Setev kayaking
Day 3 Report

Day 3 - 14/4/08 - Summerville Road to Hayes Crossing

We put the kayak in the water at about 8.30am at E. Summerville Rd. All of the rapids were paddleable even if I needed a rest at the top of each. There were some long stretches of fast flowing water. Funny how you donít remember these coming down but going up you notice all of them.



The first water hyacinth raft was only a few kilometres upstream and it was 900m long. Some of the bank was easy to walk on but some was quite difficult. The re-entry to the river wasn't easy and I had to let the kayak go. All that was nothing compared with the effort to get through the 10m or so out to open water. There was a vine growing on the hyacinth that necessitating cutting with the paddle after every 300mm. After half an hour I took a photo of how far I had got - not far really. In all the entry to open water took over an hour.

John was at Savages so we had lunch together and I set off up river only to come back with my tail between my legs. There was a mass of hyacinth about 2km long with banks that had almost impenetrable vegetation. There was nothing for it but to walk over to Fernvale and up the highway. We called it quits at Hayes Landing on Lake Wivenhoe with a total of 117km for the three days so far.
John took a photo of a water tanker filling up so I hope the sign on the side is clear enough to read. It says 'recycled water' anyway. He also took a photo of the Fernvale sewage treatment plant at Savages so maybe that's what the sign on the truck meant.


   K4e Home    |Mary Trip Home    |    Mary Trip Journey Map   |    Mary Trip Progress   |    Mary Trip Links    |    Mary Trip Contact