Setev kayaking
Day 2 Report

Day 2 - 13/4/08 - Karalee to Summerville Road
The old body struggled a bit this morning but I was on the water at 8.30 and headed 8km upstream against the tide to Colleges Crossing. You can see by the photo of the pipes that my training on log jams on the Condamine was not in vain.

The hills between Colleges Crossing and Kholo Bridge were steep and it was hot but it was only a 7km overland trip.

Once back on the river I found out how hard it is going upstream on the Mid-Brisbane River. Everything is different against the current and many of the areas that you don't remember when traveling down the river become significant obstacles. Rocks become your friend as you paddle flat out up to one and then launch out from behind it into the current.

This is natural. This is good. What is not good is the water hyacinth. It depresses me. It is not the actual hyacinth that depresses me it is mankind. It is our fault it is there. I have been campaigning to get rid of it for a year and a half. Channel 7 has featured it a few times. A year ago I had a response from the Queensland Water Commission which was pages of government speak (code for bugger off we donít care). This is the same Commission that says trust us, you need Traveston Crossing Dam. Have a look at what they have done to the Mid-Brisbane River and then decide how much you should trust them with the Mary River.

Check out the photo with the bubbling water. This is some sort of discharge into the river. You can see the pipe coming down. I wonder what it is? I wonder how its quality is checked and verified?

The pump in the photo is fairly typical for the electric pumps you see on the river. It is nothing compared with the one on the Darling River eh! Of course, unlike the Darling River ones, these were not metered during the drought.


What do you think of the cows in the river? You know what cows do. You need to be thankful to Brisbane Water who cleans this stuff up to five star quality for you to drink. Then there is the recycled water which is six star quality. Swanbank power station gets some of that now which is a whole lot better for them than from their pump station which you can see with some water hyacinth in front of it



John picked me up at Summervilles Road, 85km from the start point. Not bad in two days given how tough it was against the obstacles. We might even get close to the bottom of Wivenhoe Dam wall by tomorrow night.





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