Life has been a tiring but simply amazing maelstrom of experiences since then as Shell and I enjoy our first few days as a family of three. There doesn’t seem to be much free time to write eloquent blog posts as a new parent, but I’ve finally managed to find a few spare minutes to upload some pictures of Ronan for you to at least share in some of our indescribable and all consuming joy.

Inspired by looking through photos in preparing my slideshow, I’ve finally posted a few more photos from our trip to Bhutan up on the web. Head over to my Flickr page (or more specifically, my Bhutan Photo Set) to see them. There are lots more photos to process and publish – especially film photos from our non-digital SLR. I’ll place those up on Flickr as time permits.

All this thinking about Bhutan has also inspired me to finally start reading the book on Dzongkha, the official Bhutanese language, that I bought a few months back. Fascinating reading so far!

Ater a week in Thailand, our flight from Bangkok Airport was scheduled to leave at 5:50am, meaning an obscenely early start from our hotel in downtown Bangkok. At the airport, we arrived well ahead of Druk Air staff, who eventually showed up sometime after 4am. Whilst waiting, we met a lovely couple from Brisbane who were also heading off to Paro to do the same trek as us. Although we assume that we would be trekking together, they ended up walking in the smaller World Expeditions group.

Unexpectedly, our flight actually had a brief stop-over in Kolkata in eastern India; well, not really a stop-over, since those of us on the plane didn’t even disembark, but passengers alighted and boarded around us.

Once on the final leg to Paro, the scenery was apparently pretty spectacular, with views of Everest, Kanchen Junga and other Himalayan peaks. Unfortunately, we were seated on the wrong side of the plane to see most of this :-/. Despite that, however, the scenery was still pretty impressive, as was the spectacular landing into Paro. Apparently, the Airbus 319 we were flying in is pretty much the largest plane that can actually land at Paro; certainly anything with a wider wingspan would surely be clipping trees and valley spurs as the plane banked from side-to-side on approach, based on how close the mountains, trees and houses appeared to be to the wing tips on our descent.

Paro airport is just possibly the most picturesque international airport in the world! All the buildings (right down to the air-traffic control tower and terminal building) reflect traditional Bhutanese architecture. The short drive from Paro Airport to our hotel also showcased the bold and colourful traditions of Bhutanese architecture and design in the shops and houses that we passed. Adding to this colour was the traditional dress of ghos and kiras, worn by many of the people going about their business.

One of the must-see attractions in Paro is the Taktsang Monastery, otherwise known as ‘Tigers Nest’. Spectacularly perched on the edge of a sheer cliff, it is a 1.5 – 2 hr hike up to the viewing point, level with the monastery. Bear in mind that Taktsang is actually at about 2800m, which is about as high as Mt Kosciuszko – the highest point in Australia.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to hike all the way to the monastery , since access is generally limited to monks. From our vantage point across a gorge, we had spectacular views of Taktsang and back down into the Paro valley. Despite it’s status as a must-see attraction, we passed surprisingly few tourists on the track. This was when it actually started to hit home that, even with the recent interest and coverage of Bhutan as a travel destination, for the moment at least, it remains off the beaten track.

A short walk down the hill from the museum is the Paro Dzong. En-route to the Dzong, we were approached by three enterprising young Bhutanese kids calling out ‘Photo! Photo!’. After taking their picture, they asked whether we had anything to give them. Alas, we had nothing, but I’m sure their technique must work on many visitors!

There are a large number of dzongs (fortresses) throughout northern Bhutan, built in strategic positions to provide advance warning of invading Tibetans. Today, the Dzongs often contain both government offices and the monastic body, and the Paro Dzong is no exception. The buildings are amazingly impressive and grand, and dwarf just about everything else in the area.

We spent a bit of time in the Paro township, exploring the local shops, taking photos, buying stamps and posting cards to family, as well as stocking up on last minute essentials for our trek such as chocolate and prayer flags (blessed by a monk no less!). Unsurprisingly, the variety of goods available was not huge, so we were stuck with chocolate coated cashews that ended up tasting like cough medicine, and small, crumbly cadbury chocolate bars from India (that still tasted damn good at about 5000m in the cold!!).

