In the dead of night, we're dragged awake in the glare of car lights.
Jeff‘s here and wants to go straight away.
He's had fuel problems and doesn't want to risk turning off the engine.
Tents and bags are packed and the trailer loaded in 30 minutes.
We all collapse into the back and drift off to sleep, bouncing along the rough road.
Kym and Ricky sprawl across Nathan until he's had enough and shoves them off.
The air in the car is putrid, with someone trickling out some shocking farts, so we drive for a while with all the windows open and the freezing air flushes it away.
McDonalds in Goulbum is closed but Kym is still keen to break in and get some food.
“You idiot, nothing will be cooked", was the sarcastic answer.
Later we stopped briefly at a servo but none of us are allowed out
“Ross can you buy us some Coke?”
“What else would you like?" he asked each of us in turn then came back with nothing!
The window fogged up with 8 dirty noses pressed up against the glass, drooling over the sight of the plastic seats, electric lights and the thought of the toilets somewhere inside.
At dawn, 5 hours later, we dragged ourselves out of the car on the Kangaroo River. The canoes, life jackets and helmets were ready waiting for us. After the long hike yesterday and not much sleep, the last thing I wanted to do was repack my gear into a water proof barrel and jump into a canoe. Rod, a friend of Ross is waiting there too, and joins us for the river trip.
After giving it serious thought, Jake and Aaron decide to leave a barrel behind and squeeze all of their gear into two. Some of us decided to save weight and left all our spare clothes behind Bound not to get wet in the next couple of days are we. All of us are getting pretty crafty really.
Nrc and Ross surprised us with a litre of fresh milk each “No thanks, we haven't got any room to carry it,” answered a leaner and foodless Ricky.
Surrounded by water and armed with a big paddle, how can you resist not having a water fight, especially with such a perfect victim like Aaron, thinks Ricky.
“They’re my only clothes,” he cried.
“Ha, ha, ha," was the answer followed by another splash of water.
The Spirit of the Bush was a bit slow to act so as their boat neared the shore,
it unfortunately capsized Ricky and Kym were sodden and with the
barrel lid not on properly, all the gear was drenched,
“That’s not fair."'.’?
Each crew decides the best way to paddle - either abuse your partner, or co-operate.
Nathan and Scott quickly learn to paddle their boat straight, whilst Jake and Aaron power theirs with abuse. Michael spends a lot of time blaming Mark and Ricky and Kym weave all over the river.
You can still hear their curses as the rest of us disappeared around the first comer.
Luckily its really early in the morning and we managed to creep quietly past the ‘Psychopath’s Asylum' without anyone seeing us.
Once out of sight, we pull over for breakfast. As usual, its a case of the haves and the have nots. With nothing else to eat Ricky guzzled down his share of the milk.
It began drizzling as we start again. More confident now with our steering, the pirate flags come out and the boats start ramming each other. Mid morning, cold and wet, we pulled over and got warm trying to light a fire.
Nathan and Ricky have go at the single kayak alter practicing the wet exit drill and Aaron found a wombat jaw and insists on bring it with him - Jake is disgusted.
A fight erupted between Jake and Ricky. Don’t know why but Jake thinks its a joke when Ricky tries to drown him. At least until he starts to suspect that he might be serious. While everyone else shivers on the bank, Ricky stays in for ages A quick break to warm up ended 1 1/2 hours later
This part of the river is flat water because of the dam downstream so the paddling is pretty easy once we get the hang of it. Jake loses his paddle for a while, when he belts Aaron over the head, but this just means Aaron has to paddle the boat by himself. Midday arrives and its time to stop again. Breakfast was ages ago and the sun has come out so we found a nice grassy bank, got a larger fire going and dried out for a while. Tomorrow, after we get past the dam wall, we would be tackling the rapids so over lunch each crew practiced capsizing the boat and swimming it to shore
In the afternoon the wind was really strong like a gale and we barely made any headway. Kym and Ricky were blown backwards and it looked like they might tip over, the waves were that big. A few of us were pretty scared so yelled at our partners. I guess it made us feel better. If that wasn't enough, we then had to paddle across the lake with the wind trying to blow us sideways. I still don’t know why we follow Nic and Ross. They led us up a part of the dam for ages, then decided we were going the wrong way so paddled back again!
It was the end of the day when we finally reached our camp for the night. Our arms were exhausted. Carrying a pack and hiking was easier than this. Most of us were in bed asleep even before the sun set. What a day!
