Packrafting the South Esk River – Hanleth to Llewellyn

The WikiRiver guide lists a section of the South Esk River from Avoca to Llewelyn. My sister and I paddled most of this in September 2023, but opted to exit at Hanleth rather than Llewelyn, shaving 6km off what would have otherwise been a 19km paddle. But being on my own on Sunday the 23rd of June 2024, and levels on other rivers generally being low, I decided to paddle this last 6km section.

• Water Level: 1.85m at Fingal and 1.62m at Llewelyn.

• Grade: 1

• Distance: 6km

• Time: 1.5 hours

Location

This section of the river runs from the bridge over the river on Bonneys Plains Road at Hanleth to the water monitoring station at Llewelyn. Luckily Col had been up to visit, and after dropping my car at the finish point he kindly ran me back to the start.

Entry Point

There is easy access down to the water from the southwest side of the bridge over the river on Bonneys Plains Road at Hanleth.

The River

This section of the river is largely flat water, which makes it a bit of a slog. With the surrounding land being farmland, it also isn’t that inspiring. That said there are a few sections of moving water and a handful of grade 1 rapids. The video below shows some of the more interesting sections, but doesn’t show the long sections of flat water that have to be paddled.

Exit Point

After an hour and a half of paddling, I made it to the exit point, which is the water monitoring station at Llewellyn, on the side of Esk Main Road. This section of the river is well below the road and thankfully there is a metal staircase from the river up to the road (on which there are limited parking options, however the opposite side of the road to the river provides the most space near the exit point).