Our time in Paro was, alas, quite brief, and before we’d quite explored everything around us, we were packed and ready to embark on the first day of our 14 days trekking through the Himalaya in western and northern Bhutan – which I’ll be posting more about in the coming days and weeks.

Below is a sample of photos from our time in Paro. Again, I’ll eventually have a whole gallery setup to showcase a more extensive collection of pics, but for now, you can at least have a peek into the photographic story of our time in Paro.

We’ve called him Dorje, which is a Dzongkha word meaning thunderbolt, and is also a common Bhutanese name. At only 3 or 4 weeks old, Dorje is still incredibly tiny, so we’ll have to wait another 4 weeks or so before we’ll be able to bring him home. We did, however, get to play with Dorje and his siblings for about an hour at the vet clinic this afternoon, and the vet nurse told us we could drop by whenever we wanted over the next few weeks to spend time with him.

The trek was almost certainly the most physically and mentally demanding activity I have ever undertaken, but was equally fascinating and stunning at the same time. Our trekking was hampered by unseasonably bad weather, including rain, sleet and (a lot of) snow, along with temperatures ranging from -10 to 35 degrees during the course of the trek.

The remote areas of Bhutan in which we spent the bulk of our time really are like walking back a few hundred years to medieval times. The villages have no roads, in fact, no vehicle access at all (not by air or by land) – everything is brought in on yaks, ponies or carried by people who, like us, must make the multiple-day trek along steep, narrow, rocky paths from the nearest road-accessible towns. There is (of course) no mains power or water.

Over the next few days (and probably weeks), I hope to publish a selection of photos and stories from our epic journey in the mountains. Feel free to leave any comments or questions as they arise – Bhutan is a truly fascinating country that I’m still very interested in learning much more about.

Under any other circumstances, I would have stayed in bed most of Friday feeling sick and sorry for myself. As it was, I had yet another unavoidable early morning start, since we had an interview candidate who we had specially flown out from St Petersburg in Russia as a candidate for our software engineering position. Friday was the 1 day he had to spend with me in Sydney, given that I would be on leave (recovering from the Classic) on Monday, and he would spend Tuesday and Wednesday meeting the rest of our team in Canberra, before completing his epic journey back to Russia. As a result, I was up and in the office early, preparing and fine-tuning problems for our Russian candidate to work on. I spent most of the day in a rather intense discussion and problem solving sessions with our inevitably jet-lagged candidate, and by the end of our day, I was probably as exhausted as he felt. Thankfully, after pumping myself full of herbal and cold-and-flu tablets, I was feeling a little (but not a whole lot) better by Friday night. Another carbo-loaded meal of pasta shared with our dads was followed by shopping for last minute food and drink essentials (gatorade, bananas, high-protein snack foods etc), ready for our big endurance test. The rest of the evening was spent gathering all our gear and supplies for the Classic, deciding on expected checkpoint times for our race plan and preparing last minute equipment.

The day of the Classic dawned rather overcast and cool. Long range forecasts from the weather bureau had originally predicted thunderstorms and showers, but this had been revised to the chance of afternoon showers but an otherwise fine and clear day and night. I woke feeling a bit brighter than Friday, but still far from on top of the world. After some cold and flu tablets and a big breakfast of weetbix, tinned fruit and pancakes, we loaded up the car with PFDs, paddles, food, camelbacks, clothes, maps, compasses, torches and other essential paddling supplies and headed off up the M2 to the starting point at Windsor. Suffice to say with all that gear and 4 people in Starla, we were rather squished in for the hour-ish journey to Windsor.

We arrived at the Macquarie Park starting point in Windsor around 11am and managed to find a good car park close to the scrutineering and registration areas. After filling out the necessary paperwork and submitting our donations raised for the Arrow Foundation we joined the long, snaking queue to have our boat and associated gear scrutineered. By this stage, the sun was out and beating down rather fiercely, turning the chocolate bars that we had received at registration into liquid chocolate mush (which still tasted just fine I might add ). For as much of the time as possible, Shell and I sheltered in whatever shade was available to avoid the searing heat of the sun. I should add that the only reason we were able to do this is because we were very well looked after by our landcrew fathers – they enthusiastically lugged our rather weighty kayak everywhere it needed to go to get through scrutineering and prepare for our start later in the afternoon. It was certainly a nice change from our usual struggles to lug a fully laden kayak down to the water’s edge before paddling!

