Carrathool to Hay - its all about the BOPs

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 started to walk back to the river (4 ks). I was half way there when a woman called Angela, who lived near the river and had seen me in the morning,  pulled up and offered me a lift back to the river. She said she would have come to meet me at the bus on Monday but she would be away. I thanked her and took to the water.

It was so nice to be back on the river, and such a pretty river compared to the over- utilized Murray where I have been living. There was a good flow in the river and I felt I was making good time. And I was happy there were no weirs to contend with on this leg.

Again there were many birds. Herons, kookaburras, kingfishers, and quite a few bops (birds of prey), of which I could really only identify the whistling kites, and eagles. Not far down the river on a bend opposite a house I again came across a mass of kites in trees and they took to the air wheeling above me. I had learnt in the pub, that the complex near the turnoff, used worms to break down plastic, and clearly the kites loved it, because driving in I had seen hundreds above the piles of chewed up plastic.

I did not see any nankeen night herons at all. But quite a few sea-eagles, and wedge-tail eagles. On the third day, I had only just had the thought that I hadn’t seen any wedgies when I rowed past a tree and four took to the air.

The other thing I saw was a dollar bird down low. You often see them on the river but they like to sit on the tallest branches. You hear their unmistakable croaky call but don’t see them well. I did not know until I saw this one closely how beautiful they are, with colours to match a kingfisher and bright turquoise wings when in flight.

I also saw a small red-belly black snake swimming. It was passing behind me when I was just floating but as soon as I dipped my paddle it saw me and accelerated. It didn’t just go straight to the bank but swam diagonally to a section where it was undercover as it climbed out.

In the afternoon, as I paddled around a corner, the light that was coming through the trees, lit the water in long shapes and I thought they looked like the souls of past cod.

The first day I paddled from 7am to 5 pm and made camp just past a deserted caravan shack. Someone had driven a four wheel drive through and ripped up the soil and I had to look around to find a flat place for my tent.

I’d run into two fisherman a few kilometres back, and then seen where their ute and trailer was,  and just on dark they passed and said I had made two more bends than they had predicted. They had obviously come to see where I had ended up because they then turned around and started to trawl slowly back upstream.

The campsite had gum leaves spread on the ground and I reflected on the Sisyphean nature of the leaf-blower people that I hated. They blow the leaves away, and annoy me with their noise, and then shortly the leaves are back. When will they realise that people are more upset by their noise than the leaves.

I noticed that there were few weed trees on this section, and those that were there were close to pumps. But again, denuded paddocks, banks that stock had removed any plants to hold it together, and gums, their roots exposed, that one day will fall. A few days before, in conversation with Julie Briggs who had picked me up from Carathool the previous year, I learnt what purslane was, and that you could eat it, and now I saw it everywhere.

On the river, there are few identifying signs to show where you are. I had google map screen shots which were next to useless and some text and maps downloaded from Mike Bremer's https://www.murraydarlingjourneys.id.au/home/murrumbidgee-river-canoe-trip website. And though you pass properties you don’t know what they are. Nor can tell when you are passing a public reserve. These, I could generally tell on this trip because there were people camped there. Though I had no coverage, the gps of maps could see me and I had some indication I how well I was travelling.

On the second day I ran into several tinnies with fisherpeople. One said he had caught a couple of cod. All them asked me if I was fishing and I laughed and said ‘just paddling.’ One guy, when I said I was headed for Hay said ‘watch out for the taxi jack’ and when I queried what he had said, said it again. I shook my head, and he waved and said it didn’t matter.

As the second day progressed I started looking for somewhere to camp, but being a Saturday on a public holiday weekend many beaches had large groups. I pulled up twice, and then reasoned that with an hour and a half before I had stop looking, I should continue.

I came to a section where fallen trees completely covered the river, in three lines. There were passages through, but they were not connected to a clear run. And I chose poorly. I went through the first line and then tried to paddle sideways to make the next opening but the current pushed me onto a small log. I was worried I would capsize, and as I’d not planned to such a thing, none of my dry sacks were tied down or together. I managed to push back up the log until my nose cleared it and then head through a gap in the third line. Crisis averted. I knew that there would be no tinnies passing that section.

