Day 5 - Murrabit to Swan Hill

Participants : Scot, Nick, Eddie, Simon and Cory.

Support Crew : Ron, Carmel, Eliza, Margaret, Bruce and Gerald

Thank goodness, last day of the paddle! We started sprightly at 8.16 this morning after driving in from our overnight accommodation in Koondrook. The whole course today was private property so there was a degree of mystery as to whether the support crew would catch us along the was or we would end up Man vs Wild style needing to drink our own urine and eat raw possum. Luckily the persistent Weinert found a way in although it was 2 hours after we expected.

Along the way today we met a very chatty Mrs Schultz (nee Riley) who gave us the full history of the area and her family's story right back to the 1890's when her father rode a horse from Lancefield to Murrabit in a hurry to try and secure some land.

The story quickly covered the next 100 years of local history according to Mrs Schultz in dispersed with a gaze across the river that caught her attention "Oh wow look at that, gum trees grow so quickly... my father stood in line waiting to buy land..." It was hard to keep a straight face. After about 30 minutes we had let go of the bank (like Leonardo's hand slipping out of Rose's as he sinks into the ocean at the end of Titanic) and let the current drag us slowly away drifting peacefully as Mrs Schultz (nee Riley) waved us of from the bank.

That was a nice break in another long day as Eddie, Simon and Cory chatted to locals and Scot and Nick played Bang Bang to pass the time, shooting birds in the trees with their imaginary guns.

Swan Hill came not soon enough as each boat struggled into the finish line after covering 404km in 5 long days. The first boat scored a massage and the other boats were welcomed by Jeremy (Executive Director of MSRA) who has flown down from Sydney to join us tomorrow. Bring on the bike!

Start time : 8.16am
Last boat : 7.23pm