After all the formalities were through, it was still not even 12 noon, and our start in the classic (as a 2 person kayak in the Brooklyn or Bust non-competitive class) was not until 4:30pm, so we had plenty of time to sit back, graze on some food and watch the frenetic energy and adrenalin of people preparing around us. It was difficult to relax knowing what was ahead of us, but were thankful not to have to worry about the additional pressures of paddling in a competitive class with time pressures. By about 1pm, the sun had disappeared behind some very ominous looking grey clouds, and we quickly loaded most of our gear back into the car or into the kayak holds and covered up the kayak cockpits with taped-down plastic garbage bags (we don’t have spray decks for the kayak yet). Shortly afterwards, the heavens opened. We retreated quickly under-cover, snagging one of the last available tables, and loaded up (and I mean stacked far beyond the brim!) $5 plastic tubs with pasta, hot chips, fish fillets and salad from the buffet that was available as our final act of carbo-loading preparation. We grazed through our mountains of food and drinks for more than an hour as the rain fell around us.

Finally, time ticked over to 2:45pm when the race briefing for all landcrew and paddlers was held. Thankfully, the rain had just about stopped by the time the briefing began. After having paddled in each and every one of the familiarisation paddles, there was very little new material in the briefing, but we did all get to admire the paddling team that had won the auction for boat number 007 in the eBay auction, and had dressed up for their paddle in full black tie gear, complete with water pistols, and landcrew dressed in white lab coats with ‘M’ and ‘Q’ on their backs.

After the briefing, our diligent landcrew struggled with our fully-laden boat down to the marshalling area, ready for our 4:30pm start. In the meantime, the single kayak Brooklyn or Bust paddlers got themselves onto the water for their 4pm start, while Shell and I began some warm-up stretches to prepare our bodies for the 16 hours of paddling ahead. In the spirit of our preparation not going to plan, I managed to pinch a nerve in my back while stretching. After a few minutes of rather excruciating pain, I managed to gingerly stretch out my back again, hoping that I would hold together long enough to get seated in our kayak and at least attempt paddling.

Finally, it was time for us to get on the water, and after passing through the final safety and scrutineering checks of our boat and supplies, our two dads struggled to carry our kayak down to the water’s edge. Final stretches, quick goodbyes and good lucks, and we were finally on the water, milling around awaiting our starting instructions. The start was a rather involved affair, with all the boats required to gather at one point then slowly keep pace with the starting official walking along the bank to the defined start point, being careful not to overtake him at any point. Shell and I positioned ourselves somewhere in the middle of the pack, close to the left-hand bank. One false starter’s pistol firing later (mental note to the starter: you need a cap in the gun to make a starter’s pistol noise ) and we were finally off.

The first stretch of the Classic was very familiar to us, being the stretch of the river that we had paddled twice last weekend in our 60km paddle. As a result, we had a very good idea of how at least the early stages of the paddle would unfold for us, and how long we would take to reach the first checkpoint 12.4 km downstream. I think this was a great help mentally, since we knew it would take more than an hour to reach the first checkpoint and to actually feel like we were making progress – but that after that point, our progress would seem to improve, partly because the tide that started against us for the first 20 minutes or so would turn favourable, and partly because the first checkpoint is one of the longest single-checkpoint stretches on the river. Within our first hour on the water, it started to rain again, and a few people that paddled past us asked us what we were expecting to do if our kayak filled up with water (given that we didn’t have any spray decks to cover the cockpit openings). Despite the rain, we really didn’t get much more wet than paddle splash would otherwise have caused. We managed to paddle through checkpoint A and probably got somewhere past checkpoint B (about 20km downstream from the start) before it really began to get dark (from what I can remember). By that stage, it had also stopped raining.

