The idea was they would travel down stream from a point near
Goornong to Avonmore on day 1, a distance of 17km. Day 2 would be
from Avonmore to Elmore, 12km. Little did they know that day 2 would
take about the same time even though it was 5km shorter. I wonder
why?
Despite there being water restrictions in Melbourne and days of
Total Fire Ban being called in the area of the trip, the water level
in the river was higher than we expected. Never the less, as can be
seen by some the photos, the trip was a little more difficult than
expected.
Would they do the trip again? Probably not for a long time.
We traveled to Ambre's grand parent's place on the Friday
night. They live 15 minutes from our starting point which
gave us the opportunity to pack everything in readiness for
the following day.
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Chris makes friends very easily. If he only knew what was
ahead, he could have used them to help carry the
canoes.
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Bright and early on Saturday morning we were greeted by
bacon and eggs a la Chris. He did the cooking, but Tim,
Kieran and Matthew had to do the washing up. There's a first
time for everything!!
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Chris ready for action.
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Daniel tries his best to stop Matthew from making him
look like a clown as well.
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The beginning of the end. Our intrepid canoers on the
water at the beginning of day one.
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Away they go. Hey, are you sure Elmore is that
way?
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The support team bought out the drinking water to the
overnight camp.
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Ambre's mum (and the canoe tow person for the weekend)
helped out with some running repairs to the P.F.D.'s on the
weekend.
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It was a very hot day, so it was out of the water with
the canoes to make way for swimming.
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Kieran was that keen on getting wet, so Matthew
helped.
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Contemplating (or was that recovering from) a days rowing
before the well deserved swim.
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The water must have been good, they spent enough time in
it during the day.
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Now I wonder if this branch will hold his weight.
Probably not.
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Day two and we say a fond farewell to Avonmore. If only
they knew what was ahead.
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Water was only ankle deep and our heavy persons didn't
quite make it past the ground. Nice little walk round
a few corners.
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One of the 1st obstacles, nothing much? Was I
wrong!
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We all wished we could cut the logs into tiny pieces.
After 17 on the 1st day and 15 on the second, we new every
type of tree that that river could hold.
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Daniel just making sure they were doing it
right.
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Chris and Matt were the only ones to SINK for the whole
weekend.....and they did it 5 times!!!
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And well with a little help from everyone we soon fixed
the problem (only to have to do it four more
times).
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Once again me (Ambre) and Daniel made it over with ease
and laughed at everyone else who tried.
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Under, round, over seemed to be all we knew.
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Elmore was only round the corner from here (so I kept
saying) but all we seemed to find was more
logs.
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Tim and Kieran cross the finish line.
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