Riding the Scorpions Tail

With my arm apparently better, and a four day weekend coming I decided I could resume the trip. Logistically it was complicated. But not impossible. Drive to Carrathool. Leave car at pub. Walk back to kayak at river. Paddle. Take kayak to caravan park in Hay. Catch the early morning bus to Carrathool turnoff. Walk the 7km back to pub to get car and drive to Hay to retrieve gear. And that is sort of how it happened. I arranged to stay at the Carrathool hotel on the Thursday night and to stay at the Big 4 in Hay on the Sunday. This would work as long as I could travel the distance in 3 days. In the pub I spoke to Shaun the publican, and a tractor driver Don, who liked Trump, didn’t agree with environmental water, and thought there was no such thing as climate change. I slept badly in the donga out the back of the pub, and at dawn drove down to the river, pushing the loaded kayak halfway down the bank, and locking it to a tree root. I then drove back and parked my car near the donga and...

  After the Carrathool trip, I had a tweaked arm, diagnosed as Tennis Elbow (when it correctly should have been called ‘paddled too hard to get away from the storm elbow’). I then complicated this in some way working on my house, painting above my head and climbing ladders, which gave me a sore shoulder on the same arm. With all the driving back and forward from Wagga to Echuca (see https://herofukutu.blogspot.com/2024/12/time-place-pace.html ) I did not have the time nor money to see someone for a diagnosis, or a remedy. Finally in December, I got into a physio in Echuca and they recommended some exercises that I have been trying to dutifully do and both the bicep and shoulder are feeling better. In a test to see whether I could paddle without pain, I took my kayak down to the boat ramp near where I am living and took to the waters of a different river, the Mighty Murray – mighty fucking noisy and muddy. Being the Christmas break there were people set up with gazebos and eskys on...