Our first major milestone was reaching Checkpoint D at Sackville, which we reached about 10 minutes ahead of our own schedule at a shade after 8pm, feeling pretty good after 31km of paddling. After a brief (and welcome) pause to wait for the car-ferry to cross at Sackville, we paddled on past the flood-lit and massively crowded beach at Sackville, checking in and out without stopping. Our goal was to reach the next checkpoint at Dargle (40.8km from the start) before stopping for our first pit stop. Of course, drinking as much as we were, our bladders were emptied somewhere along the banks of the Hawkesbury long before we reached Dargle. Having passed Sackville, our paddle to Dargle was completed pretty much in darkness; the sun had well and truly set, and the moon was not scheduled to rise until after midnight. Despite the darkness which made map reading difficult, the same eerie collection of cyalume lights that we enjoyed last weekend provided a guide for the river’s turns ahead. This was made even easier, given that by this stage, many of the later-starting competitive paddlers were sailing past us at semi-regular intervals, providing a continuous series of lights ahead of us. To be fair to ourselves, this included such impressive sights as a 12 person outrigger and slipstreaming 2-person TK2 kayaks that all powered past us somewhere on that stretch of the river.

We arrived at Dargle about 20 minutes ahead of schedule at about 9:10pm. As we searched for a spot to pull into the very crowded beach, we heard the loud voices of our landcrew calling to us from the shore – loud dad voices are very useful at times like that!! As our first official checkpoint where we had the support of our landcrew, Nigel and Leigh were raring to go – I think they felt they were in some sort of time-trial pit crew operation! With speedy efficiency, they pulled our boat onto the shore, helped us out, and had refilled our camelbacks with Gatorade, swapped over our maps for the next stage, sponged out the kayak cockpits and re-stocked our snack supplies before Michelle and I had really even had a chance to head off to the toilet block! After just over 30 minutes at Dargle and with some welcome food intake of muffins and bananas and even a quick massage of Dencorub into our tiring shoulder muscles, we were back in the kayak again for the next leg to Wisemans Ferry.

By this stage, the tide had turned against us again, but we had factored this into to our expected arrival time at Wisemans Ferry, 24 kms down stream from Dargle. As much as possible, we tried to stay close to the shore to minimize the drag of the tide on our rather wide kayak. Unfortunately, this was made rather difficult given that the night was almost pitch-black by this point, so realistically, much of our paddling was down the middle of the river to avoid running into unseen trees, branches, fences and other obstacles, at the cost of additional tidal drag.

After a few more hours of paddling through the night, we finally arrived at Wisemans Ferry shortly after 1am – about 30 minutes or so ahead of our expected arrival. Thankfully, our diligent landcrew was ready and waiting for us on the shore – again pulling our boat up out of the water as we arrived. Wisemans is 65km from the start and at a bit over half-way into the Classic is apparently the point that sees many people reach the limits of their endurance. As if to prove that point, as I climbed out of the kayak, my tired and wobbly legs almost gave way under me, very nearly resulting in me toppling backwards into the river. Thankfully, I just managed to regain my balance in time to avoid a very cold drenching. Again our kayak was sponged out, gatorade and food supplies were replenished and our bladders emptied. By this stage in the night, Shell’s shoulder was giving her quite a bit of pain – her shoulder injury is actually a niggling problem that dates from way back during our time in Weimar, Germany back in 99/2000 that flares up with any strenuous use of her shoulder muscles. With the help of our landcrew, we sought out the physio tent, and the fantastic volunteers there set to work on Shell’s shoulder. In the meantime, I also managed to get about 30 minutes of serious physio work done to my back, shoulders and upper arms – including a quick adjustment of a couple of vertebrae – that resulted in my whole body feeling far more relaxed, free and ready for further paddling than I could have possibly hoped. In the end, in fact, I ended up feeling guilty, since Shell’s more serious shoulder work was finished long before I finally peeled myself off the physio bench. I honestly don’t know how much further we would have got without the rebuilding physio work we both got though.

A quick change of most of our clothes into something warmer and drier, and we were raring to get back out on the water – well ok, maybe not raring, but after an hour at Wisemans, we were very wary of losing what little momentum we had left to get back out on the water. We bid farewell to our landcrew again shortly after 2am, headed for Spencer – our last scheduled pitstop before the finish at Brooklyn.

