On the Deep River

April 2025

IAN MALEY has a lifelong passion for experiencing and protecting wild places. As a university student in the early 1970s, he began making his own outdoor equipment. From this grew his widely respected business ‘Wilderness Equipment’ which is still going strong after 50 years. In the mid-seventies, Ian made a canoe-based survey of all the karri forest rivers of southwestern Australia for the then WA Department of Conservation. He developed a profound connection to all these rivers, especially the Deep, which he shares here in a delightful and lyrical story.

You might like to think of this as a love story, developed over fifty years and ongoing today.

Where does the Deep sit in the arc of seven rivers that run off the undulating inland plateau, down through the main karri forest belt to the south coast? The catchments of the Donnelly, Warren, Gardner, Frankland and Kent all have substantial areas of farmland, particularly in their headwaters. The Shannon and the Deep have barely any. Their clear-tinted, tannic waters are drinkable, unpolluted by either salt or run-off from agriculture. This is apparent in the wonderful pristine richness along their water courses. The Warren and the Frankland carry the most water and are arguably more suited to canoe-touring but, even accepting the many wonderful landscape qualities shared by all these rivers, the Deep is for me the jewel.

It is a main artery of the superlative Walpole Wilderness, an area of some 363,000 hectares consisting largely of seven national parks that lie around and to the north of Walpole, Nornalup and Denmark. If you have visited The Valley of the Giants, you will appreciate that this is a very special part of the South-West, indeed of the world.

A Noongar name for the Deep River that has survived colonisation is Qua Koorellup and I understand that Murrum and Pibulmun peoples were the original custodians of the powerful and beautiful River Country in this story.

After decades exploring rivers by canoe, I have come to realise that such journeys are the best, I might say only, way to properly get to know a river. Historically, we have not appreciated their wild, scenic or recreational values. We’ve treated them as obstacles to travel, some of them as drains even, and relegated many to the status of shire boundaries, beyond anyone’s clear responsibility to care for them. With a journey down the length of a pristine river comes an entirely different appreciation, of their character, the life they lead, and their place in a healthy landscape. I can only recommend that those with land management responsibilities undertake such journeys.

Back to the Deep. It was late in spring 2018, on a cycle tour through the south-west with friends, that we stopped, mid-morning at Fernhook Falls, our Deep River crossing point. As I stood looking up at the falls and down towards Rowell’s Pool, I realised that it must have been more than 20 years since I had last set off from here, down-river in my canoe. How many times had I done that, introducing others to this wonderful river along the way? As I wandered along its banks that bright spring morning, taking in the many details of the scene, I got a feeling that the river was shaking me by the shoulders. In my wandering off to backpack and explore other wild places all over Australia, and around the world, had I neglected this river? It lies at the very origin of my firm attachment to the forests and coastal country of South-Western Australia; at the foundations of the life I have gone on to lead and one for which I am extremely grateful.

In the 1970s, I paddled all the karri forest rivers, from the Donnelly, west of Pemberton, around to the Kent, east of Denmark, all but this last one several times. 1974 was one of the last truly wet winters in the south-west and a group of us paddled the Shannon from the South-Western Highway all the way to Broke Inlet, something almost impossible to imagine now. The karri forest rivers had captured my attention because production forestry was about to take an alarming turn: clear-felling, in huge coupes, driven by the new woodchip export industry. At that time there was appallingly little forest of any kind protected in national park or nature reserve. The first objective of conservationists was to have the whole Shannon River catchment protected as a baseline reference area.

Since then, over a lifetime of backpacking, canoeing and lightweight camping in this country, I have acquired a rich and comprehensive picture of it, something writer Barry Lopez in his book, Arctic Dreams, refers to as the ‘country of the mind’. I am sure this is where all original, indigenous cultures keep their mapping.

Looking at the Deep on that spring day in 2018, almost fifty years after my introduction, the river seemed to me just as comfortably settled between its forested banks, timeless in its never-ending winter work and a tangible connection to the steady processes of nature. Such places can cast powerful spells over us, anchoring and rescuing us from life’s unsettling transience. They deserve our care.

Following that cycling trip, I resolved to get back on the river as soon as I could. With friends, I have since made two wonderful trips, both times launching our canoes at Rowell’s Pool. In August 2020 we struggled with a low water level, pulling up short at Centre Road crossing. In September 2021, with the highest water level I have experienced, we finished at Walpole. Two very different journeys, but in their differences lies the satisfaction of knowing the river in different moods — an illustration of how coming to an intimate relationship with anything requires a steady, open-ended devotion of time. The images accompanying this story are from those two trips.

