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Molonglo River
The famous Molonglo River was actually produced by accident. This World Class waterski site was formed when the Molonglo River was flooded by Scrivener Dam. The original intent was create Lake Burley Griffin to make the city of Canberra aesthetically pleasing. Little did the designers and engineers know that a few kilometres up stream they world be inadvertantly creating a world famous waterski site.
It is becuase of the ideal skiing conditions and proximity to a major urban centre that the Molonglo River has had a long history of hosting some world class waterski Tournaments. The most notable one was the first ever world barefoot championships held in 1978. The site was so good that it was also named to be the hosting site for the 1985 world barefoot championships. It has also hosted other major barefoot championships including the 1992 Australian National Championships and will also host the 2000 Australian National Championships. A large number of famous barefoot skier have skied on this site. Except for Rick Powell, every single world champion has competed on the Molonglo River. This list includes Brett Wing, Mike Sepiel, Ron Scarpa, John Pennay, Kim Lampard, Lauri Powell, Jennifer Calleri and Sharon Stekelenburg
Canberra has agueably produced the most number of barefoot champions of any city in the world. It is commonly thought amoungst barefooters that this is largely due to the excellent training facilities namely, "Barefoot Alley". This stretch of water is dead straight for 1 kilometre making it a perfect training run distance. It is also only 50 metres wide. Half of this width is covered by a thick overgrowth of willow trees making the exposed skiable water area only 25 metres wide. The straight is orientated at right angles to the prevailing winds so that even on very windy days, winds will not penetrate the trees causing only a slight ripple on the water. The willow trees droop their branches into the water on either side of river. The leaves and branches have an excellent boat wash absorbing characteristic. This means that after a skier has passed through the water recovers immediately so that by the time the boat has turned around, the water is glass agian ready for another pass. The narrow width makes it unsuitable for any other type of skiing except barefoot skiing so that barefooters can enjoy the glassy condition without the disturbance of other boat wakes. It would have been impossible to build a better site for barefoot training even if the engineers had sat down and purposely designed it. You havn't experienced barefooting properly until you have experienced the Molonglo River.