Luckily, we again had the tide behind us by this stage, and it’s worth noting that as we headed further and further downstream, the tides did become appreciably stronger. Of course, this was probably equally compensated for by our increasing fatigue as the night wore on and we got closer to the Pacific Ocean. As well as the darkness, as we pulled out of Wisemans, there was also a reasonable amount of fog beginning to close in around us – to the point that even knowing the water, we almost missed the first right-hand hook-turn out of Wisemans; thankfully Shell was the one who realised that the boat we thought was pulling into shore was actually following the curve of the river.

Not so long after we left Wisemans, we were busting for another “comfort stop” from our continual Gatorade intake, but in the darkness it was rather difficult to see a suitable landing spot. After scouting the shoreline for a few minutes, we spied with the aid of our maglite what we thought was a suitable spot with a small muddy looking beach. After maneuvering our less than agile kayak back across to the spot, Shell attempted to hop out of the kayak onto the shore. Unfortunately, the muddy bank was incredibly slippery, and Shell managed to slip knee deep into thick, sticky mud. At this stage, stuck in the back of the kayak and unable to do much to help, I had visions of Shell falling completely into the water, or sinking further and getting stuck in the mud much like her experience with a camper at Cooinda a few years back. Thankfully, by the time these thoughts had flashed through my mind, Shell had managed to recover her balance and crawl up onto the shore. After Shell carefully clambered back into the front of our kayak, it was then my turn to attempt to get out for a pee-break. After a couple of attempts, I had convinced myself that the only way I was getting out would involve a face plant into mud or a drenching in river water. Instead, I managed to coax Shell into paddling about 50 metres further downstream where I had spied a small jetty and pontoon, figuring I might have a better chance of staying dry by getting out there. In fact, when we actually reached the jetty, we found a nice *concrete boat ramp* gently feeding into the river. A few quick strokes and I hopped out of the kayak onto firm concrete underfoot. A few more seconds of scouting would clearly have saved Shell sitting in mud for the rest of our paddle!!

As some reward for our troubles once we were both back in the kayak, we discovered that there was phosphorescence all around us in the murky, dark water. With every paddle stroke, the water literally glowed with thousands of tiny sparks of light – quite an amazing experience really given the darkness of everything else around us . The phosphorescence stuck around for a good few kilometres of paddling before it faded as quickly as it had arrived.

To say that this third stage of our paddle was physically and mentally challenging would be a vast understatement. It was by now well and truly the middle of the night, and although the moon had begun to peak over the cliffs at certain points, it was mostly obscured by cloud and fog, meaning that visibility was still far from the ‘full-moon brightness’ about which we had heard others tell tales. It was difficult to follow our progress on our maps, and we were still 46kms from the finish. Still, we plodded on, simply willing our shoulders, arms, backs and abs to complete one more stroke, just one more stroke, just one more stroke. Slowly, dawn light began to fill the sky from around 4:30am providing us with renewed energy, and slowly we kept eating up the kilometres. One mental setback was when we approached checkpoint K, convinced that we had already passed 2 checkpoints since Wisemans Ferry – unfortunately, we were incorrect, and had to recalibrate our ideas of how far we had travelled.

By far one of the highlights of this difficult leg was our arrival at the “Low-Tide Pitstop”, positioned shortly after Checkpoint L, about 85km from the start. As we rounded the hair-pin bend we were greeted by a roaring fire, welcoming greetings and a small, very welcoming cluster of paddlers already huddled around enjoying hot soup, warm coffee, scones and fruit cake. The pit stop is on a small, remote, otherwise deserted beach on the edge of some muddy mangroves, but I’ve rarely seen a sight so appealing! Without hesitation, we glided into the beach where we were assisted out of boat by Classic volunteers, who then proceeded to make us coffee and scones while we dried parts of ourselves by the fire (being careful not to get too close with all the flammable kayaking gear we were wearing!). In fact, the main person who looked after us, Tim, was someone we had met on the water in our very first familiarisation paddle from Brooklyn to Spencer return.

Tim cheerily told us that we had only 26km to go until Brooklyn, and that the tide would stay favourable for most of that way. With warm liquid in our bellies, caffeine in our veins and some warmth in our bones, we felt very positive about our chances of reaching the finish line. In fact, we even had time to chuckle over our new perspective of 26km of paddling: by that stage it seemed a relatively small distance to cover, but when we cast our minds back to the magnitude of an all-day paddle to Wally’s Farm on the Nicholson River during Cooinda, it was hard to believe we were thinking about the same distance. Anyway, with new found optimism, we hopped back into our kayak after about a 15 minute pit stop and headed back out on the river, but not before Tim also took the time to wash the soles of our water shoes of mud to avoid making the kayak cockpits dirty. Talk about service!!

