New Year's eve was the longest day of the trip. We ended up paddling 43 miles. Too far. We could have camped earlier but didn't. Around 8:30, it was getting dark and we were passing an small town called Picnic Point. I'm not sure it is really a town or if it's just a bunch of holiday homes, a campground, and the Tarragon Lodge.

We passed a big party on shore. Some guy yelled to us to pull over and have a beer. Well, we never turn down free beer (especially here where they have Canada style high prices). We pulled in (the drunks just about dumped us trying to help) and they gave us beers and also said they had a steak dinner just about ready.

After dinner I played Scotland the Brave for them and they went berserk. They made me play again and again. They stood on the tables and danced (not nearly the gusto I have seen on other occasions though). They even danced to the Godfather. Finally I played the Australian National Anthem. (I brought the sheet music with me). That blew them away. They started singing at the top of their voices. They called me "bungee", I know not why. But they sang me "For he's a jolly good fellow" and then someone yelled out "3 cheers for bungee!" We were absolute heroes for the night.

The next morning we got baked out of the tent as usual. I wandered over to where the canoe had been tied. It was gone! I felt awful. All I could think was, "I let some drunk tie my boat up, and I didn't even check it! Stupid Stupid Stupid." The current is slight so I figured we would recover the boat, but we left a lot of gear in it and I figured it would probably have capsized against and overhanging tree.

We started walking downstream looking between every tree looking for it. Only about 20 yards from our tent, we found it! And to our shock, it was tied up! I don't know how it got there. It scares me that those completely drunk strangers paddled out canoe in the dark. Joan pointed out that it was tied next to a little fishing boat with an outboard and probably they had towed it there, maybe as a joke.

We floated away quietly, leaving quite a mess. No one there even knew our last name.

The next day was tough. I had a headache (for some reason) and Joan felt worse than me. This part of the river is called "the narrows." We saw no skiiers here. Just fishing boats. I would have been quite nice had we felt better. Also the temperature was about 100 degrees.

At about 3pm we walked about 1 mile inland to an Aboriginal Cultural Center and had a look around. Brent, who we met the night before, said this was an especially good cultural center. It had a lot of artifacts but I didn't get much of a feel for aboriginal culture I'm afraid.

In the next day or so, we arrived in Echuca, one of the largest towns on the river. We wanted to see the town so we checked into the offical campground and carried the canoe and all our stuff about 300 yards.

We spent 4 lazy days in Echuca. We saw the old wharf where paddle wheelers once carried people and river red gums up and down the river. It was a major inland port in the last half of the 19th century. I like the paddle wheel boats but they are minature by Mississippi standards.

In town we drank milk shakes, read magazines and newspapers, developed some film, and tasted wine. We also checked email. I don't know how it took us 4 days to do that.

One lucky thing: we discovered that we left our Newton solar panel at the Tarragon Lodge on New Year's. We called the lodge, they found it, and someone who was heading to Echuca that very same day delivered it to us. We were quite lucky.

Finally we departed. I had hoped that by now it was long enough past the holidays that the ski boats and campers would have thinned out some. I was wrong.

At one point, a young skier deliberately came right next to us and turned sharply, completely soaking us. The action infuriated me. More than that, it put me in a murderous rage. Given the oppurtunity I might have seriously hurt that kid. We live in that canoe and all day make room for those noisy ski boats. I felt violated. Whether I like it or not it's more their river than ours. But I still demand respect. I turned around and with a volume I am not sure I have every produced before, I yelled "Fuck You" twice. They heard me over their engine too.

Five minutes later we saw a police boat. We had seen it about an hour before but had never seen another police boat on the river. We flagged them down and told them what happened but we did not know the name of the boat or even what color it was. I wish I had noted the name instead of yelling.

Two days later we reached another dam, the Torumbarry weir. This one has a lock but there was not enough water in the river to operate the lock for some reason. This weir is less than 10 years old. I don't know why they built it that way. I was looking forward to going though locks in a canoe but no dice. Instead a guy from the lock came to the boat ramp with a truck and helped us load everything in the trailer then drove us around the weir. There was no charge.

We had to wait an hour or so. In the meantime we met a really nice retired couple from Fanny Bay Canada - a little town on Vancouver island that we bicycled though last July. Marshal and Joann Rae. They have travelled a fair amount in Canada, US, Mexico and elsewhere. They were a bit disappointed in Australia. They too were having trouble getting away from people. Everywhere they go they ran into crowds. It's funny they had the same problem in a car as we had on the river.

next: The River Gets Better, The Weather Gets Worse

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