Avon Descent 2017 - 08 Day1 Extracts Weir
Channel: Terry Russell
Date: 2017-08-11

Helmet Camera footage of the 2017 Avon Descent. This one shows my ride down Extracts/Williamsons Weir.

Last year some of the Powerboaters, led by Ian and his son Todd Williamson, used an excavator to move rocks around the weir and make a nice chute in the middle that I capsized at the bottom of in the 2016 race (https://youtu.be/O8l7-_A2Mq0?t=96).

Ian passed away before the race last year and the chute has been named 'Williamsons Weir' in memory of him.
Now after the 20 year flood event that we had in February, most of the rocks in the upper part of the 'chute' have been washed away, leaving as you see in the video; a 1-2m vertical drop onto rocks below! This is similar to the original Extracts Weir of the 70's to early 90's, till the rocks were first installed to make the weir safer after a near drowning in 1991.

No idea how I got thru the top, if I hit anything while nose down it would have gone sideways from there..

The predicted water level on the Walyunga Paddlers Gauge was 0.75m on Saturday and the calculated TiTrees level was 0.8m (the Titrees gauge is now destroyed by the floods in February, we use http://www.whitewaterperth.org.au/water-level.html instead)
The water level was however dropping so would be significantly lower in the valley tomorrow..