Back on the river, we were soon passing through Checkpoint M at 88.2km. Around this time, we started to seriously consider whether we wanted to stop at the land checkpoint at Spencer – although we had originally envisaged needing to stop to replenish supplies and rest our muscles, our quick stop at the low tide pit stop had encouraged us to believe that we could make it to the finish without spending time at another land-based stop. As well as bringing our finishing time forward, we knew that not stopping at Spencer would save us at least 2km of paddling to and from the checkpoint. Not only that, but it would also give us the maximum amount of time with a favourable tide (whereas stopping would use up some of that favourable tide time). Checkpoint N, the last safety boat before Spencer, is explicitly setup to relay messages from paddlers about changes of plans to stop or not stop at Spencer. After some discussion over the 5km between checkpoints M and N, we decided to go for the finish without another land stop. After clearly getting our message across to the volunteers at checkpoint N, we paddled on and veered right around the bend towards more open water and the finish line, ignoring the lure of dry land at the Spencer checkpoint in the distance to our left.

Unfortunately, it transpired that our message left at checkpoint N didn’t reach our landcrew explicitly. After waiting beyond our expected arrival time there of 6am, Leigh eventually noticed (during his continual checking of the progress board) that we had apparently passed through checkpoint O beyond Spencer – it was only at that point that Nigel and Leigh realised that we must have bypassed Spencer. At most other checkpoints, this delay wouldn’t have been a huge issue, given that driving between checkpoints is usually far quicker than paddling. For the final 12.5km from Spencer to Brooklyn, however, the only available road route is so indirect that it takes almost as long to drive as it does to paddle. With a little too much haste, Nigel and Leigh jumped back in Starla (our Subaru) and “hit it” towards the finishing point at Brooklyn.

Without knowing any of this at the time, Shell and I continued plodding along past checkpoint O, into the more open waters around Mooney Mooney and Brooklyn. The sun was just beginning to peak through the clouds of fog over the mountains and water, creating an interesting and wonderful photography light – not that we either had a camera or the intention to stop and take pictures. By this stage, my energy reserves were really running on empty – my muscles had almost nothing left to give, and I think it’s fair to say that our rate of progress decreased quite substantially over that last 12.5 kms. Despite my fatigue, however, Shell seemed to have found a second wind after fading a bit earlier in the morning. Coupled with Shell’s energy, the tide was indeed still favourable, and even when we stopped to rest our muscles, we were still slowly drifting towards the finish, which was quite an important feeling for me psychologically. Despite my fatigue, we did actually manage to overtake a few people in those last few kilometres. About 5km from the finish, we caught up with a couple of guys in single plastic sea kayaks similar to our own. They had started 30 minutes before us in the the single Brooklyn or Bust class, but had done a remarkable job in paddling such craft so far. One of the pair was still raring to go and trying to post a time under 15.5 hours, but his mate was clearly flagging, and fell in behind us to ride our wake for the last 4 or 5km to the finish. I must say we didn’t begrudge him at all for that – we knew exactly how tired he must feel and were more than happy to provide assistance to him. While riding our wake, he was also regaling us with stories of being draughted by a (fast) Mirage kayak for about 10km of the Classic, and of how he and his mate had decided to enter the race on a whim over a few beers at a backyard bbq. For us, it was nice to take our minds off the last few kilometres of paddling.

Finally, after the F3 bridge at Mooney Mooney had been in site for quite some time (that last stretch of water takes a deceptively long time – something that again we thankfully were expecting after our familiarisation paddles), we closed in on the finishing line. Once we were within shouting distance, the ‘town crier’ finishing marshall was enthusiastically cheering us in, announcing each paddler by name and number of Classic’s attempted. Of course, he also tried to egg us on to “race” the single kayaker who had been riding our wake who had chosen to overtake us a couple of hundred of metres from the finish. We were having none of that! To be honest – we had never really cared about our time at all, with our goal solely being attempting to paddle 111km in whatever time it took. Not to mention that my muscles couldn’t have raced anything much by that stage!!

