The Dubious Art of Short Cuts

I have great difficulty in getting over just how different the river is here compared to Wilcannia and further upstream. Upstream of here, the river trickles down, rapids must be contested and running aground a constant threat. The banks are high as well, with the gum trees lining the river towering hoigh above. Your entire aspect is confined to the river which holds you closely to its bosom. Here though, it is an entirely different river.

The river here is wide - sometimes 200 metres or more and it has poured over onto neighbouring ground and swamped all the trees. In some areas it is hard to see where the water stops and the land begins. mud plains abound and if you are careful (or lucky) you can knock several kilometres off your journey by taking a short cut over what would normally be dry land. This can be a bit of a hit and miss affair though.

The first time I tried I had instant success. There were few trees in the way, the passage was deep and the path short (some fifty to eighty metres long) and that knocked off at a guess around three kilometres. My second attempt at a short cut was a bit more dubious - though still a success. The route was bestrewn with trees in the water and was quite shallow in a couple of places. Still, I managed to find a path and made it through. Or at least almost.

At the very last hurdle I got through all right. So did my kayak. Some equipment however, did not. As I scraped through the last narrow passage a branch managed to snag a dry bag which was sitting on the rear deck and only tied down with an octapuss strap. I paddled hard and the kayak - with a scrape here and there - popped through. the dry bag however, stayed behing, dangling on the branch half in and half out of the water. What was worse was that I didn't realise it had come adrift. It was only a couple of hundred metres later as I carried out one of my regular equipment checks that I noticed.

Eek!

I quickly back tracked and collected the bag, which had fortunately lived up to its name. Inside the dry bag was the flash digital SLR camera and all its paraphernalia. It wasn't even my camera, but Anna's. I would have been dead meat if I'd lost it. Still, I didn't and alls well that ends well.

Taking short cuts certainly reduces the distance but it also raises the chance of something out of the ordinary happening.

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A day of luxury

A cold morning this morning. Its around 6 degrees C at the moment, though with the light winds and due point it feels considerably lower than that. As a result of the chill in the air I remained cocooned within my sleeping back until almost seven. .

I emerged from the tent to the cries of Red Tailed Black Cockatoos and mists rolling off the surface of the Darling which was is notmore than five metres from my campsite.



Now, however, I am writing this as I wait for breakfast to cook. I have a couple of chops on with eggs and two slices of bread fried in the juices of the chops. Delectable. This campsite is an unusual one in that I am immedietly below an old homestead - Weinteriga. Its in ruins today, but this old homestead must have been something in its day.

Situated on a bend of the river and once lived in by Sid Kidman, it has commanding views and looks as if once apon a time it was a real hive of activity. Outhouses abound and the main quarters is quite spacious with the kitchen being enormous. Its a crying shame that the place has gone to rack and to ruin. The new homestead is situated about 1.5 - 2 kilomtres away and is no great shakes. A few very average houses with no beauty or grace whatsoever.

Weinteriga is owned by the local aboriginal community in Wilcannia (who are part of the Paakantji - Paak being river and antji I assume being people). I understand that they procurred the land in 1984, just after the momentous Land Rights Act of 1983 by the Wran Labour government of NSW. The property iself is around 70,000 acres and currently runs 5,000 head of sheep - though in good years this almost doubles. According to Dave, the station manager (and an aboriginal elder from Wilcannia), the ultimate goal is to buy up all the land between here and Wilcannia for the community. Sounds like a plan to me.

The land lining the banks of the river is generally in good condition and the whole place has a good feeling to it. It seems an incredible waste to see these old building withering away though. I could just imagine schools from Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide coming up here for week long camps, staying in the old homestead and learning:

a) about the machinations of a working sheep station;
b) about aboriginal culture and history;
all about fishing, wildlife, plants all everything that goes along with going bush.

All thats needed is a single million dollars or so I'm guessing.

Now where do I find one of those.... Full Story

Pay Attention

I almost came a cropper today. I guess I've become blase about these rapids on the Darling. they can't add up to much can they? In fact it comes as a bit of a surprise finding any rapids on the river at all. I certainly wasn't expecting any when I was planning this journey.

Rapids on the Darlign?

Bah.

I went through several areas with rapids today however. Some required a deft dipping of the paddle to line up properly, but most were simply pointing the kayak in the right direction and paddle like buggary - for any rapid upon the Darling invariably means scraping across some rocks as you sail on by.

I'd just gone on by a homestead and was actually thinking how nice iit would be to take a photo of the next rapid I went down when this rapid came into view. I whipped out my camera and had it ready to go. The only problem was that I hadn't really been paying attention to what was going on up ahead.