Let’s get on the water. It is forty-nine river kilometres from Rowell’s Pool down to Nornalup Inlet, a distance on flat water that a fit paddler with a lightweight craft can cover in a day. On the Deep, depending on how wet the winter has been, it may take up to five days, three at least. There is work to be done by those who wish to paddle the full length of this river.

I think of the ‘canoeable length’ of the Deep River in three parts.  ‘Rock garden’ might apply to the upper reaches, above Fernhook Falls. I put in up at the Weld Road crossing just the once. It took me three days to work my way down the granite-strewn valley to the falls, 13 kilometres on the wing, about 30 on the water. The river there is in its youth. At times it splashes and tumbles down little cascades and rockslides, frolicking in its own water park. At others, it plays hide and seek with the sky above, between narrow banks overhung by jarrah, marri and karri. As it approaches Fernhook Falls, the river steadies and broadens for the first time. It is a signal that the river has matured, that it is no longer a creek and, for those travelling on downstream by canoe, care will be required.

In its mid-course, to its run-out onto the sandy coastal country, I think of the Deep as one long pool followed by another, each held back by the rock bars that create the rapids – and the two waterfalls. These descents over granite can be such beautiful moss-covered gardens in springtime. Then there are the rising hillsides and the open rock surfaces; banks crowded with towering karri trees; more open areas of jarrah and gnarly marri; receding side gully entrances cluttered with slender, wiry swamp oaks; and damp, vertical banks hung with maidenhair fern. Below each granite cascade the valley typically closes in again, the forest arching overhead until the next opening out begins.

The Deep generally has fewer log obstructions than the other rivers, but it is along these shallower and more swiftly flowing narrow reaches that the logs assert themselves. Everything depends on the water level. On one day it will be possible to crouch down in an open canoe and squeeze under a log leaning in from the bank, on another the canoe will need to be dragged over the log, with its slippery, damp surface requiring some delicate balancing acts. Dragging a laden canoe up and over a one-and-half metre diameter karri log is best done with a combination of youth and experience, so you can see the problem!

Life at eye level on the rotting logs is another wonder. Communities of miniature plants, green-hood orchids and mosses spread out along the damp, crumbling upper sides while brightly-coloured bracket fungi project from the shaded undersides. I can tell you exactly where, on this river, I first encountered such a beautiful sight and where I began to understand that nature everywhere is sustained by essential, marvellous processes occurring unseen in a precious, microscopic world – one that we are only just beginning to understand.

Foam, created in the bigger rapids by the agitation and aeration of the natural river water, can back up into a thick layer against a downstream log. It presents as a novelty but the risk of suffocation under it, should one capsize, is serious.

As the water widens out into an open reach, there is a temptation to relax, ship paddles, lean back and leave the canoe to lazily pirouette on a virtual plane of perfectly reflected forest. The valley and surrounding forest offer protection to the water surface from the indecisive winds of late winter and early spring. It is easy to lapse into meditation under revolving branches overhead. For those who choose to paddle on ahead, time here is marked only by the dip of the paddle blade.

Eventually, what comes drifting up across the water ahead, first as a low baritone murmur, then rising, soon to be joined by tenor and sparkling soprano notes, is the warning of cascading water. Can the drop be safely paddled? The pitch of the sound can help answer that question. How big is it? A clue to that, once they are in sight, is the level of the tree crowns downstream, beyond the fall.

Some rapids form in the grooves of wide rock bars, with places to land, empty out canoes, stretch the legs, have lunch or stop to camp. A few hundred metres after leaving Rowell’s Pool there is a small, tricky rapid requiring a right bank haul-over. A kilometre or so later, the Weld River joins the Deep and adds to the flow, although not much.  After a few more kilometres, the first wide rock bar is reached. We have stopped there for lunch, but on some trips with low water and a late get-away from Rowell’s Pool, it has been our first camp. As the water level rises these delightful, dry but low rock surfaces disappear. Then camp sites need careful planning.

Other rapids are much narrower and very often steep, a few with boulders mid-channel leaving no clear passage or room to manoeuvre. Here, canoes and gear may need to be portaged to avoid damage or injury, usually a time-consuming process.

