GLENMAGGIE CREEK

Glenmaggie Creek

Glenmaggie creek arises out of the hills near Baw Baw, and is a tributary of the Thompson River.  Not easily accessible, the put in and take out are accessible from steep 4WD tracks. The take out is at the back creek track, and the put in can be at the crossing of the east west divide track. Although we put in about 4 km above this, and bush-bashed through approx. 800m to make sure we didn’t miss some of the rapids above the crossing. Total run is around 14km.

The start was pretty and featured some great sandy beaches and sandstone ridges, straight away moving in to grade 2/3 waves and drops. The creek is largely drop- pool, with some great larger waterfall style drop offs and features. There are two boulder gardens, which form some of the larger and more technical rapids, the last through a gorge section just before the take-out. This section is 3+/4 and definitely would be quite pushy at higher water levels. The gorge ends just as the east branch joins the west, with a larger waterfall on the east ( not runnable at low water).

The river can be run mostly with boat scouting, although some of the larger drops required a more thorough assessment. This also allowed for better positioning for photos and video.

Level was 1.64 at Glenmaggie Gorge, and this was a decent level, but probably would be a great run at around 1.75 or 1.8. The level seems to change quite fast depending on rain fall.

EDIT: 6/6/24 - Again the Glenmaggie gauge seems to have changed and I would add at least 0.2 to any of the above levels before going to paddle.

FD Oct 2 2022