This rapid was a weir.

I put the camera down and took a couple of hurried strokes, hoping a bit of speed would see me right, but no joy. I hit the weir and a log stuck on it held me fast. I had to hop out of the kayak to get things going again and after a couple of concerted heaves the stern (can you call the rear end of a kayak / canoe a 'stern' or is that a bit presumptuous?) started moving inexorably and before I knew it lay athwart the weir, Water spilled into the kayak briefly as I battled to keep it upright. Luckily I won.

After that it took me only a minute or two of heaving the kayak about and it was all ok.

so the lesson here is to never take things for granted. Expect the unxpected and stay alert: even if you are o Australia's longest river where paddle steamers used to ply their trade. I was just lucky the drop to the other side of the weir was 6 inches instead of 6 feet! It could have been a lot worse.
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Wildlife of the Darling

I thought that some people might be interested in the type of wildlife I have been seeing. Here is a quick summary of what I saw today.

Birds Choughs x 15
Masked Wood Swallows x 12
White Necked Heron x 15
White Faced Heron x 11
Wood Ducks x 45
Whistling Kites x 4
Pied Commorants x 2
Wily Wagtail x 20
Dotrell x 1
White Plummed Honeyeater x 40
Budgies x 200
Red Tailed Blck Cockatoos x 30
Ravens x 25
Black Kite x 2
Galahs x 10
Welcome Swallows x 20
Goshawk x 3
Kookaburra x 4
Mallee Ringneck parrot x 6
Various other parrots x 100 or so.

Animals Kangaroo x 12
Goat x 5
Turtle x 1
Jumping Fish x 10
Murray Cod
Sheep x 30 or so.

Less herons than normal. And Kites. Lots of budgies but only a few Red Tailed Black Cockies. No swans or pelicans or other such oddities which I have seen before now. The rarest animal sighted so far would have to be an Australasion Bittern.

All pretty good I have to say.
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Two days away from Tilpa

well, I am around 77 kilometres out of Tilpa, with around 190 - 200k to go before reaching Wilcannia. Today was a good day. I managed to paddle just on 40 kilometres, despite stopping quite a bit and hitting a number of shallow areas. Actually it was quite exciting in parts. A

I ran a couple of rapids today. Nothing huge I'll grant you, but white water nonetheless. I would definately rate them as grade 1 rapids which, considering this is the Darling River and its meant to be flat as a pancake is quite amazing. In fact I would even go so far as to say that one of the rapids was grade 2. Almost anyway. You actually had to pick a line and change course by back stroking a couple of times. How they got paddle steamers up here I'll never know.

On another front, its been like Pitt Street today on the river. 90 minutes or so after setting out this morning I came across four fishermen. Just as I came up to them they managed to land a murray cod, ten pounds or so in weight and 67 cm in length. They were, as you can imagine, pretty excited.

Another hour or so after leaving them behind I came across another couple of people making it six people in one day on the river. a lady was rowing a dinghy across the river, from west to east, with a long rope attached to the western shore. Her oars were all a whirl as she inexpertly did her best to go from one side of the river to the other.

On the far bank was a man giving her encouragement - a advice - as she made her ineffectual sweeps with the oars. An audience (i.e. me) was not what she wanted. As I got closer the more quickly did her oars whir and the slower she went.

"Geez", I thought to myself. :A Trffic jam on the Darling. After talking with the two of them for a moment I offered to nudge her dinghy the last few feet. An offer she greatly accepted. When she was close enough she threw the end of the rope to the bloke on the other side - or at least she tried to. The rope just made the shore and as she started to drift it gradually inched its way towards the water.

Seeing this, the bloke took a step or two towards the rope only to recoil as the muddy ground underfoot begun to give way, making him slide inexorably towards the waters of the Darling. After beating a hasty retreat he found a stick and used it to retrieve the thrown rope which he then made fast to a tree. The rope now spanned the river, with the idea that in future somebody crossing wouldn't need to paddle across. They could pull themselves over. All very tricky really.

Once this palava was over I was offered a cup of tea and allowed to fill up my water bottles with fresh rain water, which I have to say tastes a heck of a lot better than the muddy waters of the Darling.

Now though, I am at camp. The tent is "abduled" and the fire is slowly dying down, the embers are still glowing red. This has to be one of the best camp sites to date. In fact I thinks its the best so far. I am on a knoll overlooking the river and surrounded by a small grove of juvenile Red River Gums (say 50 years or so old). The tent is strung up between two of them and I can hear fish jumping out of the water on an intermittant basis.

