Final preparations & Day 1

After my drive along the Murray river from West to East, meeting Lions Clubs along the way to help organise events, it was a relief to hand over the car keys on Thursday to Pan, a pommy I met up in Darwin who’s my ‘Support Executive’ (well, I have to make him feel important!), who’ll be towing my caravan along the route so I can get a hard-earned sleep after a days paddling.

Yesterday, we checked out our start point (Hume Weir, Wadonga) and end point (Noreuil Park, Albury) for the first leg, due to set off at 9:30 and arrive at Mitta Mitta Canoe Club around midday – can’t wait to do that first stretch and meet some other paddlers at the club. Hopefully I won’t get caught up in any undergrowth along the way and the only snags will be the ones on the barbecue that the local Lions are putting on for us!

We were wrapped when a WIN TV cameraman came to shoot some footage down by the paddling club! I’m so macho, I pretended to ‘accidentally’ flip over and fall in while turning in the current, which is new to me as I always paddle in lakes up in NT - all calm waters. I cut my legs doing my action-man escape from the overturned kayak in shallow water – well, you gotta make it look dangerous and impress the TV audience, don’t ya?! WIN gave us a nice spot on the evening news – thanks, guys!

Woke early this morning, just so eager to get out on the water! We got down to Hume Weir and set up, ready to launch. My escort today is Sasho, a Bulgarian ex-pat member of Mitta Mitta Canoe Club. Just before we get going, he’s on the phone to his daughter who’s due to give birth today, and I’m glad to hear it’s not his first grandchild that he might miss the birth of for the Paddle 4 Life cause! I’m really grateful he’s taken the time out to help me navigate and give me some company on this first section. The starting point is in front of the dam that separates the wide Mitta Junction area of the river from a narrower section and it has an impressive cannon of water gushing out, more powerful than yesterday, so thanks to mother nature and the engineers for giving us a boost! Along with a bright, fresh morning, it’s the perfect day to start my adventure! Before I set off, I meet who else but Steve & Gail Murray (!) from Mildura and their friends from Yarawonga, who are going out in Steve’s hand-built Australian Big Ash canoe today on their own trip – it’s a beautiful canoe and it’s in perfect condition as it’s only been used a few times before. I wish them luck on their journey and hope I can meet them again along the route to Wellington.

Paddling Points –
The river was flowing well and we were paddling at 11km/h, according to my friend’s GPS locator. Every now and then, a whirlpool would open up in the water to either side or right in front of us - a few were up to 10m wide, the first of which gave me quite a fright as I’ve never encountered anything like them before. They pushed us out to the banks and pulled us towards the centre of the river. Sasho’s advice was: “when we hit one, paddle twice as hard!” – very technical!.

Another thing that was great to see was two platypuses, the first time I’ve seen them in the wild! One was playing in the water about 20m away, then a while later another one popped up right next to me just a metre away. We sized each other up, it seemed as amused to see me as I was, it seemed to nod its head in acknowledgement (I think it must have seen me on TV last night), then he ducked back under and he was gone. Sasho said they’re a good omen, so I hope my luck will continue!

We were flying by nicely and a few times I looked down and there was only half a metre of water beneath us, I thought it would be deeper and up by the weir it looked like the river was up about a metre higher than usual. Also saw a river marker sign with a figure over 2,000 written on it – maybe the distance to the end in miles?!

It was also energising to get good luck wishes and waves from campers along the way. As we approached Noreuil Park, some people waved us in from a bridge and then joined us outside the Mitta Mitta Canoe Club to join us for the barbecue put on by Albury Lions Club. All in all, a nice, relaxing paddle with some unexpected obstacles and sights along the way!

We’d like to say a special thank you to Albury and Thurgoona Lions clubs and the Mitta Mitta Canoe Club for their support, help and donations. It was a great first day and we’re ready and raring for more with the help of our friends along the way.