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?