Albury to Richardsons Bend - October 31st 2015

Simon and I set out from Melbourne on Saturday morning in order to resume our journey down the Murray River. Tony is joining us from Yarrawonga.

Although the weather was fine as we left home it was raining steadily when we reached Albury 3 hours later. We went to Noruiel Park to see the "put in" point. The river was flowing quite fast and we decided to hold off launching until the rain stopped. We went into the shopping plaza for lunch and kept an eye on the rain radar. By 2.00 pm the rain was clearing away and we went back to the river to unload the kayaks and gear. I took my car to the railway car park and then walked back to the river.

The river seemed to have slowed a little and we launched without drama and quickly passed the 2192 distance marker. These markers show the distance to the river mouth at Goolwa. Unfortunately despite appearing on my map many of these signs have disappeared, occasionally they are in the wrong spot and sometimes they are there but not shown on the map. They are very useful in confirming where you are on the river. The 2192 marker was upside down. I managed to get both Simon and the marker in the picture. The markers gave us an indication of our travelling speed. At this stage we were hurtling down the mighty Murray at about 8 km per hour. It had been 12 months since our last leg. Joe was the only one of us still working fulltime. Tony's kayak had made a remarkable recovery after the incident last year and we are much more experienced paddlers.

Although the weather remained overcast we were able to paddle until 6.00 pm before pulling off the river at Richardsons Bend after 33 km. Richardsons Bend is a Parks Victoria camping ground. We had to scramble up the bank as there was only a narrow spot at river level.

The top of the bank was being revegetated so we had to set up our tents about 30 metres from the river. We could see some other campers nearby but there was no one about. We discovered a boat ramp and more campers a bit further down the river the next day.

We had our evening meal of pasta and sardines in tomato sauce before heading for bed. It was a lovely evening and the sky was full of stars later in the night.