Day 14
Travel Location: Renmark,Australia
We woke up early to the quaking of the frogs and the singing of the birds (if you call this singing). Because we only have two days we decided to depart early and have breakfast while cruising. This is quite a nice feeling, sitting on the veranda in the shade eating bread and sipping coffee while driving up the river.
The scenery did not change much from yesterday. It is a nice river landscape, the occasional tree in sticking out of the water indicating an earlier much lower water level. The current level is maintained by nine locks along the entire river. By lunchtime we reached point 381 which means 381 river miles from where the river enters into the ocean. We haven’t figured out what exactly river miles are and if they are the same as miles in the UK or nautical miles. In total we travelled 52 miles with the boat.
Just when we spotted a possible landing spot for our lunch break, we saw three Kangaroos on the river bench, one of them sipping water. Of course, I was too slow with the camera and they fled from the oncoming boat. But some more trouble was ahead for us. It is not possible to see more than a few centimetres below the water surface and we were not sure if this is a shallow area (a sandbank we were warned about). Just a meter from the shore we hit ground. We set the engine astern (back) and lucky enough it pulled free. Well, we tried another spot with more success.
The afternoon was very hot with 34 degrees and we turned back, heading towards our starting point which was still 7 hours away. For dinner, we parked just a few miles from our destination. After a hot day, what is better than a refreshing jump into the water? I realized the river is pretty cold and after a few strokes I felt cooled down enough to go out of it. While I was swimming, two ducks came to the boat. We fed some bread and they kept staying with us (even after the feeding) until it was dark. Just standing on the shore and watching the river. Cruising on the river, a truly relaxing experience.
