Expedition on the Woronora...

[khiemtran]

Another glorious winter's day in Australia's biggest city. This time Liem and I are on an expedition up the Woronora River, our local waterway.

Of course, any serious expedition needs a map...



Here's the Boatshed where we hired our canoe. There's also a very nice cafe there right by the water. As you can see, the tide is out and the water is very low. We were a bit worried we'd need to get out and walk.



Our goal today is to make it as far as Cathedral Rock. However there's a catch, besides the low tide, we also run into strong winds that keep turning us around.



Bit by bit, we work our way up the river, trying to find a path through the winds. I can keep us going forwards as long we're pointing into the breeze, but as soon as it catches us abeam, we need to turn and go with it or risk either capsizing or being driven into the bank. Here we are after turning back at what would prove to be our furthest point.



Besides the wind, we also have to watch out for running aground. We got stuck twice on this shallow portion. You might just be able to see from the photo that the water up ahead is only about ten centimetres deep. Luckily, we managed to push off with our paddles each time.



Heading back to the Boatshed now, and Liem gets some practice now that we're out of the wind. We're trying to stay right because the water is very shallow on the left.



We only made it about halfway to Cathedral Rock this time, but we had a lot of fun. If it hadn't been for the wind, we might have made it. But there's still plenty of time to fill out the rest of our adventure map...

Comments

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Thanks for taking us along on your kayaking trip. Very refreshing! :D

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! Hopefully we'll have a picture of Cathedral Rock to show soon too. It looks like there are all sorts of secret places up the river, many of which you can only get to by water.