In some places the canoes can be lined down such rapids, near to one bank. We fit them with 10-metre-long light ropes at the bow and stern for this job. A bank thick with tea tree scrub might necessitate getting into waist-deep water and wading, line in hand, while others in the party go on ahead, scrambling over rocks, catching ropes to control the canoe as it is eased down the rapid. A swamped canoe is heavy and easily damaged. Where a laden canoe needs to be dragged across gouging, coarsely crystalline rock, we may gather dead branches and position them to serve as skids.

The last rapid on the Deep River is a few hundred metres upstream from the Centre Road crossing. From here on down, the river begins its meanderings across the sandy coastal lowlands, leaning into the eroded banks as it makes sharp turns, scouring around exposed tree roots. In low water, logs settled on the riverbed upset efficient lines of travel. With enough speed some low ones can be skidded over, but there can also be a lot of getting in and out.

In these twists and turns, it can seem that the river has lost its way yet, here and there, a weeping peppermint branch leans over it, tracing a finger along its spine as if to remind it of the mid-life thrill of its middle reaches and the rapids and cascades it has just left behind.

There is special delight and a sense of deliverance in the river’s approaches to Nornalup Inlet, unlike anything upstream. With its turn to the east under the magnificent forest rising on the lower slopes of Mount Clare in Walpole-Nornalup National Park comes an unmistakable feeling that the coast is not far off. The crystal-clear, sand-filtered water of a noisy creek on the right mixes with the dark water. It is the last chance to fill water containers. Paperbarks begin to take over the banks, brackishness a sure sign of a growing marine influence.

The river widens further as it leaves Tinglewood, the historic Thompson property. Glimpses of distant hillsides and coastal sand ridges come into view. There are shallows to avoid on the inside of the river’s sweeping curves. The Isle Road landing soon appears on the left bank but it is best ignored. Better to keep on paddling, out through the main channel of the river delta. Newdegate Island lies just ahead and spending a final night camped there on its sandspit, in the arms of glorious Nornalup Inlet, is a gentler, more satisfying way to complete a Deep River journey.

Something of this place from far in my past comes to me now. I couldn’t say if it was my first river trip, but I was on the water alone in my canoe when a gust of wind from the inlet dipped to fan out across the water surface ahead and spread towards me. I felt it arrive, not as a warning to turn up my collar, but as an understanding kiss on my cheek. I still have that feeling here, at the end of a river journey, of travelling with an old friend who is happy in themselves, happy with their life.

These are places I have shown my children and would like to think I could show my grandchildren, so they can understand who I am, so they do not have to take my word for anything, certainly not about what is important in life. I know of no other easy way to do that.

THANKS to Ian Maley and photographer Peta Kelsey. Editorial input by Margaret Robertson, Stephen Mattingley and Keith Bradby. Map prepared by Dr Elizabeth Edmonds.

FURTHER INFORMATION

More of Ian’s fascinating life history is available in his biographical profile on the Heartland Journeys website, and on the Wilderness Equipment ‘Our History‘ page.

Here’s a delightful colour booklet put together by Tim Gamblin: “Paddle Trails in the Walpole Wilderness: 10 Flatwater Wildlife Explorations in the Walpole and Nornalup Inlets Marine Park.” (2024). It has maps, directions, photos and wildlife information. Copies are available at Walpole’s Petrichor Gallery, Visitor Centre and caravan parks; Denmark Environment Centre and Visitor Centre; and Paperbark Books Albany.

Ian is President of the South-West Forests Defence Foundation Inc, which is a not-for-profit voluntary group that has been involved for nearly five decades with the better management and protection of the forests of the south-west region of Western Australia. Membership and donations are encouraged.

Some summary information and references about the Deep River are available on Wikipedia.

Walpole-Nornalup National Parks Association is a long-standing, local community group that does amazing work to protect the Walpole Wilderness. Become a member, donate or join in their annual Walpole Wilderness Bioblitz survey, which takes place each spring. Members will receive emails about these events.

Although it is largely within national park, the Deep River’s riparian vegetation is threatened by prescribed burning. Below is an excerpt from the WA Government’s (Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, DBCA) 2024-2025 Burn Options Program. The hatched area is a 14,773 hectare prescribed burn area called Ordnance FRK_107. It contains a sizeable stretch of the Deep River, which DBCA started burning in spring (8 October) 2024. Find out about the impacts of prescribed burning in these fact sheets produced by the South-West Forests Defence Foundation Inc.