Today I got a chance to do something that I haven't done very much of, and that's go for a solo paddle. Despite it being one of the nicest paddling days so far this year, Louise had booked the morning off to attend a Japanese Tea ceremony with Paula, leaving me to my own devices.
So the question became "where to to paddle?" Although fairly adequate at self-rescues, the only roll I can make with any reasonable amount of certainty is this one:
So I turned to the trusty old home port of The Gorge for a quick trip out to see if I could spot any baby geese or swans out yet.
Despite it looking deceptively calm, I was quickly reminded of the pull of the ebbing current as soon as I left shore as I was immediately pulled along (running right to left in the photo). Although it's many kilometres from the open ocean, it's still a salt-water tide affected inlet. The current was easily handled, but you can see from the GPS track at the bottom of this post that I was doing about 4 to 5 klicks an hour faster coming back with the current than I was heading out against it.
First I paid my respects to The Iron Man...
...then watched a heron enjoying some early morning fishing.
A little further up, a solitary swan was also enjoying an early paddle.
The water was crystal clear in some spots along The Gorge, a far cry from what it was like 50 years ago. Various groups and clubs have worked tirelessly through the years to return The Gorge to its past splendour and they've done a remarkable job, although every now and then you see that they haven't removed all the crap from these waters.
Two traffic pylons that are 150 metres from shore. Someone deliberately dumped them out here.
And the northern bank is not immune to indiscriminate acts of dumbassery, either. As a teenager I can remember walking along this shore and discovering that some yahoo had dumped all the solid cement garbage cans that were along the path in to the water.
And many decades later, they still remain, popping up for air at low tide.
Was I successful in my quest to see swan and/or geese babies? No. The local swans were still nesting by the looks of it...
...but one has to imagine that there will be swanlings hatching soon.
As for the geese...
...they were hanging out with a gold mermaid and a plastic heron. And I've got no idea what to make of that.
Trip Length: 7.54 km
YTD: 52.18 km
More pictures are here.
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