Kayaking the sickest urban river in Australia

australia's largest city is home to the country's sickest urban river it makes sense why it's so sick an overwhelmed watershed unable to cope with so many humans what was once a place of dirt and rocks and vegetation is now one of impenetrable surfaces feeding a highway of pipes and drains filthy backwaters fascinate me so with my little red kayak and a set of wheels i'm going to see for myself what makes a bad river bad i smell disgusting right now and for a man who doesn't shower much that says a lot you know yeah it'll be dirty and i might question the idea more than once if it works or fancy playing golf instead but you know what that's the plan trust the instinct to see every inch of the sickest urban river in australia am i becoming an i think i might have become an [Music] now i have no idea where i am i want a cricket pitch the crews dumped me here in a suburb i have no idea in a city i don't know very well and i've now got to find the river i feel genuinely excited to go and search this thing out i don't know where it runs i know it's roughly about 20 kilometers in length [Music] i might find body parts of dogs and cats and humans and i might be up to my knees in effluent at one stage who knows i'll be in the of humanity and so their bloody better be some nice moments [Music] so that's it i'm going to go and find the cooks and paddle down it and make observations and try and be optimistic about life be a bit fun i'm going to follow my nose i've done it before on train lines and rivers follow the low ground follow where the water goes [Music] first sign of a drain [Music] i've got 13 chaff bags from very expensive horse muesli that i'm going to fill with rubbish of some description wouldn't mind finding some cash just some cold hard cash [Music] this could be cook's river far out it seems to be a something come on little trolley all right i can't really paddle this here's the first confluence it's nice to see the water doubles in size a few years ago in the name of backyard adventuring i paddled to work via my boyhood river a river i always thought was pretty healthy for four days i busted my ass getting nullified and grumpy what in the heck are you sitting out there for mate [Music] yet it was still a bloody great adventure this might very well be the world's best donut van but i was wrong the little river right under my nose was sick i was inspired to see other bad rivers ancient catchments with a modern story to tell paths of least resistance that have changed rapidly at the hand of humans backwaters and drains for example places that few of us see are super interested oh i feel the burn on the thighs oh yeah i'm convinced such places are fascinating to most but given they often stink and they're wet and hard to reach it's easier to go places that smell nice and have good parking that is some slippery stuff i was going to say slippery but it probably is slippery it's a long tunnel this is the cooks river a while for me deep under something now big roadway car park something oh that's a uh charging a long little bit of water not deep and we have some river rocks that we've used classy san diego this reminds me of my childhood going through melbourne drains and look at that it's two bucks making bacon it's gold too it's actually gold like people would be looking for gold in a river what a modern version of it nice split pin peg geez i could be here all day that two dollars has got me keen bloody river full of two dollar coins would be alright it's actually really clear water i'm amazed smells bad smells very bad [Music] so it's the mud that's breaking to high heaven [Music] i feel like i'm just standing in raw sewage so i'm just going to keep trucking [Music] evils with plastic bags number plate face masks they've regen the banks of this thing which is really good and the duck just flew off good on your duck all they say about putting a wet hand into a glove it's freaking hard [Applause] where i come from in victoria our government doesn't have a redemption scheme for bottles and cans they do up here which for someone like me who loves finding stuff dude it's extra exciting [Music] how cool [Music] a fragment of a builder's pencil and this fish or oh neal good on you eel nice to see you brother [Music] now the crazy thing about that last couple of k's is that you're going through this huge industrial estate and people are nonetheless that there's a human under them something kind of pretty about this you know there's all this moss and and the cracks in the concrete all this stuff grows through there's some cicadas nature just finds a way it breaks through right nerf guns earbuds sponges fragrance spray cans drinking bottles coffee cups styrofoam venetian blinds super bowl i like super bowls feeling feral is perhaps the most liberating space a human can dwell i don't really get through that no longer appealing to anyone other than yourself you're disgusting moving to keep warm wondering where to step next having long forgotten to look at the time or drink and eat you're immersed and all you give a damn about is getting downstream and seeing what lies ahead truth is as disgusting as this river is and i am i love it i'm going under the train line or one of the train line bits now it was intense it looks like much the same on the other side just full-on jungle something so urban it just feels really wild other than the plastics to give it away there's all these thunderous train goings on [Music] this is a very eerie experience i'm not going to lie this is eerie oh my golly [Music] stay up stay step where's the bottom where's the bottom my little daughter has these exact textures i don't know where to start how many sport teams can we feel it's so bloody bad it's it's interesting every student of sydney should see this [Music] a bit further back i was in a wild place and then you come around the corner and then wham you hit with this a big bloody barge of sadness this is why it's a bad river this is why it's it needs love right [Music] [Applause] i feel like i'm covered in filth starting to itch around my waist polystyrene it's in my undies it's disgusting it's bloody disgusting not a lot of love in bow right now i'm sort of