As it turned out, we pulled in to Brooklyn shortly after 7:30am, and our final elapsed time for the 111km was 15 hours, 8 minutes and 38 seconds, significantly below our expected time. Of course, that was also completed in a plastic sea kayak that was considerably slower in the water than the flotilla of Mirages that passed us on the water, so we’re especially proud of our efforts! . For actually finishing, we were each proud to receive a Hawkesbury Classic Medallion. If you’re interested (and to prove that we really did finish!) you can find our finishing time in the Preliminary 2005 Hawkesbury Classic Results.

Once again, our landcrew did a fantastic job of clearing everything out of our kayak, packing gear away, feeding us, and literally helping us get our tired bodies into warm, dry clothes. Surprisingly, after 111km and a night of absolutely no sleep, we felt pretty damned good – no doubt due to the adrenaline and elation of actually finishing. Unfortunately, we found out that in their haste to leave Spencer, Leigh had managed to leave his backpack nestled in rocks on the shore. The backpack had a swag of expensive gear in it – GPS, bike lights, rain jackets etc., so despite wanting nothing more than to head home for some sleep, we had to repeat the 50 minute+ trip on winding roads back to Spencer to find the bag. Thankfully, when we arrived, some of the checkpoint volunteers had found the bag, and identified Leigh as the owner based on Virgin Blue booking receipts that he had in the bag. So all was well that ended well .

So, we’ve successfully conquered our paddling challenge, and it feels great!! Next up, our 3 week trek in Bhutan!

With the actual Hawkesbury Classic being 111km, we decided that we needed to stretch that distance a little. Having previously paddled from Windsor to Sackville, this weekend’s organised familiarisation paddle was in the reverse direction – from Sackville to Windsor – and timed to start an hour or so before sunset such that most of the paddle would be completed in darkness. Shell and I decided to start out just before lunchtime and paddle on our own from Windsor to Sackville before completing the return leg with the rest of the crowd completing the organised paddle.

The number of boats taking part in each paddle has certainly increased as we’ve got closer to the Hawkesbury Classic date. Despite the crowd, our boat continues to be "distinctive" (that’s what a number of people have told us) in that it is one of the wider and slower in the fleet. (We like to emphasise that it’s stable, comfortable and carries lots of gear!). In fact there have rarely been any other plastic boats on the organised paddles. On a couple of the paddles, there have been two guys in a canoe, but even they have swapped over to a speedy fibreglass kayak for the past couple of practice paddles and for the actual event. Still, even if it takes a bit more effort, we’re determined to attempt the Classic in our own kayak .

So the big question that should be on your lips is: did we actually make the distance? Yes – all 62.4km of it!! We arrived back at Windsor sometime around 8:30pm – didn’t actually check the time, but it had been dark for a few hours when we finished. The paddle was very challenging, and the last few kilometres of the return trip to Windsor seemed to take forever! Let’s just say we can certainly feel the trip in our muscles this morning! Somehow, no matter how many calluses develop on our hands, long paddling sessions always seem to uncover fresh areas to become blisters and hot spots. Thankfully we’ve also invested in some kayaking gloves which are a great help once our hands become too sore, and also help to keep our hands warm in nightime paddling.

It was actually a beautifully still night, so the water was pretty glassy for most of the return trip – in contrast to the head-winds that we experienced for most of the way from Windsor to Sackville. Every boat was also carrying a cyalume light (mostly pinned to the PFD of the back paddler) so for many stretches of the river, although we were paddling in darkness, we could try to follow a somewhat eerie collection of glowing greeny-yellow lights off in the distance ahead of us. A shame that we had neither a camera nor the energy to take a picture of it, as it looked quite cool with these lights dotted over the river ahead of us.

Anyway, we’re very satsified to have proved to ourselves that we can paddle 60+km in a single day – that should at least see us through to Wisemans Ferry for the actual Classic. Our challenge now will be to actually continue beyond Wisemans. We’ll probably arrive there sometime around midnight, and we’ll be tired and sore. The tide will have turned against us, and be stronger than further back upstream. So will we actually finish the Classic? I honestly don’t know, but life’s nice when you’ve got challenges Wish us luck for next weekend!

