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A day from HELL!!!

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2008

Our last day in the wilderness, we camped in the middle of no where and it rained and was hugely windy ALL night.

We got up very early and it was still spitting with rain. We packed up ready to go as we had a goal to get to Renmark knowing we had press committments, but we couldn't make it there in time.

We had the most ferosious head winds we've had the whole trip, at one point we were paddling as hard as we could and were still going backwards.  It was actually a bit scary and certainly not fun.  Waves were crashing over the boats and hitting us in the chest that's how deep the waves were.  We were saturated.  It was by far the hardest day of paddling so far.

We got into Renmark at about 3.30pm, and we left early that morning at about 7am, so a huge day with an 8 hour paddle, and we didn't take a break because we were trying to get to the press.  By the time we got in we were totally exhausted. 

I'm talking a huge storm type wind with huge storm clouds rolling over the river land and we had a huge stretch of river with cliffs on one side and wet lands on the other side with the winds howling down the river and the cliffs just magnified the wind.  It made it worse becuase we knew that mum and dad and Patto's family were waiting for us, so it was really nice when we got there to see them.  They all stayed at the park with us which was great.

Make A Wish Riverland/Renmark were fantastic and they were there waiting for me, and they put up a banner and had a BBQ waiting for us. It was really nice.  I just want to say a big thank you to them for what they did, it meant a lot to me! 

We went to the Tower Tavern for dinner, so there were 7 of us and it was great.  I then ducked out to Andy's 40th birthday from Make A Wish, Renmark and I wanted to see them and say thanks for what they had done so that time was really nice!

Stayed at the Renmark Riverbend Caravan Park which was great, and just spending time with family was fantastic for both Patto and I!!!

Thanks again to the Make A Wish people up here.

Scottie.