just thinking this is a bit but oh no there's a laugh that's good it's been good to stay on the line of what what is an ancient river and there's just nothing about it feels ancient [Music] then you pop out on the golf course hey chats [Music] i just watched the golf and do a hopeless shot it's by himself i wonder if he's gonna cheat [Music] i suppose it really matters to cheat while you're by yourself because you're not trying to beat anyone anyway there you go make someone's day [Music] sydney is without doubt a remarkable piece of real estate famous harbour opera house and bridge all in one spot but such a view doesn't expose the cross-sectional life of the city and perhaps the greatest inside of all where sickness resides a drain that was once a river does a watershed representing the lives of almost 600 000 people that's made my day so far that turtle what a little survivor zero vegetation i mean what's it eat right confluence of rivers jesus christ if that's the modern day confluence of rivers holy there's a bike relatively void of rubbish this thing because it's so slick just pumps it all out to see very efficient for the first time today i sit down and indulge in a daydream i think of myself as a lowly ranked handsome incompetent sailor in search of somewhere to dip his cap to drink [Music] current day beau can no longer do what seaman miles is about to do head up the river until he feels a blending of the salty in the fresh and drink water that doesn't make him sick i've been practicing my whole life for this moment been rowing a long time a malfunction at a malfunction [Music] [Music] oh there we go a couple of good ones oh got a bow wave [Music] yes yes that is good water and we have our moment where fresh water becomes a reason to make can which becomes a settlement then a village and finally a city and that's where we find ourselves with a problem hundreds of years in the making [Music] oh this feels good i'll be damned does this mean this is estuarine i don't dare take a sip [Music] this river's concrete banks were put in from the 1930s under the cooks river improvement act which aim to tidy up an undisciplined stream within neat cement boundaries but the good news is that other concrete drains in australia are being converted to some kind of river again so there's hope and while i don't live here i've lived in other cities and gone about my day in much the same way as sydney siders eating and drinking consuming stuff one used plastics of convenience i'll be honest when i experience places like this i see myself in the demise [Music] it's pissing down ryan wind is beating any kind of tide i'm officially going backwards everything that ran off from the new colony effluent fat oils dyes chemicals it all went the river and in truth a lot of it's probably still there they say the silty beds of this river is still what makes it so sick [Music] things are only different if you take a moment to think what was here before this i've got a plastic version of this thing now and it's kicking my ass oh the back they're not made to paddle any great distance oh maybe i'd just bloody do this for a second stretch out by the time this river becomes paddlable it actually looks healthy enough or at least not sick if i hadn't experienced the first half of cook's river i'd be entirely reliant on what others say about its health [Music] and that's a problem because the way i see it cooks river sickness is either behind locked gates invisible in the places we can see it or entirely up to what we do or don't read and even for me who gives a damn about this stuff it's all too easy to turn the page and read something else is that bloke exercising his horse while riding a bike that is excellent ah now he isn't that's nice a couple of big fat pelicans their beak can hold more than its belly can good joke body i think there's probably only a few kilometers to the mouth the fake mouth of the river that was diverted when the airport was put in i can smell the coast and it's pleasant 10 hours full tilt getting down cooks river first finding it swearing at it having a few little breakthroughs with some healthy animals but for the most part thinking bloody hell this is genuinely the sick river that google told me about that was a great day very insightful and i've got bloody plastic baubles in my undies that doesn't impress me much i'm in botany bay i'll be buggered [Music] [Music] and what a strange thing to think that it felt like i was doing something illegal by coming in and doing this get across a train line and park in a weird spot in the back of a golf course to come in and find these little secretive spots almost as if no one wants you to see them [Music] i still use too many plastics [Music] and that's a wrap we've got one two three four five half dozen bags that's all i got it's all the car can fit [Music] i recently watched bill murray at sydney's opera house singing and storytelling and being obnoxious i sat in my seat afterwards genuinely inspired but this spot representing cook's river to me likely has more impact as if unpleasant experiences are the best kind because they genuinely soak in [Music] everything's a bit sticky around these places i kind of like it i remember doing this as a kid and then they took redeemables away they do it up here they're far more advanced to sydneysiders [Music] kramer remember kramer tried to take newman's van into state to make money out of redeemables [Music] i might have to do that [Music] you

Channel: Beau Miles

Views: 1,248,206

Keywords: Bad River, Adventure, Cooks River, Sydney, Pollution, Waste, Urbanisation

Id: xmxKUwB8VFQ

Length: 23min 36sec (1416 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 28 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/murlimewes]

Beau Miles is a top notch creator. I love every video he makes! Thanks for sharing.

[u/cricrithezar]

Freaking love Beau Miles, great storytelling. I'd recommend his other videos as well, he has a tendency to pick up random things.

[u/Snushine]

Delighted to have discovered this creator! Thanks!

[u/trashpicker57]

Thank you

[u/fakeprewarbook]

awesome vid

[u/SomeDudeAtHome321]

Great watch thanks

[u/MrFalconGarcia]

Sick like polluted or sick like fucking gnarly bro?