From: Clarke Lagoon Wildlife Reserve (Tintaldra)
To: Jingellic
Distance: 33km
Distance to Go: 2336km

After a very pleasant sleep, I woke up early and found it was a lot warmer than the day before. It is amazing how quickly I have acclimatised, because 7 degrees is now feeling like a warm morning. After packing up and a quick chat to one of the caravaners, who was staying at the same campsite, I hit the water at around 8.30am.

It was a cloudy morning but by about 10am the clouds cleared and it became quite warm (especially because I was paddling in thermals). It was a very lovely morning of paddling, but fairly uneventful, so I started listening to an audio book while I paddled down the river enjoying the sunshine.

Today was always going to be a short day of paddling. The plan was always to camp on the reserve outside the Jingellic Pub. After all who could resist camping at a pub. So just after lunch I pulled up at the Jingellic Reserve and set up camp on the banks of the river. It was nice to be able to dry out some gear in the afternoon sun and spend some time catching up on emails and various social media things.

At about 4pm I needed to charge some of my gear, so I headed up to the pub (a whole 50m away), grabbed a beer, plugged in and started blogging away. Next thing I knew I had a surprise visit from from some ballooning friends, Ray and Marg, from Albury. They had been tracking my progress and they predicted I would be stopping at the pub, so they drove up and had a drink with me. This really made me realise that I am not doing this trip alone. There are a lot of people virtually (and physically) following along as well.

After a nice meal at the pub, I retired to the tent at around 7.30pm and I am pretty sure I passed out soon after.

Tomorrow I head towards the Hume Weir. I have about 100km to cover over the next 2 days. Since the Hume Weir is essentially a lake with no flow, I am going to try and tick off as many kilometres as I can tomorrow (while the water is flowing) to make Thursday’s crossing a bit shorter.

From: Bringenbrong Bridge
To: Clarke Lagoon Wildlife Reserve (Tintaldra)
Distance: 49km
Distance to Go: 2369km

Today was this start of the main paddle. This morning was a very cold foggy and frost morning. It was about -2 degrees when we got up and by the time we had got down to Bringenbrong Bridge (near Khancoban) at about 8.30am, it had only got up to 0 degrees.

Kath, Carolyn, Mum and Dad came down to the river to see me off. After a little bit of stuffing around, trying to put all the gear in the right spot in the boat, it was time to say goodbye to the family and begin the big adventure.

The fog had started to breakup just as I hit the water and I was treated to a beautiful (yet cold) sunny morning. It was the perfect start, being surrounded by mist on the hills and the snow up on the higher peaks.

Soon after leaving Bringenbrong I spotted my first platypus. It only poked its head up briefly so I was unable to get a photo of it.

The water was flowing very quickly, which made for a very cruisy day. I was averaging about 10kmh when gently paddling and drift speed was anywhere between 5-7kmh. This meant that I was able to get to my planned campsite (Clarke Lagoon Nature Reserve) by about 3pm.

So far, all the gear is working really well. I think I have packed the right amount of gear and food. My kayak, the Mirage 582, is performing so well. It is an absolute pleasure to paddle and seems to glide better when it is fully loaded.

I am writing this sitting by the river in the dark and it is starting to get a bit cool. I think it is time to retire to the tent and prepare for an early night and a cold morning.

From: Biggara
To: Bringenbrong Bridge
Distance: 26km
Distance to Go: 2419km

The paddle has begun! Much more enjoyable than riding a bike. Today I paddled from Biggara down to Bringenbrong Bridge near Khancoban. It was a chilly 6 degrees but very enjoyable to be on the water.

Bringenbrong Bridge is the normal launching point for people paddling the full Murray River because it is the best spot to start with longer, loaded sea kayaks. However, for today I used my shorter white-water kayak and was able to go 30km further up stream and paddle down the narrower, faster and shallower stretch of the river.

I haven’t really paddled my white-water boat for about 15 years and I quickly realised that I was using a totally different set of muscles from when I paddle my sea kayak. Sea kayaking is all about maintaining a rhythm and maintaining a glide, whereas the white water boat is all about short bursts of power and just keeping the damn thing straight.

There were a lot of trees to negotiate (only had to walk around one) and even a few grade 1-2 rapids. I definitely would not want to be in my 5.8m kevlar sea kayak for that section of water.

Tomorrow is a day of packing and food shopping and then on Sunday I begin the big paddle from Bringenbrong Bridge.

A couple of months ago I started to put together a pack list for the Murray Trip. That night, for some strange reason, I woke up at about 2am and had a horrible thought that I would not be able to fit everything into either of our kayaks (the Barracuda Enigma or the Mirage 532). I have used both of these boats for multi-day trips before but they were always stuffed to the brim and there are a number of extra things I would need for the 2 months on the Murray (extra clothes, food, camera gear etc.). So the next day, I got all the gear together and tried packing it into both of the boats (which are very similar in size). To my horror, it did not all fit.

So after a bit of research, I decided that I was going to invest in a bigger boat and I decided on the Mirage 582 (5.8m long). This is a similar design to our Mirage 532 (5.3m long) but the extra 50cm in length gives it a much larger storage capacity (an extra 50litres). This is a comparison of the specifications:

The following day, I drove up to the Mirage factory at Gosford and had a chat to Dave about the specifications of the boat, because there are a number of features you can add to the boat and I figured that I should properly kit it out and set it up the way I want. And with that I had ordered my new kayak.

It is now 2 months later and I have just picked up the new kayak and taken it for her maiden paddle. It is fantastic. The extra length makes the boat faster and it glides a whole lot better. It was completely empty when I paddled it, so it was riding fair high in the water, but I can imagine it is going to be even better with a bit of gear in it.

Here are some of the features of the boat (some standard and some additions).

I must give a big thanks to the team at Mirage for getting the boat finished just before the Christmas shut down period. I am looking forward to spending a lot of time over Summer in this new boat.