3rd - 9th January 2015 – Augusta – fine cool sunny clouds 15c-23c

Weather wise, it still has been cool.  The afternoons are clear skies, warm and sunny and on some days no breeze at all.  On the weekend, we did a little local walking and visited the town markets on Sunday Morning.

The Lions Coffee & Book Store is a wonderful concept.  It is run by Augusta Lions and they sell donated books to raise money.  It is beautifully set out like a regular book store with lounges and coffee available.  The books are so well priced.  I bought a set of very old books for the covers (canvas) and colours to use as a decorative piece. 

 We also bought three Argosy Short Story books from 1958 with excellent short stories with a twist. These were $1.50 each – online at Amazon they are $10-$20 each. We will donate our books that we have read and buy a couple more for reading on the road.

At the Sunday Markets, we picked up some lime chutney more DVD’s – getting quite a little collection, but they are so cheap second hand over here.   We also worked on getting the kayak up onto the roof basket so we can take it up further in the Blackwood River.

Monday -  the most perfect day – We are heading off to Wrights Road to the low crossing over the Blackwood River to launch the kayak and take a trip up river.

We drove up to Karridale and across to Wrights Road and had to take the first road, as shown on our map, not the most direct.  This was because on our first visit the road straight down to the Brockman Highway has a tree across it and we would not clear it with the kayak on the roof basket.

When we returned home, we turned off at Glenarty Road and did a dog leg return trip.

We figure that we paddled at least 5 – 6 kms up the river.  We surprised ourselves just how far we had gone when we did the return paddle.  That was assisted with a slow flow downstream.

  This is the start of the paddle at the river crossing. 

   There were a lot of tiddlers in the shallows.

 

About half way, we found a flat mooring, so we could get out and stretch our legs.  We had been paddling about 20 minutes short of two hours.  We had pulled into the shade a few times for a brief rest as it was quite hot paddling into the sun.  The river had heaps of twists and turns and lots of trees down.  We came across one spot where a tree was completely blocking the narrows, but managed to zig zag our way through the branches.  The best thing about this Kayak is it’s unbelievable shallow draft, we only need about 10cm of water to clear over obstacles.

The water was lovely and clean and you could see for a couple of metres down.  We saw a few large fish in there – looked like Perch.  We annoyed a few cormorants along the river, they are not smart, they keep flying ahead and roosting, only to have us come along and off they set again.  Finally after quite a few kilometres, they turned and flew overhead, only to have to play the same game again.

 

The next video is us amongst the trees, unfortunately it really needs two of us to manoeuvre through tight obstacles and as I wasn't paddling, and Glen is in the back, he couldn't see where to go.  So this was the best I could do to show you how well the kayak does amongst obstacles.

 

 

Since Monday, the wind has been gusting anywhere from 47 kmh to 66 kmh - all the seagulls have left.  These gusts almost blow you over.  The camper is standing well against it.  We have been making the most of it by doing some reading, finalizing more house build and doing some walks around town.  Perth was in the mid 40's, we at 200 km south of Perth, were sitting with jumpers on and temps in the very low 20's.

 

 

We were certainly glad that we picked a top day for our trip up the Blackwood River.  We also took the opportunity to do a repack of the camper trailer and have packed the new roof bag on top of the car.  We seem to have more space than when we first started - I think our packing has got a lot better.  I mailed home a couple of parcel bags of things that we had purchased along the way, to save carting them all around Australia. 

 

One kite surfer today went up around 20 metres into the air - fairly dangerous sport in these winds.  There was more lift than his body weight.