BT's Murray Adventure 2007: Day 13

I was certainly worried about my equine friends crashing the party and at 3am there was a huge splash and the sound of something large moving through the water. That had me feeling completely edge but relaxed when I came to the realisation that there was nothing I could do regardless. Startling a horse at close range with my headlight could be more dangerous than just going back to sleep. At first light I was up in a shot and sure enough the brumbies were back in the scrub just behind me. They quickly retreated when I appeared. I was happy to be back on the river with less than 75km to my new destination. It was only just over one big day on the river. The first part of the days journey was through 'The Narrows' between the wetlands in Barmah forest. The river and vegetation closes in through this reach so much so that you would swear it was a completely different river. It was perhaps the most tranquil couple of hours of the journey. Immediately after passing through the narrows and after Barmah the river changes completely! Suddenly the river banks go from being approximately 1m high to reaching heights of 5-8m towards Echuca. The now extremely wide and open chasm that was the Murray River became like and oven and in the endeavour to progress a huge distance I was really beginning to suffer from heat stroke. I took another 3pm break to allow some more shadows to spread across the river. The final stint in the afternoon was more pleasant. I crossed paths with the fourth and final snake. Funny coincidence that every one was swimming from Victoria to NSW! At days end I had travelled 58km and had a megre 16km into Echuca on the Saturday. Meanwhile my sister was not to arrive until Sunday! After a few phone calls I finally found some accommodation for Saturday. I thought it might be nice for my sister and niece if I had a thorough scrubbing before they arrived. After 13 days of being almost continuously covered in dirt it was going to take some time to remove.