I was just saying to Kath this morning, I think my full time job is now kayaking, I just need to work out how to monetise it. I have managed to paddle 5 of the last 6 days (a total of 11 hours and 65km). My body seems to be coping with this excessive amount of exercise and it is certainly giving me something to do during these social distancing times

This week was all about filling gaps on my map of Sydney waterways. I manage to fill a couple of the big gaps, including the remainder of Pittwater and the Parramatta River. I had planned to get all the way up to Parramatta from Putney, but found they don’t let you go past Silverwater Road (only ferries allowed), so I had to turn around earlier than hoped.

What was interesting about the paddles this week was I had a real variety of waterways. I had rivers, harbours, ocean, bush, suburbs and dense urban areas. Rather than post lots of photos of each trip, here is a single photo from each trip that pretty much summarises that days paddle.

North Head

Sydney Harbour

Rhodes

Lion Island, Pittwater

Cowan Creek

So my master map is now starting to look pretty good. I do need to paddle along the coast at some point, to connect the northern Pittwater/Hawkesbury paddles and the southern Sydney Harbour paddles. I will wait until the social distancing restrictions are lifted before doing those, because they involve putting in at some of the more popular beaches.

Next week’s mission is to knock off a couple of paddles on Berowra Creek. After that I am not sure where I will go, because I will need to start travelling further from home to the likes of the Nepean and the upper Hawkesbury. Again, I might wait until the restrictions have been lifted before heading that far afield. So it looks like I might start repeating some of my regular spots.

Today was technically meant to be a rest day, but instead I took Kath out for a nice leisurely paddle up Cowan Creek at Bobbin Head. It was nice to actually have some company on one of my paddles. I also got to paddle James’ new Mirage 532 kayak for the first time. It took a bit of getting used to the narrower cockpit and the higher seat, but it was very enjoyable to use. However, I think my butt has shaped itself to my Barracuda Enigma now, so I am happy to continue using my boat for the time being.

That is enough about Kayaking. This week I also recorded an Aunty Monkey podcast with Brad Temeyer. Brad is a meteorologist from the US that does the weather for a lot of the big events in the US and also lots of international competitions. Being a weather nerd, it was really interesting chatting to him about all the things he does behind the scenes.

So the Robbos are managing to keep ourselves busy during these social distancing restrictions. James is just finishing off his school holidays (“study break”) and heads back to virtual school on Tuesday. It looks like Year 12 at Knox may head back to real classes in a few weeks, but there are still no firm plans.

Kath and I are doing a lot of hypothetical planning for travel next year. We are looking at different scenarios of when to do our big US trip, some Australian travel and when I should plan to do the Murray River expedition. It is all so up in the air at the moment, so we are a long way from making firm plans, but it gives us something the dream about.

What I am Reading: I am still working my way through Sapiens – A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. It is great, but since I have been exercising so much, I find that I am very quickly falling asleep with the book in my hands.

What I am Watching: The new season of Lego Masters started this week. This is such a great show to watch. It may look like another reality show from the surface, but it is super enjoyable. Watching these die hard Lego nerds building incredible models each episode is so addictive.

Audio Book I am Listening To: I started listening to the classic Dune by Frank Herbert this week. I have tried to read it a couple of times many years ago, but never got very far. It is about 20 hours long, so I am sure it will keep me busy for a while.

Music I am Listening To: I am still on a big Australian music thing at the moment. Missy Higgins is another one my go to performers. This week, as part of the Music From The Home Front live concert last night, Missy and Tim Minchin (another favourite) performed “Carry You”. It is a fantastic version of the song they recorded for Tim Minchin’s tv series Upright (which is also definitely worth watching).