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.

Excellent.