And many apologies for the belated blogging. Ian and I have had our hands full of carbon fibre paddles and our bums fixed squarely to our hard plastic seats of late and barely a facebook status update or a text message has escaped the river.
I'll do my best to catch you up on all the recent happenings in a special 2-Part Blogging Bonanza -starting with this tasty number from Echuca to Barham (back around New Years Eve)... and hopefully I can follow it up with an extra saucey edition when we arrive in Mildura in 5 days time.
But first - the cast of the latest AYAC Support Team deserve a massive shout out for their efforts in the 43 degree heat over the past fortnight :
Mieke Van Dam, Annelies Van Dam, Sophie Hanlon, Katie Hanlon, Thomas Mitchell, Matt Lausch, Ryan Smith, Blake Gregory, Sarah Middlemiss, Rachael Hibbard, Dan, Billy and the Fogden Family, Emma Wright, Brittany Parker, Chris Long, Nick Del Din, Claire Watts ... and of course the legendary mastermind, Sir Cameron Whipp'Post-Luke Stanley', we always knew life was going to be tough... but these guys have put on day-after-day of phenomenally successful fundraising events in Echuca, Swan Hill and Robinvale while Ian and I have been out swanning around on the Murray.
Legends.
Day 27 [ Wednesday, December 29 ] : Echuca to Tocumbarry Weir (83km)
After leaving Echuca on Wednesday morning our plan was to take care of a decent 190km chunk of the journey to Swan Hill before being picked up by the support team in Barham and taken back to Echuca (the party town) to see in the new year.
And so we set off down stream with NYE on our minds.
However, this time we weren't paddling into a serene forest... the waters around Echuca are prime houseboat country and we were kept on our toes dodging countless speed boats and tinnies as they raced back and forth along this beautiful stretch.
Along with climbing Mount Everest, growing AYAC into a successful organisation and meeting Kyle Sandilands... I've now put hiring a houseboat from Echuca to Tocumbarry Weir on my life's "To Do List"
As we moved down stream today, we heard from more and more fishermen that the flooding has brought with it "Black Water" : a lack of oxygen in the river that kills fish and leaves many floating dead. At first we thought this would just be a minor inconvenience but we're slowly figuring out that its a serious problem and that the river hasn't seen these conditions for a very long time. It's been caused by the fact that the Murray has been 'flooded' twice in the past 6-months. Each time, the river has swelled over its' banks, inundated all of the low lying country and pulled tonnes of sediment back into the current.
This news was certainly a bummer for Ian, our intrepid angling enthusiast...
But not to worry! Ian 'Bear Grylls' Bacon has found a different way to test his hunter-gatherer skills on the river.
A Murray Crayfish
NOTE: we put Craig back in his home (it's illegal to cook these guys with your rice and satay sauce)
Since leaving Barmah Forest, the landscape has also begun to change.
From a spectacle of bright green river gums and dense vegetation along the banks - its' now becoming gradually more sparse as farmland dominates
83 long kilometres later we pulled our boats ashore at Tocumbarry Weir and set up camp just before dark. We'll have many more of these weirs to negotiate over the next 5 weeks on our way to the Murray Mouth.
Day 28 [ Thursday, December 30 ] : Tocumbarry Weir (60km)
At about lunch time today we met the first other group of people paddling a section of the river that we've seen. Tim, Sam and Leo are kayaking from Echuca to Mildura in their custom made raft. Along with Tim's wife and daughter, they're raising money and awareness for extremely worthy intellectual disability foundations - and at the same time proving that people with intellectual disabilities can achieve remarkable things.
Ian and I have been really surprised at just how few people we've encountered on the river so far. We'd expected to see lots of paddlers doing sections of the Murray and far more campers than we've come across.
Floodwaters and mosquitoes
I know I mention this every second sentence... but the flood has really changed the river conditions so much. Many of the access roads remain shut due to the (very real) danger of falling trees and further down stream (towards Wentworth and Renmark) the river levels are still rising as the Murrumbidgee and the Darling River's pour in.
The biggest challenge for us each day is to find a campsite without giant pools of stagnant (and mosquito infested) water nearby. This is really tough.
Many nights we've had to resort to sleeping next to such pools and setting up camp has turned into an absolute scramble to prevent being eaten alive.
Even worse! Emblazoned across the latest edition of the Swan Hill Guardian was a headline proclaiming that the first cases of Ross River Fever have been found - a mosquito borne virus that can leave its' victims with a decade of joint pain, fatigue and paralysis... woopee!
But stuff it.
Each time Ian and I pull into town we forget about our swollen ankles and weeping sores and take comfort in the news from the support team that more and more people have heard our message of support for young people living with cancer.
... let's just hope there's an organisation out there doing equally as good a job raising awareness for young adults with Ross River Fever
AYARRF?
We've now ticked off over 1000km's of kayaking ...
Stay tuned for the next installment of The Sauce as we give you the exciting run down of our experiences getting to Swan Hill, crossing the halfway point on the Murray and all the dirt from our escapades getting completely lost on the way to Robinvale...
To finish up - we made it to Barham with plenty of time and had a cracker of a NYE with all the team at OPT NightClub ... the hottest place in the universe
Help us, help beat cancer.
Go to www.ayac.com.au to help AYAC raise money for lifesaving cancer treatment and research at Lifehouse (The Chris O'Brien Cancer Centre)
Chris