Does it get better than this?


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Creatures from Alpha Centauri

So last night I stayed at the Tilpa pub. Over a century old in one flavour or another, its a beautiful place to look at. Well, maybe beautiful is the wrong word for it. It is full of charecter anyway.

When I paddled into town yesterday afternoon (the town has a population of six I might add) there was a few cars around and the playground was full of children who had been recently released from the confines of the cars to stretch their legs. Adults were laughing and standing around in relaxed attitudes and the sounds of the kids at play all led to an atmosphere of conviviality.

Or at least so I thought.

When I walked into the pub for a drink and enquire about a room, you could feel the entire mood shift from one extreme to another. A rougher mob behind this counter they are, who'll ignore you as best they are able. I'm not sure if its because they don't see many new faces in these parts and are scared to talk to people they don't know or are simply showing their disdain for "blow ins" like me and other travellers.

Needless to say, I thought it was great.

"G'day" I said in as cool and tough a manner as I could manage. The woman behind the bar looked at me with unfriendly eyes.

"Um", I said convincingly. "I'd like a drink please". She thought about this for a moment. A hard look was in her eyes.

"What do ya want?" she asked obligingly.

Now Tilpa is clearly a place where Men are Men, Women are Women and Small Furry Creatures from Alpha Centauri are Small Furry Creature from Alpha Centauri. I considered her question for a second and, despite my dislike for it ordered a beer. I did this in the rather forlorn hope that I would be seen as a Man rather than a Small Furry Creature from Alpha Centauri which, from the initial looks I was getting was just where they thought I was from.

Sigh. The beer at least was cold.

Funnily enough, this was just the sort of reception I had been expecting. Pretty much all the travellers I had met who had come through Tilpa had waxed lyrically about the gruff, taciturn reception that they had recieved at the pub. "Mr. Personality" is how one person had nicknamed the publican. I was at Kallara station at the time, some ten or so kilometres by the road up river, camped by the river and talking with a couple of groups of people travelling through.

One person mentioned "Mr. Personality", people all looked at each other and started talking about the flat reception that they had recieved. People were relieved to find it wasn't just them - that the reception was poor for any traveller. So I knew what I was walking into and thought it was great.

I noticed that during the night the people behind the bar opened up a little, but only when talking to locals. When i was ordering a drink (even beer) I would be ignored for a moment or two (sometimes more) before being served.

I'm still not sure if it was because they wanted to appear tough or simply don't know how to handle strangers. Or Small Furry Creatures fro Alpha Centauri.

Same thing really.


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Tilpa reached!

Hi all,

Well right now I am in Tilpa, some 480 kilometres away from the confluence of the Bogan, Barwon and Culgoa rivers, from whence I started. This is really just a quick update to let you all know that I am ok and am now looking forward to what looks to be one of the most challenging parts of this expedition: Tilpa to Wilcannia.

.

Zannia and I set off on the 30^th of last month where the Darling begins and made rather rapid progress to Bourke. Wild pigs, goats, turtles and birds a plenty. We got stuck at one point and I hopped out of the kayak to push us off the sand bank we were on. Took one step, then another and before you know it I was waist deep in mud. Instead of helping me, Zanni just laughed.

Once at Bourke it took a day or so to organise the next stage with Pip and the rest of the Melbourne mob: Paul, Rob and of course Redbox (Pip’s dog). In the end we took three kayaks – mine and two of James (two flash mirage kayaks). Red box sat in the middle of my big beast and had two people paddling for him – when he sat in a kayak at all of course. The first day or so he must have run 20 kilometres. He was exhausted. Bourke to Louth was a top leg. Good company, fruitless fishing, goat stew and a hugely varied river as we wended our way down. On the last day the lads decided to be picked up early and I pushed on by myself – a long leg of just under 70k’s, which was good but exhausting.

Now though, I am in Tilpa. I’ve crossed a few weirs (see photos), met some good people, paddled like buggery. I’ve had a shower (bliss!) and had a day off paddling to recoup my energies before heading off on this next, long leg (some 280 kilometres if I remember correctly from earlier calculations).

My principle concern at the moment is the river itself. Will there be enough water to get right the way through. I was told that I it would be tough to get to Bourke. I was told in Bourke it would be hard to get to Louth (if not impossible) and I was told Tilpa was touch and go. So far so good. But I do know that the amount of water in the river at the moment means I will be dragging the kayak over some shallow sections on my way to Wilcannia.

Wish me luck.

Regards,

Christo

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