Dunlop Volleys - The End of an Outdoor Era

When I started getting into white water rafting I tried a few different sets of river shoes, trying to find the perfect ones. There were pros and cons to each, but I ultimately settled on the same footwear as everyone else. Now, years later, it seems I may have to change styles again.

#1 Booties

The first was a pair of wetsuit boots—or "booties" as they're affectionately known—I already owned for snorkelling around oyster studded rocks. New to white water sports, I foolishly thought their impressive tread meant my booties would provide all the grip I needed both on and off river. While they remain the warmest river shoes I've ever worn, those boots taught me that impressive tread doesn't equate to good grip on wet rocks. In fact, the stiff soles glided easily across the smooth, wet river rocks.

#2 Fingers

So I upgraded soles, adopting a fancier pair of neoprene shoes. I took to wearing a pair of Flows, an early model of Five Fingers. They were comfortable, reasonably warm (apart from the unfortunate gap between the top of the shoes and the bottom of my wetsuit) and their gecko soles gripped surprisingly well on wet rocks. They suffered from only three problems:

• The low tops meant they filled with sand easily when walking along the riverbank, extremely uncomfortable in a skin-tight shoe;
• The stitching tended to tear through the thin neoprene, severely limiting their service life;
• They cost around $200 a pair.

The first was bearable, but the combination of the latter two (and Vibram's refusal to acknowledge the rapidly deteriorating neoprene as a manufacturing defect) made them an impractical option for a student rafter.

#3 Sandals
I'm a long-standing user of hiking sandals, from various Tevas while I was growing up to my eventual introduction to Chacos. The first pair of Chacos I owned predated the heavy tread that followed in later years, when the lines of river and land shoes had almost identical soles. While I wasn't using a pair of their river shoes, mine gripped well on dry and wet rocks alike and dried quickly afterwards. With the addition of a pair of thick woollen socks (aww yeah, socks and sandals! Trendy, I know) so my feet didn't freeze, they made for decent rafting shoes. I could usually find them for around $100 a pair (although I once absurdly found a shop trying to clear some shelf space in a hurry who sold me several pairs at 20c each. Why, I have no idea!) and last me around three years of near-daily use before the soles start losing grip. They can be resoled, but generally only once since the straps eventually start to wear through.

Chaco soles from left to right: original multi-purpose colorado,
dry-land unaweep and wet-rock pro.
Photos courtesy of Chaco US and Wilderness Exchange Unlimited.

More recently, Chacos have diverged into two distinctly different styles: one with the solid, heavy soles of hiking boots; and one with limited tread and soft rubber soles that stuck easily to wet rocks but wore out faster on dry land. I mainly use mine on land as a warm weather shoe that actually has some support, and have stuck with the heavy tread. Alas, that means they're restricted to hiking and I needed to find a new source of river shoes.

#4 Dunlop Volleys

It took me a while to get there, but eventually I bought myself a pair of Dunlop Volleys, cheap canvas shoes whose design had remained largely unchanged for 70 years. They're a popular choice, and the Tasmanian University White Water Rafting Club has long recommended them as the footwear of choice for all new rafters. I forked out the standard $20 for a pair, grabbed some thick socks and tried them out. The grip was astonishing. It took me a while to fully trust them, but it felt like my feet were glued to the rocks. The only time they lost grip on river was when encountering green slime of death* unexpectedly. Since nothing else can find grip on green slime of death, I'm willing to forgive them that one. Like the Vibrams, the low tops meant they filled with sand easily, but it wasn't nearly as uncomfortable. An earlier model of Volley had a higher top that kept the sand out, but the end of that product line predated my use of Volleys by over twenty years.
By far the cheapest river shoes I'd owned, the Volleys also outlasted my Vibrams (which, if you're keeping track, were the most expensive). The canvas tends to wear through beside the little toe and the grip wears out, but neither happens instantly. I could get two seasons of rafting and occasional sessions of parkour out of a pair before they failed.

#5 Cheap'n'shitty Volleys

These sneaky shoes look like Dunlop Volleys, are sold in the same shops, have the same branding on their soles and are sold for a similar price. The only obvious difference is that the name on the shoes' tongues has changed from "DUNLOP" to "VOLLEY." However, one must never mistake Cheap'n'shitty Volleys for the shoes they're imitating...

Somewhere within the bowels of Volley Australia, a decision was made to bring back the old style of high-topped Volleys, rebranded as High Leaps. Excited at the prospect of not shaking gravel out of my shoes at day's end, I bought a pair and tried them out. I'd worn halfway through the grip under the ball of my foot after a 1 1/2 hour parkour training session on their first day of use. A few days of rafting later and holes were forming through the rubber. Despondent that they weren't as well made as other Volleys, I returned to using my old pair.

Then I went on a ten day rafting trip and bought a new pair of Volleys rather than relying on an old pair for so long. By the end of day three, the soles of both brand new shoes had partially detached from the canvas. I doused them liberally in glue and hoped they would last the remaining week. While I was still wearing my new shoes when we rolled up the rafts at trip's end, they were then deposited in the first bin I found. The additional glue had held them together admirably (one thing you can say for rafters is that they've always got powerful glues on hand) but I'd ultimately added duct tape around the toes to reinforce them. The tape would have diminished their grip, except that the grip had already worn away completely.

I started canyoning this year and was fortunate enough to still have my last pair of Dunlops, since the classic shoe has also been a popular choice for canyoners for some years. Although they're holding up well, old age is starting to catch up with them and I doubt they've more than a couple of days' canyoning left in them. With Volleys now a non-contender, I will soon have to delve back into the world of river shoes in search of a replacement.

* Green slime of death is a colloquial term for a type of algae found in some Tasmanian rivers. It's mostly found on rocks that are only intermittently submerged by higher water levels. When dry, it forms a dark green-hued coating on the rocks to which most shoes grip well. When it gets wet (for example, because someone has walked across it with wet shoes), it becomes a slick slime to which no shoes will grip. The result of this is that the first rafter walking across rocks coated with it has no problems, but anyone who carelessly follows their wet footprints a few seconds later is almost certain to slip over.

† A Wikipedia edit recently suggested these changes to the Volley design had been undone and they were reverting to the earlier construction, though didn't cite any evidence. Soon after, another edit was made to the page:

However, an October 2013 inspection of the various models sold in a department store found that all models on sale still had the much softer sole condemned as failing within 3 days in the references above, and there is no documentation at www.volley.com.au indicating that the soles of the online models are any different from those sold in stores.

It's a surprisingly strongly worded edit for something from a user calling himself BenevolentUncle, but a quick browse of the bushwalking forums and blogs of some big names in the Australian outdoor community make clear the widespread displeasure about the new Volley design. It remains to be seen whether Volley Australia will actually do as hoped and return to us our most beloved river shoes.