Can I Canoe you down the river.....

Or even in it!.
A new adventure - a ten km canoe down the Murchison river. Bl**** hard work!
We were picked up from the centre of Kalbarri by a four wheel drive bus with a trailer attached, containing six canoes, Canadian style. A fifteen Km drive took us to our insertion point on the Murchison, which at this time of year is pretty stagnant. There were just five of us, in two canoes, three in the other and Anne and I in our own.
It ain't easy! we all started off going round in circles, but I reckon it was because they gave us the wrong paddles - kayak style double paddles instead of the Canadian single style.

Anyway for whatever reason we finally got going down the river more or less in a straight line, (rather less than more!) and paddled down river to breakfast, prepared for us by our driver. Bacon, eggs beans tomatoes, and toast. Not bad, and a welcome break from going round in circles.
I had decided I had had enough of the kayak paddle, and opted for a Canadian one, which was much better. After getting Anne to paddle one side I paddled the other, but as my stroke was twice as heavy as Anne's she had to make two bites to my one. At one point we encountered very shallow water, and had to get out and push. I told Anne to stay in, but she would get out, and help. Having found deeper water we then had an argument as to who should get in first. I lost, and got in and held the canoe with my paddle while Anne got in. But it isn't advisable to step on the side of the boat on getting in, which she did, and as a result the boat capsized, catapulting me into the water.


Hmmmm... divorce was certainly in the offing.
There is no picture of as the camera does not take blue air very well!
Anyway, we got going again after upending the canoe to dry it out, but after a couple of ks we encountered a severe head wind, which meant that if we go even slightly left or right of the wind we were instantly turned round and started going the other way. That was hard work, just moving forward. But with severely blistered hands we eventually made it to the end. Was it fun? Decidedly NO!

We've been here a couple of days, again with Lee, Karen and the kids, Kalbarri is a great little town, mainly just one street again, on the edge of Kalbarri national park. There are a couple of gorges in there which we visited, quite good, but there is little water in the river at this time of year. It is no doubt sensational when there is. A nice viewpoint was "Natures Window", a large rock overlooking the Loop, a bend in the river.

The coastline round here is very nice too, cliffs and beaches. Very windy most of the time, it seema ll this coast is like that at this time of year. We took a drive along to take a few photos, we could spend a lot of time here if we had it!






But mostly it was lazing round the pool, this site, Tudor Park, has a great pool, and plenty for the kids to do too. But we must move on- we are due in Perth on Monday.