I saw a young woman on a paddle board picking her way up the river, and commented that this was the hard way to do it, but she answered that when the turned it would be easy, and I said that was the truth. That was exactly my theory when I had done lots of padding when I lived in Leeton. I asked how far she had come and she said she didn’t know but that the rest of her group where on a sandbar. This turned to be about a kilometre downstream so she was going well.

I eventually camped on a really nice low beach, and had a swim. The next morning the GPS showed that I had travelled a good way towards Hay. The map I had showed an alternative channel at 80.4 kms, which I hadn’t passed. And when I did pass it someone had bulldozed it closed. I was therefore not convinced that I was at that point but the river began to go around a big northward loop which I could see on the map. And there were fishing tinnies everywhere, parked in the shade on the east side of the river. I would have passed twenty. They were either sitting quite, or moving, but all slowed when passing me.

At one point, when I could see houses, a couple on kayaks were just getting on the river. The woman didn’t look like she had paddled before but they kept up with all the way to Hay. I reasoned that after 100km I might be tired and not travelling as fast as I could. Mike Bremer had written that the water from the Weir was backed up to here and that made travel harder and slower, what I call heavy water. For a while I followed 3 boys in a tinnie, with a little electric motor. They were trawling and listening to music and laughing. I couldn’t get past them and they couldn’t get ahead of me. Eventually, by cutting the corners I pulled away.

When I could see the Hay bridge I crossed to the wrong side of the river to scope the best landing point. Ski boats were hammering past with little of the consideration the fisherpeople had had, almost swamping me as I tried to land.

Of all the sections of my plan, the next, getting the kayak to the caravan park, was the hardest. As soon as I got off the river the heat kicked in. I had to unload and carry everything up to the part at the top of the bank and then carefully pully the kayak up on its wheels. Then load it again and wheel it gingerly to the park. They showed me my spot and I set my tent and grabbed a shower. I though I’d go to the nearby pub and relish their aircon and have a beer. Their Australia Day party was in full swing and I could only stand one beer before leaving. Being in the caravan park was untenable so I walked into town and went to the Crown hotel, a fine old pub, that was quiet and cool and sat there for a couple of drinks. Then I wandered back across the bridge to the Outback Squatters Hotel and Indian Restaurant. The restaurant was clearly the old dining room, and I was the only guest, but the potato and pea curry was great. They were byo so I had masala tea.

As the evening started I crawled into bed. There was little thought of sleep.  I didn’t have my fly on and the lights of the park had no resistance. And I could hear the music from the still going celebrations at the hotel, and the man over the back fence of the park, a mere 5 metres way, was drunk and playing loud music and did so until midnight, and maintained a shouted conversation which his daughter, who seemed to be berating him. At some stage after the noise all died down I got up and put the fly over the tent, and in a slightly darker space, fell asleep.

When I had booked my bus ticket, I had ticked a box that said ‘receive SMS?’ and then got a message to say I would therefore not get any emails. And as a result I had no record of a ticket. They did send me a text message that said I could check my trip at a link but I had to log into my account and I had no recollection of setting up an account. And the text was very small because they’re website is not set for phones.  I tried twice to reset my password and it did not accept it. I tried googling when the bus left and mostly got Rome2Rio information, and some generic google thing that said 6.35-7.10. Which I assumed meant, it would pull up at 6.35 and leave at 7.10. I got to the stop at the Ampol on the highway, (the sign’s timetables inaccessible because of a bush that has grown up around it) at 6.20 in time to get a coffee. And then I waited, pondering my options if I missed the bus.

At 7.15 the bus arrived and I walk out and waved, and then it slowed but kept going and turned into the roadhouse. I waited for the door to open, and for everyone to get off. I then explained to the driver that I had no proof of a ticket other than the SMS’s but my name was on his list. He explained that I was to wait with the others and he would go into, Hay swap drivers and return, and by the time this happened it was 7.35. So much for google. It took no time to get to the Carrathool turnoff, near the worm recycler, where he dropped me. It was going to be 40, I started to walk towards the pub. I crossed the river and was half-way towards the pub when a car pulled up, and it was a very apologetic Angela saying that she had forgotten though she was home. I did not care, but happily accepted the ride to my car. The kindness of strangers.

In an hour I was back in Hay, and on the road back to Echuca.