Noosa - Day 3

Finally making it across, I entered the beautifully calm canals and smaller waterways which needed to be navigated (thankfully with the help of lots of signage on the river banks), to get to  Noosa Narrows.

The Noosa Narrows is where the upper Noosa River winds quietly through rainforest palms and gums. It was really nice.  I paddled up the river to a place called Harry’s Hut - 10k from the start point and gave myself a leisurely 1/2 hour break and half my lunch.  People come this way for 1 or 2 night trips which would be fun to do with Jon and the kids sometime. 

After checking out the local wildlife including a huge goanna I jumped back in the boat and paddled 5k back down river to Fig Tree Point which is where our official lunch stop was. I ate the rest of my lunch on the jetty, relaxing and chatting with the other paddlers.  

Back in the boat, the return trip across the lake was even harder as the cross wind had picked up and rainy squalls were passing through. Everyone looked pretty glad to make it back to the launch point - and for those who hadn’t done much paddling before it was a pretty impressive effort to cover at least 14k with 9 of it in trying conditions.  My shoulders were feeling pretty tired - it’s probalby been a year since I’ve been paddling but it was really great to get a solid 20k done in such a lovely area.

Back on land there was further stuffing around loading boats and great then everyone headed off while I stayed to go for a run on the track network surrounding the launch area.  

It was mercifully flat and easy running so I racked up a very slow 10ish k before scraping my tired self back into the car and driving home, exhausted. Oh - on the way home, in fact just a few kilometres from the launch area, I drove past the kayak I had used lying battered and bruised on the side of the road - it had clearly fallen off the top of the trailer rack that we had loaded it and another 4 boats on to. Thinking back I don't remember seeing the driver tie the straps on that one, and I do remember thinking to myself at some point that there were so many straps and ties on the trailer it must be hard to work out what's tied on and what isn't. I was right.   Anyway it was an hour since the trailer left so I drove back to the initial meeting point and let them know about it - they hadn't even noticed it was missing yet.