Day 7 Nildottie to Purnong 32 km

Realising we can't fight the wind and win we decided to start early and cover as much distance as we could before the wind rose. Simon set the alarm on his phone for 5:30 am. I was awake and already packing before the alarm went off.

We skipped breakfast and started paddling at 6:15 am. The water was still and quiet - there were pelicans patrolling the river spaced apart every 50 metres. As we passed under the cliffs there were flocks of cockatoo squawking presumably making conversation. They are raucous noisy birds . Every now and then we would hear a plop and see a splash under tree hanging out over the river - a darter had dropped into the water to escape the approaching kayaks.

At the 1 hour mark we stopped for cheese and biscuits at Kroehns Flat. It was meant to be Wongala - the map and the river markers are in discord at the point. A sign on the reserve said Kroehns Reserve however the distance markers suggested we were 4 km further. The map did not agree with the markers all day.

After 3.5 hours we arrived at Walker Flat a quiet spot with a ferry and General Store. It was 11:20 and we were hungry so we ordered salad rolls at the store and ate them in the foreshore park. While we were there the Oscar W a paddle steamer from Goolwa passed through going upstream

the neighbors you don't want!

From there our next stop was Caunemont. Again the map was 4 km out. It took until 1:30 pm to get there. We expected to find camping there but it really didn't suit us. We cooked up some maggi noodles for 2nd lunch and ate them. The flies were annoying here. There was also some newly installed community exercise machines in the park that I tried out. They are quite cleverly designed using your own body weight for resistance.

PS Marion

We decided to move onto Purnong hoping to find better camping.

We  finished the day having paddled 35 km