Another kayaking adventure

This time we took the kayaks on a trip.  We took them on a two hour drive to the River Murray and kayaked along some back waters of the river. 

It was amazing, so beautiful!

And we had so many different settings.  We still haven’t got our cheap camera to take on the water yet, so no photos of the actual trip, but we will get there soon.

We started off on the main river.  And being Easter weekend, we had to contend with the multitude of speed boats dashing along.  Their water wakes proved interesting!  But just a short trip along and we headed down the back waters.

The river creeks were surrounded by tall weeds.  There were no banks we could dock at, it was just glorious reeds with birds nesting in them.  You could hear them rustling as we glided by and occasionally you would see heads poking out looking at us.

After a time the waters then opened up to a massive area that looked like a large lake it was so wide.  We found another back water off this and headed down it.  We were gliding through thick weeds, avoiding sunken logs and ducking under REALLY low bridges.  It was so peaceful and natural.

Soon we split up, with one half of the party going on to do the loop that a local had told us about and D and I turning around and heading back the way we came.

And this is the reason why!!!…

 

 

D designed this little addition of a dog bed to one of the old kayaks!   This photo is of Max’s first trip out on the water!  This trip that I am describing was just his second time out.

He really did very well, but certainly did give us a few more adventures on this trip than we would have!

The first one, was in the first few minutes!  The wakes of the speed boats came up and Max jumped up and leaned to the side of the canoe just as a wave hit and over they went!!  Max, the really strong swimmer he is, simply swam back to the launching spot, no worries.  A drenched D then followed suit and they started again.

Then, as we were heading into the back waters, we passed a camp site filled with dogs.  Max went nuts and eventually jumped off with D hanging on to the lead.  He wouldn’t get back on and we had to stop to lift him back on to his bed.

After that we had no troubles with him jumping in.  Some near calls, but D worked out the best way to have a short lead hooked in a slip knot.  He had to keep yelling at him to sit down, cause he would keep jumping up to look around, creating real balance problems.  But we soon worked out it was just Max being the nosey parker dog that he is.  He had to be able to see all of us at once.  He hated it when someone went ahead.  And if D was in the middle of the group, he would keep moving around and getting up to look forward and then behind to see everyone!

Once we split into two groups, he settled down as long as I stayed fairly close.

At one time, we saw a dog that we thought was in trouble.  Obviously D couldn’t go to check him out with Max, so off I raced of to see if she was ok.   Oh dear.  We were in the large open area at that point and you could probably hear M’s howls all around it.  He hated that I had gone.

The dog was fine and I came back.  “Pheww” said Max!  The other dog was so cute though.  She was paddling back and forth in the same spot, which is why we thought she was in trouble.  It turned out that her owner was a little further along a back water (doggy was at the entrance) working on fish traps and that spot was the dog’s walking track.  She stayed there the whole time, able to touch the bottom, and walked back and forth in the water!   Soooo cuuuuute!!  I am very glad though, that I checked on her.

The only other concern that we had with Max, was near the end, when we saw a very large sheep right on the bank.  Keep in mind that Max is a cattle dog!!!  We were so worried.  If he had seen the sheep, that would have been the end of it.  We were still surrounded by the weeds and I don’t know how we would have handled it.

But fortunately we were also nearing the campsite filled with dogs and Max was so intent on that that he didn’t even see the sheep!  Pheww.  And then to finish the trip off beautifully, we had no problems passing the campsite this time.  Yea!

Everyone who saw us oohed and aahed over Max.  Said how cute he was and took photos of the dog on the kayak!  I think there will be storytelling and photos of us for some time to come amongst people Easter photos!

It was a great trip at my old high school kayak stomping grounds of the Murray River backwaters.  I just loved it!!

For you Jane.  A picture of the new kayak we bought.  We bought two of them, so we have four now.  Two of the old ones above and two of the new ones.  This photo is of our local tidal river near the sea entrance.  It is where we started our trip last time.  I’d love to see a photo of your kayak as well!