I think we’ll have to go out and celebrate when we find a spare moment! Hopefully sometime I’ll get hold of a VHS copy, digitise it, and host a copy here on SGI.nu, so you can see us in all our TV star glory.

The weird thing is that I actually met someone from CSIRO corporate for the first time in a meeting last week, and as soon as I introduced myself, he started telling me about how fantastic my segment on the Scope show was. It transpires that in his capacity as a member of the CSIRO Corporate Rewards commitee, he had seen a copy of the show as part of a promotion case for the show’s host, Dr Rob, who is a CSIRO Education employee. Small world I guess .

Update: It turns out there’s at least one of my segments available to view online on the scope website. Find out how your mp3 player works in the eyes of a 12 year old!

After dropping Shell, our kayak and all our gear off in Windsor, I had a quick car shuffle (which included a ride on the Sackville car ferry) to have the car waiting for us at Sackville when we finished. By the time we’d all sorted out the car shuffling, got kitted up in PFDs, registered, attached race numbers, had a quick briefing etc. it was about 9:30am when we got on the water. Again, we were certainly amongst the more recreational paddlers on the day – in fact there was really only one other boat there that wasn’t a racing kayak (that kayak had a home made keel attached to the bottom to keep it tracking well).

Without going into the details of nearly four hours of continuous paddling (I think we finished in about 3 hours 50 minutes in the end with two approx. 5 minute breaks), it was a really enjoyable paddle, although the final few kms were tough. We set off from the starting line at breakneck speed, with a stroke rate that was way above what we are able to sustain for anything more than a few minutes. (Shell later confided that she’d kinda got caught up in the moment and was seeing if she could match the stroke rate of the more hardcore marathon paddlers around us). After our flying start, we eased into a more regular rhythm. The first 25 or so kms went by pretty happily – we made good time, and had the opportunity to chat with a few other paddlers along the way and take in the varying scenery we were paddling through. The final few kilometres were quite a bit harder, at least for me, but eventually we caught sight of the Sackville ferry and knew we were going to make it. Of course, shortly before we finally reached Sackville, we were passed by some of the more enthusiastic paddlers heading back to Windsor – apparently 32km on a Saturday morning isn’t enough for some people!

One thing that made the paddle a lot easier was our new CamelBak drinking bladders. With these fitted behind our seats and the drinking tube tucked into our PFD, it was a lot easier to have frequent drinks without having to stop paddling to unstrap and unscrew a bottle each time. We still have to work out the correct positioning of the tube (sometimes we still needed to miss a paddle stroke to position the tube correctly for drinking), but it’s a vast improvement over using our Sigg bottles. Surprisingly, they were quite cheap too (well, cheap compared with most of the other CamelBak systems), because they don’t come with a harness etc. We reckoned we’d be better off without having to carry the weight on our backs, and after Saturday’s paddle, I think that was an excellent decision!

Of course, we’re back at it again this Saturday – this time from Sackville to Wiseman’s Ferry, which is I think a shade over 40km. I think we’ll need to buy some kayaking gloves before then – even with calluses on my hands, they are still starting to blister by the end of each paddle. Not to mention the dry and rubbed skin in the webbing between the thumb and forefinger.

Much of the two days was spent in discussions about our various diverse research areas. This was fascinating, given the breadth of our interests – spanning everything from molecular science, genetics, food technology, animal cloning, virology, astrophysics, precision optics and superconductor physics, petroleum research, ICT research, statistics, nutrition and a bunch of other areas. Despite such breadth, there were many interesting insights shared about how to take control of our own careers and personal development.

In addition, we heard from several high-profile speakers, including Federation Fellow Professor Calum Drummond, who talked about his career. One thing I certainly took away from his talk, apart from his “can-do” attitude, was his emphasis on the importance of balancing focus on work with family life. Dr David Mitchell spoke about entrepreneurship and his experience in several start-up companies. We also workshopped and brainstormed some interesting ideas around identifying business ideas that might satisfy existing market gaps and market needs across a range of industries.

All-in-all, it was a valuable 2 days, not least for the networking opportunities to meet and kindle relationships with a very diverse range of highly intelligent and highly motivated people.