance: 7km
Grade 3
Time: 1 hr and 30 mins
Water Level: 0.78m at Meander (see current level here)

From the information I had from Jason, I was anticipating this to be a Grade 2 section of river, but it was most definitely Grade 3. There were lots of rapids and drops, with a couple of the rapids requiring course changes to navigate through them. I had one unintended swim early on when my packraft got caught sideways on a rock and filled with water. But despite that, it was a fun paddle, with nothing I wasn’t ultimately able to handle, despite being a novice on whitewater.

One frustration though was that, at the water level we had, the river was still quite shallow in many places. This resulted in getting stuck on a lot of rocks.

In addition, although there were lots of places to eddy out and take a break, there are very few still pools in this section of river. It is almost continuously some form of moving water / rapid from start to finish.

Entry Point

The river entry point is immediately below the Meander Dam at Huntsman Lake. To get there from Deloraine, drive along Meander Road to Meander and then continue straight across the bridge onto what becomes Huntsman Road. Just over 4km from the bridge at Meander you’ll come to a dirt road on your left that leads to Huntsman Lake. Follow this to the end where you’ll reach a gate. You’ll have to go past this gate on foot for a 500m walk to the bottom of the dam. There is a chainlink fence and gate across the road about 80m after the first gate, but this can be negotiated by walking down the fence line to the right for a few metres to where the fence ends and then walking back up the inside of the fence to the road.