Sunday 28 August 2022 Cuttagee : a further 500m up the Creek

 Despite the forecast wind it was a late start - one household wanting to catch up on Stage 8 of the Vuelta and the other to watch The Insiders. So, it wasn't until 10.30am that we made it onto the water just as the breeze was starting to pick up on an otherwise warm winter's day.

As we set off we could see a boat way off in the distance, too far to hail, we realised it was A also taking advantage of the balmy weather.

As you will see in the video the breeze strengthened as we turned into the main lake and not long after L deployed his sail and yet again the breeze immediately died away. Leaving him to wrestle with the sail, the rest of us paddled on and  turned into Woolybutts Bay. L & A crossed paths at the mouth of the cove and stopped for a chat while we circumnavigated the bay.

Collecting L, we kept to the northern shore, exploring the next couple of bays before turning to cross the lake and head back up into the mouth of the creek.  Once again, L deployed the sail, this time with a little more luck - the wind held while he was blown across the lake and a short way up the creek.  It must have been his longest sail so far - all of 600m or so!

At the entrance to the Backwater we could see the water level had risen a little more and a subtle air of excitement wafted over the water - would we get further up the creek?

After the delight of seeing a couple of schools of fish dart between the boats and following a pair of kingsfishers up the creek we reached the limit of our last paddle and found we could paddle up to the Backwater ford. Then with a bit of hither and thither on the part of the lightweights and some heaving and shoving on the part of the heavyweights we were over the ford and with a little more hither and thither we were through onto deeper water. 

In all we made it another 500m further than the last paddle before coming across a branch blocking the creek (just beyond the blue kayak in the pic below).

We did briefly contemplate dragging our boats across, but it was 12.30pm, some of us were hungry and the pebbly beach looked most inviting. Here comes L - being in his composite kayak he had to be way more gentle with the heaving and shoving required to cross the ford.

So here were lingered, contentedly - for an hour and more we forgot all that was wrong in the world.

Upstream of the branch - promising further delights on our next Cuttagee paddle.

Starting to think about leaving, yet still lots to talk about.

We eventually dragged ourselves back onto the water at 1.40pm. Our return journey is covered in the video. Speaking of which; apologies there are a couple of  "oh f....s" in the footage - blame it on the fish. The first is me when a fish jumped out of the water between the kayak and the very close shoreline giving me a fright and the second when we saw the second school of fish which I hope you can spot in the video footage. As regular readers will know, with the frequent depredation of the lake by the commercial fisherman with his nets, fish spotting is now a rare and therefore exciting occurrence.

With only 100m or so left to paddle we had a last delight of another wedge of swans flying by and the jump of a lonely fish before ending our paddle at 2.50pm.

Trip Notes:

12.25kms

4hrs 20mins